Butter chicken fusion biryani recipe – Biryani and butter chicken, both are crowd pleasers. When you create a fusion of these two, you get one of the uniquely delicious butter chicken biryani.
There are millions of articles and recipes of biryani on internet and I too have previously shared my version of veg and non-veg biryani recipes, however desire for other flavours of biryani keeps growing in my heart. This desire is only boosted further by extreme biryani love by my partner and daughter. This journey to create new version of biryani, inclined me to craft this fusion butter chicken biryani.
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Why butter chicken biryani?
Biryani inherently has some heat to it. It is spicy and is loved because its bit spicy. However, if you have “less spicy taste buds”, as my daughter, you should opt for less spicy biryani. You can keep the spice levels low in biryani, however, the “heat” in biryani is not from chilli, but from the spices used. That’s where this fusion chicken biryani comes handy. Butter chicken has mild spice levels and hence when this butter chicken is cooked with rice in “dum style”, the biryani formed is absolutely aromatic, though less spicy.
How do I go ahead about making this fusion biryani?
Right, now that I got you thinking, lets understand what it takes to making this biryani. The very first thing you need is butter chicken. I know that it sounds too cumbersome to first make butter chicken and then make biryani. Mark my words that its all worth the effort. In fact, if you can, do it little different. Make this biryani, when you have left over chicken curry. You may even use ready made butter chicken or make at home in advance, using this recipe of butter chicken.
Once you have the chicken cooked ready with you, making rest of biryani is lot easy. As you will see in my recipe card, I have give 2hrs and 40mins for butter chicken itself. Rest 1hr to make this biryani.
What type of rice to use for biryani?
This is one of the commonest question asked, how to get fluffy biryani. Secret to this fluffiness of biryani is linked to few factors, such as gently turning the rice with spatula, using right portion of water when cooking and most importantly the quality of rice. Keeping the rice soaked prior to cooking, most definitely helps too.
I have tried numerous rice brands, including Kohinoor, Dawaat, India gate, Tilda, Laila, Akash, Trophy, Veetee, etc, however I got best results with long grain tilda rice. Dawaat long grain rice and kohinoor basmati rice have been good to. You may like to try a few rice brands available locally to see what suits you, just make sure, you are going for long grain basmati rice, to get best results. Note that even with Tilda, you need to choose right tilda to get best biryani.
Method to make best butter chicken biryani
Get the rice ready
- Wash and soak the rice for 20 minutes. Warm milk with saffron strands for 2 minute in microwave and keep aside.
- Now thinly slice the onions and deep fry them in oil (saving 2 tablespoon of oil for rice preparation), and take them out on a kitchen towel (let it soak excess oil). Q: Does it really soak away the oil? A: A little bit, but makes feel less guilty!
- In a big pot/pan, boil 5-6 cups of water. Add bay leaves, cloves, black peppercorn, black and green cardamom, salt and rest 2 tablespoon of oil to it. Once water starts boiling, add soaked rice to it and let this boil for 7-8 minutes until rice is 90 percent done.
- Once rice is cooked to desired level of “doneness”, drain the rice in a colander and keep aside.
Get down to making biryani
- Heat a handi or pot (big size, heavy bottomed pan) over medium heat. Add 1-2 tablespoon of oil from the leftover fried oil (after taking out fried onion). Once warm enough, add butter chicken and mix well. Sauté for a minute, subsequently turn the flame on low heat now.
- Now spread the nearly cooked rice over it. Spread on top chopped mint and coriander leaves and subsequently top it up with fried onion and spread evenly saffron milk and kewra water. I had added a bit of green color too, this is optional and you can skip it.
- Cover the entire pot with foil or tea towel and cover with lid. Increase the heat to medium for 3-4 minutes and then let it cook on a extremely low flame for 35 to 40 minutes.
- After that, remove the tea towel and lid carefully. Add ghee to the biryani and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve hot with raita.
This fusion biryani is
- A welcome change for a biryani enthusiasts
- Less spicy, making it instant hit with people who have less spicy palates.
- A beautiful and delicious fusion or two great food items.
- Qualifies as a great meal on its own right, you do not need anything, this biryani itself will be filling to stomach and heart.
Pro Tips for butter chicken biryani
- Cooking rice perfectly is of paramount importance. If you over cook it, then the rice will stick to each other and it will result in mushy Biryani. So always check the rice once they start boiling. It takes around 7-8 minutes to get them cooked after putting them in boiling water.
- It would be useful if you use a big wide open pan or handi to make this biryani as it facilitate in layering and when you take the biryani out from pot to serve, you can easily reach to the bottom with a single scoop.
- You can cook butter chicken for this biryani 1 day in advance and then cook biryani same day for eating.
Serving suggestion
Biryani is best enjoyed when served hot. Serve this biryani hot along side Indian pickled onion and raita. Make sure you keep supply of water or other drinks on the side.
How to re-heat biryani
First thing is that this biryani needs to be keep under refrigeration in an airtight container. When it comes to reheating, I will recommend that take the box out and heat in a microwave (using microwavable plate or container). You may also re-heat this on a stovetop, though try be extra careful when fluffing the rice to avoid breaking the rice. Key point when heating in micro-wave is that you should cover up container (not tight lid), else food can spill out from container.
Recipe Card
Butter Chicken Biryani
Ingredients
- 750 gram Butter Chicken 3 standard sized bowl
- 1 kg Long Grain Basmati Rice
- 2 Onion medium size
- 4 Bay leaves
- 4-5 Cloves
- 2 Black cardamom
- 2-3 Green cardamom
- 7-8 Whole black peppercorn
- 1.5 tsp Salt
- 4 tbsp milk
- few strand Saffron
- 1/2 cup Oil
- 1 tbsp Ghee/clarified butter
- 4 tbsp Coriander leaves chopped
- 3 tbsp mint leaves chopped
- 1 tbsp Kewra water
Instructions
- Wash and soak the rice for 20 minutes. Warm milk with saffron strands for 2 minute in microwave and keep aside.
- Now thinly slice the onions and deep fry them in oil(saving 2 tablespoon of oil for rice preparation), and take them out on a kitchen towel.
- In a big pot/pan, boil 5-6 cups of water. Add bay leaves, cloves, black peppercorn, black and green cardamom, salt and rest 2 tablespoon of oil to it. Once water starts boiling, add soaked rice to them and let them boil for 7-8 minutes until they are 90 percent done.
- Once done, drain the rice in a colander and keep aside.
- Heat a handi/pot(big size, heavy bottomed pan) over medium heat. Add 1-2 tablespoon of oil from the leftover fried oil(after taking out fried onion). Once warm enough, add butter chicken and mix well. Saute for a minute. keep the flame for low now.
- Now spread the nearly cooked rice over it. Spread on top chopped mint and coriander leaves. Now top it up with fried onion and spread evenly saffron milk and kewra water.
- Cover the entire pot with foil or tea towel and cover with lid. Increase the heat to medium for 3-4 minutes and then let it cook on a extremely low flame for 35 to 40 minutes.
- After that, remove the tea towel and lid carefully. Add ghee to the biryani and fluff the rice with a fork. Serve hot with raita.
Notes
- Cooking rice perfectly is very important. If you over cook it, then the rice will stick to each other and it will result in mushy Biryani. So always check the rice once they start boiling. It takes around 7-8 minutes to get them cooked after putting them in boiling water.
- It would be useful if you use a big wide open pan or handi to make Biryani as it would be easier to do layering in it and when you take the biryani out from pot to serve, you can easily reach to the bottom with a single scoop.
- You can cook butter chicken for this biryani 1 day in advance and then cook biryani same day for eating. That way it will be ready in no time.