Chicken Biryani Curry Recipe

Biryani dishes originated in Persia (now Iran) and the name comes from the Persian word bery which means ‘fried’ or ‘roasted’. There are a large number of Biryani dishes – Wikipedia lists 19 so I’m not going to list them all here!

The biryani recipe I’ve detailed below is really easy to follow and can feed four people in well under an hour, making it a real winner!

Serves: 4. Preparation time: 30 minutes. Cook time: 10 minutes.

Ingredients

Four chicken breasts, three cardamom pods, one onion, one bay leaf, one cinnamon stick, turmeric, coriander, curry paste, chicken stock, butter, six cups of basmati rice and roasted almonds (optional)

Method

1. Start with getting the ingredients ready. Chopp the chicken breast meat into 1″ cubes (or 2″ if you have a large mouth!), washing the rice with cold water, peel and finely chop the onion.

2. Over a medium to high heat place a medium sized saucepan and add a tablespoon of butter. Throw in the onion and spices (cardamom and cinnamon) and cook over the heat for a 6-10 minutes. Make sure the onions don’t burn.

3. Add the chicken to the saucepan along with a tablespoonful of turmeric and the curry paste. Fry the mixture until you are satisfied that the chicken has been cooked right through.

4. While the chicken is cooking in the saucepan pour the rice into another saucepan. Make up some chicken stock (enough to completely cover the rice) and pour it over.

5. Put the saucepan over a high heat and bring the stock to the boil. Once boiled, place the lid on the saucepan and turn the heat to low, and cook for a further 5 minutes. After this period of time remove the saucepan from the heat entirely and let the contents cool for around 10 minutes.

6. After 10 minutes remove the lid from the rice saucepan and give it a good stir, adding the almonds and coriander if you like. Serve on four warm plates with the curry in the other saucepan!

If you liked this recipe then you’ll like the rest of my chicken breast recipes. Click the link!