Ambur biryani

Aarthi’s Ambur biryani combines seeraga samba rice with bone-in chicken, a paste of two dried red chillies and a curry cooked in coconut oil. The selected recipe uses yogurt at two stages and finishes the rice and chicken together over a tawa.

The rice is washed in several changes of water and soaked in fresh water. Regular and Kashmiri dried red chillies soak together in a separate bowl of hot water, then are strained and blended with their soaking water into a smooth paste, which is held aside.

Cinnamon, cardamom and cloves fry in coconut oil in a kadai. A small first portion of yogurt and thinly sliced tempering onion follow. Ginger paste, garlic paste, finely chopped coriander and mint are added to the same oil before the chicken and salt. Main sliced onion and tomato cook down with the chicken; the chilli paste, main yogurt and salt are mixed in before covering the curry to cook. A little water can be added if the mixture looks too dry.

Separate salted water is boiled for the rice. The soaked rice is strained and cooked until it still has a bite. The chicken curry is transferred to a nonstick pot, the partially cooked rice is strained over it and the two are tossed together. A tight lid covers the pot for low cooking over a tawa, followed by a rest off the heat.

The lid is opened and the rice is fluffed and mixed, then rested again before serving with raita. The final mixing distributes the chilli-coated chicken curry through the rice.