Kerala & the Malabar Coast · Main
Thalassery Kozhi Biryani
- Advanced
- 55 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
Leads with aromatics blooming from the first bite, warm spice humming through the middle, trailing gentle sweetness.
Ingredients
- 500 g kaima rice (jeerakasala), rinsed and drained 20 minutes
- 1 kg chicken on the bone, in 8 pieces
- 300 g shallots, sliced thin
- 30 g ginger and 30 g garlic, ground to a paste
- 6 green chillies, ground with the paste
- 200 g tomato, chopped
- 30 g coriander leaf and 15 g mint, chopped
- 1 tsp Malabar garam masala (cinnamon, clove, green cardamom, fennel)
- 80 g ghee
- 3 tbsp coconut oil
- 50 g cashews and 40 g raisins
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 750 ml boiling water
- 3 tsp salt
The skills inside
Biryani & dumSteaming: basket, leaf and lid
The words inside
Toasting: Nuts, Seeds, Grains & Coconut
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · nuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Fry the cashews and raisins in half the ghee until the nuts are pale gold and the raisins swell, lift them out, then fry two thirds of the shallots in the same fat until crisp and mahogany, pulling them before they go past that.
- In that fat with the coconut oil, cook the remaining shallots with the ginger, garlic and chilli paste until the raw smell goes and the oil pulls away at the edge, add tomato and half the herbs and cook to a thick masala, then the chicken, garam masala and salt until the chicken is done and the pan is almost dry.
- In a second pan, fry the drained rice in the rest of the ghee until the grains turn chalky and rattle loose, pour on the boiling water and salt, cover and cook until the water is gone and craters open on the surface.
- Spread the rice over the masala, scatter the fried shallots, nuts, raisins, remaining herbs and the lime juice across the top.
- Seal the pot with a tight lid under a weight, set it on a tawa over the lowest flame and leave it on dum for twenty minutes, until the steam escaping at the rim smells of ghee and cardamom.
- Rest sealed for ten minutes, then cut down through the layers with the edge of a spoon rather than stirring.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Steaming: basket, leaf and lid 130 recipes
- Steam was running before the food went in: the water at a rolling boil and vapour coming steadily through the basket, rather than the whole thing warming up together.
- Nothing touches the water at any point: the food sits clear of it throughout, and the level neither drops enough to boil dry nor rises enough to wet it.
- The lid stayed on. Every lift costs the chamber its heat, and the number of lifts should be as close to none as the dish allows.
- Lifted out, the surface is glossy and plump with its colour heightened rather than dulled: greens brighter than they went in, not olive.
- Cooked through with the shape intact: it yields at the centre without having slumped or split, and there is no more than a spoonful of clean condensate beneath it.
Where it goes wrong The lid was loose or dripping and the condensate fell back onto the food, so it arrives waterlogged and pale with its seasoning washed down into the bottom of the dish.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Pinot Noir or Gamay
- Also Right
- Chianti or Barbera
- From the Taps
- Bière de garde
- Zero-Proof
- Verbena iced tea
Chicken is wine’s most agreeable partner. Match the SAUCE, not the bird: cream to oak, tomato to Sangiovese’s acid, herbs to Loire whites.
Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.