My wife and I had a craving for authentic chicken biryani that we used to eat back in our country Nepal. On our day off we decided to make Dum Chicken Biryani and see how it goes as it was our first time making it, and that also even in a clay pot. So we marinated chicken for more than 24 hours. We put fried roasted onions and a sour curd in meat and brought Shahi Biryani Masala from Indian store which gave the real taste of Biryani. At last we added the fried onion oil and topped the marinated meat with fresh coriander leaves for pleasant smell.
I cooked the meat in the clay pot for about 5 minutes because in the tutorial they mentioned to cook meat only for 2 minutes on high flame, then 10 minutes on medium flame and then let it off for another 15 minutes and that's what Dum means. You are letting your meat and rice cooked with the steam. I didn't thought that meat will be cooked good within that time frame but it actually will.
I also needed a long grain Basmati rice and it is must have for Biryani if you want appetizing one. I boiled hot water along with cardamom, cloves, black pepper and bay leaves and then pour rice from the top. Then rice was only cooked for 75% because later steam will cook it and you don't want to overcook it.
The next step is adding your 75% cooked rice into the pot where there is already the meat beneath. From the top, I put some cow ghee, and then topped it with red fried onions. To ensure the steam doesn't go out of the pot, I had to use aluminum foil. Alternative can be using moist dough. And then covering it with the lid so that the foil won't explode due to the steam. I left it for 2 minutes on high flame, then 10 minutes on low flame, and finally turning off the gas and letting it go for another 15-20 minutes.
And Dum biryani was finally prepared. It exceeded my expectation. Haven't thought it would go extremely tasty but it was.
