Mohammed Shareef, the senior Master Chef at ITC Maratha, Mumbai teaches you how to make the perfect Dum Phukt Biryani.
Chef Shareef reveals some secrets of Awadhi cooking. "Dum Phukt" means slow cooking, which is the technique used to cook biryani in this recipe.
The Ingredients:
4 teaspoons (tsp.) clarified butter (desi ghee)
10-12 cardamom pods
5-6 cloves (laung)
2 sticks of cinnamon (dal chini)
2-3 bay leaves (tej patta)
1 tablespoon (tbsp.) ginger-garlic paste
1 kilo gram (kg.) of mutton, washed and chopped
Salt
1 chopped onion
1 cup curd
Yellow chili powder
50 g mace
Mint
Green chilies
1 kg rice
Saffron
Lemon juice
2 tbsp. cream
The Cook:
1.Take the butter in a large pan and let it heat on low flame. Add cardamom, and let them cook
2. Add one tbsp. of ginger-garlic paste to the above mixture and then slowly, piece by piece, add the meat to it. Sprinkle salt on the mutton pieces which makes them lose their moisture.
3. Next, fry the chopped onions and add them to the mixture. Cover the pan for some time and allow it to cook.
4. Once the mutton changes colour, add one cup of curd. The curd gives a tangy flavor to the biryani. Cook for 20-25 minutes on low flame.
5.Garnish the meat with yellow chili powder. Increase the flame to high to roast the mutton.
6. Pour two ladles of hot water to allow the meat to cook further for 10-15 minutes.
7. Strain the mutton pieces from the pan and also strain out the broth to remove all the bits of spices. Put the strained water and meat pieces back in the pan.
8. Take the chopped onions and fry them. Sprinkle them in the pan to give the meat pieces extra flavour.
9. Then, garnish the mixture with mace, cardamom, mint and green chilies.
10. In a deep pan, boil water and add generous amounts of salt to it. Pour lemon juice to the water once it has boiled.
11. Make sure that the rice that will be used for cooking the biryani is soaked in water for one and a half hours.
12. Add one-third of the soaked rice in the boiling water and let it cook on high flame. Once it is cooked, add the rice to the biryani and meat masala that has been prepared.
13. Soak saffron in water in a bowl and pour this over the rice.
14. In a different bowl, mix butter and cream. The cream will help in softening the rice in the biryani.
15. Raise the flame to allow steam to build up in the pan, and then cover it with aluminium foil. Make sure the pan is properly sealed.
16. Check that there is no water left in the rice once it is cooked. Cover the biryani with a layer of dough.
17. Brush the layer with butter on top. Put the pan in an oven for 10-15 minutes at 200⁰C to allow the biryani to slowly cook. This process is called as dum pukht.
18. Serve the biryani hot.