A traditional Indian rice dish that is usually serve with meat (mutton, beef or chicken) and top with a generous amount of Indian spiced gravy, a.k.a curry on top of fluffy long grain basmati rice.
I have been craving for this dish for a while. However, being someone who is not familiar with indian spices, I procrastinated a while in making it in my kitchen. However, the craving just couldn’t withhold any longer and here it is – Eckitchen’s Nasi Biryani.
It taste just like the authentic one we had in an Indian Restaurant! I am soooo satisfied that I made twice in a weeks. Yes it is that yummy!
I also added pomegranate seeds on top of the rice. The juicy, refreshing and lightly sweetened seeds complement the richness of the dish very well. The seeds not only make the dish “POP” in taste and also visually.
Here’s a Step by Step Video on this recipe:
Making this dish is also not very complicated. Most importantly is to prepare all the ingredients before you start.
As mentioned earlier, I cooked the biryani twice. 1st time using yellow onions and the 2nd time using purple onions. The taste for the curry taste better with yellow onions. I would suggest you to use yellow onions instead
Prepare all the spices
and grind into powder using a blender
You can get these pieces from any supermarket or any Indian Specialty Shop.
You will also need to blend the garlic, ginger and chili
into paste with 2 tablespoon of oil
Feel free to use lamb or beef for this dish. I cooked twice and used lamb for the 1st time, beef for the 2nd time. Both are just soooo delicious that I am even thinking of making it soon when writing this recipe.
Cut the meat into cubes and sear the meat in a hot pan with some oil until slightly brown. Remove from the pan and put aside.
Using the remaining fats and oil from the searing of the meat, add in half of the sliced onions, Ginger-garlic paste and grinded spices, and saute until fragrance. Add more oil if require.
Add in the remaining ingredients for the curry and the meat and bring it to boil under medium high heat.
Once boiled, lower down to the lowest heat and allow it to simmer for 1.5 hours, with lid on, or until the meat soften and become ultra tender.
20 minutes before the meat is ready, or you can prepare earlier, boil the soaked basmati rice in a saucepan for 10 mins and drain off any excess water when done
Also, caramelise the remaining half of the onions for layering between the mutton curry and the rice. Just the thought of it already seems very delicious right?
When the meat is ready, prepare a casserole or oven-proof pot or dutch-oven, scoop half of the meat into the bottom of the casserole
Layer half of the drained basmati rice over the mutton
Then layer half of the caramelised onions over the rice
Repeat the above layering with the remaining half of the meat,
then another layer of rice, then another layer of the remaining onions. Reserve the curry gravy to serve with the rice later
Top with the soaked saffron and its water, and a dash of rose water for an extra fragrance
Cover with aluminium foil or any lid, and bake in the preheated oven of 180 degree Celsius for 20 minutes.
Remove from the oven when done and give it a light stir
Serve it hot with a drizzle of the reserved curry gravy and top with some refreshing and lightly sweetened pomegranate seeds
- 2 Star Anise
- 2 tablespoons Coriander Seeds
- 10 Cloves or ½ teaspoon Cloves
- 1 teaspoon Whole Black Peppercorn
- 1 tablespoon Cumin Seeds
- 8 pieces of Green Cardamom Seeds
- 1 teaspoon Fennel Seeds
- 2 pieces Cinnamon Stick (approx. 5 g)
- ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- 8 cloves Garlic or 4 tablespoon chopped Garlic
- 20g Ginger
- 2 to 3 Chili Padi (Optional or can be reduce or increase based on personal preference)
- 2 to 3 tablespoon of oil
- 250g Yellow Onions (Sliced, about 2 large onions)
- Garlic-Ginger Paste
- Grinded Spices
- 2 teaspoon Salt
- 2 teaspoon Light Soy Sauce
- 3 tablespoons whole-milk yogurt (do not use greek yogurt)
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste (Not to be substitute with tomamto sauce, or puree)
- 400 ml Water
- 600g to 1kg of Cubed Lamb/Beef (the more tender the meat, the lesser the time it need to simmer - recommended shoulder for lamb and ribeye for beef; do feel free to use other parts)
- 250g sliced Yellow onions (About 2 big onions)
- 2 tablespoon oil
- 180g Rice (washed and soaked in water until needed)
- 1 teaspoon Rose Water
- 1 teaspoon Saffron (or a large pinch), soaked in 2 tablespoons hot water
- Pomegranate Seeds (about 1 small one)
- Cilantro Leaves
- Add all the ingredients for the spices in a grinder and grind until powdery
- Set aside
- Add all the ingredients for the garlic-ginger paste into the blender and blend until smooth
- Add more oil if necessary
- Set aside
- Sear the cubed meat in a heated deep pot that is big enough to hold the curry, under medium heat
- Sear until golden brown; remove from the pot and set aside
- Use the remaining fats from searing, add in the sliced onions, ginger-garlic paste and grinded spices into the same pot.
- Saute under medium heat until fragrance
- Add in all the remaining ingredients for the curry and bring to boil
- Lower to low heat and allow it to simmer for 1.5 hours or until the meat become soft and tender; cover with lid
- Check and Stir occassionally; add more water if necessary
- '20 minutes before the curry is ready, preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius and prepare the rice
- Caramelised the onions with 2 tablespoons of heated oil in a small frying pan over medium heat for about 20 minutes.
- Set aside for assembling the rice
- Drain the soaked rice and transfer the rice into a saucepan.
- Add enough water to cover the rice with an extra 2 inches of water
- Boil under medium heat for about 8 mins until the rice become tender
- Drain away any excess water and set aside
- Remove from the pan and set aside
- When the meat is ready, off the heat
- Prepare a casserole or oven-proof pot or dutch-oven, scoop half of the meat into the bottom of the casserole
- Layer half of the drained basmati rice over the meat, then layer half of the caramelised onion over the rice.
- Repeat the process with the remaining half of the meat, then the remaining rice, follow by the remaining caramelised onions
- Top with the soaked saffron and its water, and rose water
- Cover the casserole/pot with aluminium foil or lid and pop it into the oven
- Bake for 20 mins
- Reserve the curry gravy for serving
- Remove for casserole from the oven and remove the foil/lid
- Give the rice a light stir to fluff up the rice
- Scoop and serve into individual plate.
- Drizzle over the reserved curry gravy, and sprinkle over some pomegranate seeds and garnish with cilantro leaves
- Serve with the remaining reserved curry gravy on the side.