C46 Chicken Biryani

Biryani is of Mogul origin, derived from the Persian Pilau, and when cooked in a traditional way uses many spices and exotic ingredients and takes a lot of preparation and time to make. Restaurants must speed up this process and therefore use precooked ingredients and presentation styles suited to this 'fast-food' environment. High street restaurants will make this with either basmati or pilau rice and, being a dryish curry, serve it with some kind of vegetable curry. In restaurants, although not traditional, it is frequently garnished with cucumber and tomato.

Ingredients

For 1	Continued...
1 tbspn oil	1 tspn c41 spice mix
100 gm onion (prepared weight)	1 portion of precooked c41 pre-cooked chicken or c41 pre-cooked chicken tikka
½ tspn methi (see note 1)	Cooked basmati ( can use long grained)
¼ tspn salt	Cucumber to garnish
1 tbspn flaked almonds	Tomato to garnish
2 tspn sultanas	Coriander to garnish

Preparation

Cut the c41 pre-cooked chicken into small pieces.
Chop the onion.
Slice a little cucumber and tomato into thin pieces for garnish.

Cooking - 4 min

Heat the oil in a suitable pan or wok and cook the onion for 1 min.
Stir in the methi, salt, almonds and sultanas and cook, stirring for 1 min.
Stir in the c41 spice mix and cook, stirring, for ½ min.
Add the c41 pre-cooked chicken, stir, and cook, for 1 min.
Carefully stir in the cooked rice (ensure this is hot - microwave for a couple of minutes if it has cooled) and cook for ½ min.

Serving

Garnish with a little chopped cucumber, tomato and freshly chopped coriander. In restaurants it is typically served with a curry sauce of some sort but I don't think this is really necessary.

Notes

(1) Methi is dried fenugreek leaves and can be purchased at many supermarkets or any Indian outlets.
This was adapted from a video on U-Tube by Dipuraja.

The main ingredients

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The finished meal

Methi

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