Krishma's chicken biryani

I met Krishma when we were working together in the City, we used to eat lunch together in the office and often she'd bring in homemade food which smelt delicious! I'd always pester her asking what she was eating and how she made it. Often she said that there wasn't a formal recipe, she just put the ingredients together in volumes that felt right and cooked them to the point they looked ready.

We were chatting during lock-down about what were cooking that weekend (lock-down = lots of cooking+DIY in this house!) and she said chicken biryani. She was kind enough to not only write the recipe down for me but also take lots of photos. She even posted me a packet of the spice mix when I couldn't get to the shops to buy one. How kind is that.

Krishma's chicken biryani

1 small stick of cinnamon 3 whole cloves 4 large onions made into a puree/paste (*) 1 tbsp of double concentrate tomato puree and a 400 oz tin of tinned tomatoes (blend this) 3 chicken breast cut into pieces 1 bulb of garlic pureed (*) 1 inch of ginger (make into a paste) 1 or 2 green finger chilli (*) 1 tbsp Laziza biryani mix (*) 1 tbsp butter & 1tbsp oil

Salt to taste Bunch of chopped Coriander and Onion chopped for topping 1 cup of rice

(*) Adjust quantities depending on your taste buds. The Laziza mix is quite spicy so you may only want to add one green chilli or none dependent on how spicy you like it. Somehow I got confused about volumes and used a third of the packet of the Laziza mix, man alive it was hot! I only used half the amount of onions and garlic that Krishma did, so adjust the recipe to suit you.

The spice mix contains red chilli, coriander powder, salt, turmeric, roasted cumin powder, black pepper, dried garlic and ginger, cloves, cardamon, cinnamon and more. You could make your own spice blend if you prefer. You can buy the spice mix from Tesco, Sainsbury and Amazon.

To make the onion and garlic puree it's best to use a food processor, it would be quite tough without one. You could very finely chop the garlic if you didn't have a food processor but you would need to pound the onion to get the paste.

Put 1tbsp of butter and 1tbsp of rapeseed oil into a heavy bottom pan. Add the cinnamon and 3 cloves and when the the starts to pop and shizzle add the onion puree.

Cook this puree until brown. This could take 30 mins on high heat so be patient. Keep adding small amounts of water and stirring it to make sure that it doesn't burn or stick.

Once the onion is a nice brown colour add the tin of tomatoes and the tomato puree, garlic, chilli and ginger and the Laziza mix, and salt to taste; remember that there is already salt in the spice mix so you might not need to add as much as you normally would. Cook this until the oil starts to seep out the sides and the tomato is cooked. Be patient and trust the smells and flavours

Add the meat and let the meat cook in the tomato mix with lid on for around 25 mins at medium heat

Cook 1 cup of rice. Add a pinch  saffron to the water if you like the flavour. Layer the curry into the bottom of the casserole dish and put a layer of rice on top. If you like more rice layer the rice top and bottom. Add a layer of browned onion (brown these in a bit of butter), cover with tinfoil and put in the oven for 25 to 30 mins on 180 degrees.

Garnish with the chopped coriander and serve.

Thank you Krishma! x