Chicken Biryani Dindigul Thalappakatti Style ~ Step by Step | Weekend Cooking

There is always a strange feeling getting back to things you haven't been doing for a while. Like not updating this space can easily be one of it. I almost had to remind myself that it's been almost half a month past and there has been no updates. Though it wasn't the lack of dishes. 

As I have said many times, getting Biryani recipe always excites me no end. Couple of weeks back, when Konda had visited her friend's birthday party, she came home with a packed Chicken biryani. Kids loved it and I had to know how it was made. I called up her friend's mom right away and came to know they hail from Dindigul and this was one of the many varieties she prepares. Now that got me really hooked and asked her if she would share the recipe with me. She was such a sweet lady to do it right away. I ended up making this after couple of days and boy, everybody loved it!

I could easily say this looks exactly like how they serve as Thalappakatti Biryani, only difference being I didn't use the Seeraga Samba Rice for the biryani. All Non Veg biriyanis in south use Seeraga Samba Rice and I guess the taste almost goes with that. Anyway having arrived with yet another Chicken Biryani that I can make again, I was content.

I made this during Sunday lunch and had paired it with Mutton Semi Gravy, Chicken Legs Gravy and X Chicken Fry.

Chicken Biryani

Chicken Biryani Step by Step Pictures

Ingredients Needed

For boiling chicken

Chicken - 3/4 Kg
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric powder a pinch
Curds - 2 tsp

Pressure cook without adding water for 2 -3 whistles. Once done, allow the pressure to fall

For the Masala Paste

Pearl Onions - handful
Mint Leaves - handful tightly packed
Coriander leaves handful tightly packed.
Green chillies -  3 long


Whole Spices

Cloves - 3
Cinnamon 2"
Cardamon -2
Bay Leaf - 1 long

For the Rice

Rice - 3 cups
Onions - 2 medium
Tomato - 1 big
Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp
Green Chilies - 2
Oil - 1/2 cup
Coconut Milk, thick - 2 & 1/2 cups
Water - 3 cups
Salt to taste (remember you added in chicken already)
Lemon Juice - 1 tsp

How to make the chicken biryani

Wash and cut chicken, drain well. In a pressure cooker, take the chicken along with salt, turmeric and curds. Pressure cook for couple of whistles. Once done, allow the pressure to fall down.

Extract the coconut milk and keep it ready.

In another pressure Cooker, heat oil, add all the wholes spices. Let the flavours come out.

Then add the onion julienne, green chilies, followed by the ginger garlic paste, saute well. Add chopped tomatoes and saute well. Once the tomatoes get soft, add the ground masala to it and cook well till the oil comes out.

Now add the drained chicken and saute well to make sure the chicken coated with masala. Add coconut milk, water and adjust spice.

Add drained rice and bring to boil. Cover with lid and cook for 1 whistle. Simmer completely and cook for 10 mins.

Wait for the pressure to fall, fluff the rice well and transfer to a non stick pan, grease the bottom with ghee, spread the rice and cover with thick lid and dum for 15 mins.

Remove and finally add the lemon juice.

Serve with Onion Raitha or chicken gravy.

Notes:

There are couple of ways of making this biryani. You can half cook the rice and add it at the last stage. Cook both separately and dum the whole process.

Cooking in pressure cooker was much easier, only cautious thing you have to remember is add the salt at different stages and adding less water than required for the rice to be separate and grainy.

Always fluff and never mix too much.

Other Chicken Recipes
Other Biryani Recipes

Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani | Chicken Biryani Pressure Cooker Method

While planning for the weekend cooking, I thought I would make something new and asked Hubby dear what he wanted. He remembered his Aunt, who is a wonderful cook and wanted me to ask her for ideas. She was the one who shared the Fried Keema Balls, Keema Kofta Curry when we had gone to my SIL's place.  I called her up to know if she knows a newer version of biryanis, she was all praise of her daughter who lives in Hyderabad and asked me to talk to her. Well finally it lead me talking to her daughter who shared this Hyderabadi Style Chicken Biryani.

I specifically asked her if there was a said thing that tomatoes are not added in Hyderabadi Biryani. She said they make it both wise, with tomatoes and without and also in Dum Style and in regular cooking method. The procedure is quite long, the end result though makes it all worth is what she said. I set up making it and ended up making in Pressure cooker.

I was so surprised when Konda and Peddu loved this biryani so much. Konda never prefers Biryanis and it was a real treat that I have finally have something that she likes so much. So this joins yet another array of biryanis that has to be noted down.

I made this in pressure cooker and you got to be really careful about the water as you add water in couple of steps and I ended up using another method which takes care of excess water as well. I was told the specialty in this biryani is the amount of onions added, so much onions are added that it gives a different taste and texture all together. As with the Mutton Biryani that was shared by our Muslim Friend, this biryani uses Methi leaves as well. Maybe someday I will try out a vegetarian version of this and taste it myself!

 

Ingredients Needed:

For the Marinade:

Chicken  1 Kg

Curds - 1/2 cup

Ginger Garlic paste - 1/2 tsp

Turmeric powder a pinch

Salt - 1/2 tsp

For the Biryani

Rice - 3 cups

Cloves - 4

Cinnamon - 2"

Cardamon - 3 -4

Bayleaf - 2

Biryani Mogga - 2

Onions - 4 -5 big

Tomatoes - 2 -3 big

Green chilies - 5 -6 long

Coriander leaves - 1 tightly packed cup

Mint leaves - 1 tightly packed cup

Fresh Fenugreek / Methi leaves - 1 tightly packed cup *(Refer notes)

Ginger Garlic paste - 1 tsp

Red chili powder - 1 & 1/2 tsp

Coriander powder - 1 & 1/2 tsp

Roasted Cumin powder - 1 tsp

Dry Coconut powder / Cashew powder - 2 tsp

Cloves powder a pinch

Oil - 1/2 cup

Water - 5 cups

Salt to taste

For the garnish

Roasted onions

Roasted cashews

How to make the Biryani in regular pressure cooker method:

Wash and cut the chicken into bite size pieces.

Wash and soak the rice for 15 - 20 mins

In a bowl, marinate along with the ingredients listed for marination for about 30 - 40 mins.

In a pressure cooker, add oil and saute the whole garam masala. Then add onion julienne and saute till they turn colour.

Next add the ginger garlic paste and continue sauteing. Add slit green chilies.

Now add the chopped coriander leaves, mint leaves and Fenugreek leaves. Continue cooking in simmer.

Now add tomatoes, salt and cook till the tomatoes turn soft. Next add the chili powder, coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric powder.

Cook for 10 mins, till the oil comes out on the sides. Make sure you don't let the bottom brown.

Add the chicken marinade along with the liquid. Cook till the all the moisture is evaporated. When all the water is evaporated, add the coconut powder. Mix everything well.

Drain the water from the rice and add to the pan. Combine everything well. Add the clove powder, water and adjust salt. Cover with lid and cook for 2 whistles or simmer for 10 mints.

For the garnish, roast the onions to crisp brown along with cashew for final garnish.

By Dum Method:

If you plan to make this biryani in Dum, Cook the rice to half boil and keep it aside after draining the water.

Cook the chicken gravy as per the above method, make sure the chicken gravy is almost dry.

In a thick bottom pan, layer with rice and chicken gravy alternatively and dum for 30 mins in sim over a tawa.

Finally serve with roasted cashews and onions.

I served with Chicken Gravy Athamma style and a plain Onion raitha.

Notes:

I made this biryani in pressure cooker method and though I added much less than the water I would for 3 cups of rice, the biryani turned soft and mushy. So I cooked it only for 2 whistle, and continued cooking in simmer, while having the pressure cooker over the tawa, covered with 4 layers of newspaper. Over the newspaper place a plate that fits it well and then finally place the cooker lid. This way the rice gets cooked evenly and the excess water is absorbed by the paper. End of 15 mins, the biryani turned out correctly done. It wasn't mushy or overcooked. 

Also since you add salt in two different places, please check after adding water. 

As onions are more, it will tend to become little sweet, so you will have to compensate with enough green chilies and red chili powder. This can be adjusted even after added the water at the end stage.

I couldn't lay my hands on fresh methi leaves and used kasuri Methi instead. Maybe this could have been the reason for the slight bitterness that was felt by Athamma, though as always kids didn't know it.

Mutton Biryani - Andhra Muslim Style ~ Pictorial

If there was an award for the recipe that stayed in drafts for the longest, I am sure this recipe will win hands down! This was taken almost couple of years ago. Now I don't even know which year it was. Suffice to say that it was taken during our yearly trip to Hubby dear's native town. It was during Sankranti time when my nephew celebrates his birthday. They decided to request their Muslim family friend,  who made mutton biryani for them on a previous occasion.

They were raving on the taste and wanted to make it during hubby dear's visit. Since their friend would be comfortable in cooking in her own kitchen, we said we would go to their home. Once the breakfast was done, my sil and I landed at their place. It was really such a wonderful experience watching someboby cook. All I had to do was click pictures. I told that I would be sharing the recipe on the blog and she was so happy about it and wanted to share the recipe. She made it look so effortless and simple.

During the entire process we were chatting about everything food and what kids eat and don't eat. She also shared couple of her other favorite dishes. Well as you guessed as this took such a long time with the pictures, those recipes might be longer to make their presence.

Anyway we finally managed to click all the pictures and came back home. Everybody enjoyed and hubby dear said it was indeed too good. If you must know she didn't add butter or ghee. Nor the methi leaves were noticed. I must confess I haven't prepared myself. But the verdict of the entire 20 who eat, was good enough.

Step by Step Picture Recipe

Paste made with Garlic, Ginger, Coriander leaves and 1/4th of cloves.

Before making the gravy, in the pan, brown the onions till crisp

Remove half for the later process

Add the ground masala paste

Mix well

Add salt, chopped tomatoes.

Chopped green chilies, red chili powder is added next

Along with the whole cloves, cardamon, Cinnamon.

Now add the mutton pieces

Continue cooking

When moisture starts coming out, cover with lid and pressure cook for 3 -4 whistles or till the mutton is cooked well.

Wait for the pressure to fall down, remove the lid

Now add the Fenugreek leaves

Washed Mint leaves for the Dum

Cook Rice in a large pot of water and drain the water. Let the rice be just 85% done and have it covered with lid.

Keep one layer of rice and remove the rest of the rice.

This is after the gravy is mixed with the methi leaves.

Top with a mutton layer

Add mint leaves

 Another rice layer

 Now browned onions and mutton pieces

another rice layer

 Continue with mint leaves

 And onions and gravy

 Until you are done with all the layers

Finally sprinkle with orange food colour and mix in random style

Mutton Biryani

Rice - 2 kgs
Mutton - 2 kgs
Green chillies - 50 gms
Onions - 250 gms (Half for the gravy, half for dum)
Cloves - 50 gms
Cinnamon - 50 gms
Cardamon - 50 gms
Salt to taste
Oil - 500 ml
Tomato - 250 - 300 gms (sour variety)
Chili powder - 2 tsp

Coriander leaves - 1 Big Bunch
Ginger Garlic - 2 tbsp

During the Dum process

Fenugreek Leaves / Methi Leaves - 1 big bunch
Mint leaves - 1 Big bunch
Brown Onions

Red colour for sprinkling.

How to make the Biryani

For the Rice

Wash and soak the rice for 30 mins. In a big vessel, take twice the amount of rice and bring to boil. When the water starts boiling, add the rice and cover with lid. Add salt and continue cooking. When it's almost 85% done, cover with lid and drain the water. Keep it covered.

For the Paste

Make a paste of the ginger, garlic, coriander, 1/4 of cloves to a fine paste.

For the Mutton:

Wash and cut mutton into equal pieces. Drain on colander.

Heat a pressure cooker, add all the oil. Add onion julienne, continue till the onions starts browning. Remove half of the onions to a bowl.

To the onions, add the ginger garlic coriander paste. Stir well, then add salt, chopped tomatoes.

Then add cloves, cinnamon, cardamon. Combine and add red chili powder, then chopped green chilies.

Now add the drained mutton pieces. Cover and pressure for 4 -5 whistles.

Wait till the pressure is off. Remove the lid, add chopped methi leaves mix well.

For making the Dum Biyani

Remove the rice to another bowl, leaving one layer below. Else if you have another thick bottom pan that fits, grease the bottom and cover with a layer of rice. Over that add the mutton pieces along with gravy.

Now put one layer of mint leaves. Cover with a thin layer of rice.

Now add one layer of brown onions, another layer of mutton pieces.

Continue alternating with mint leaves, onions and mutton gravy until you are done. Make sure the final layer is rice. Dissolve the red food colour and sprinkle on the top.

Cover with a tight fitting lid and on a slow flame and cook for 30 mins. If you have hot coal, you can put them on the top lid.