My mum's Mutton Dum Briyani Recipe

 Hey guys,

Just putting out a blog post for 2 reasons: to just share my mum's recipe and to see if blogger is still relevant (i.e. is there SEO tools that will pick up this post? haha).

Anyway, a childhood friend of mine asked for my mum's recipe and it's the first time one of her recipes has actually been written down on paper, so I thought why not immortalise it in my blog!

Here it goes! (Also, if any of you see this, or actually use the recipe, please do let me know!)

Mutton Dum Biriyani Recipe

This recipe is for 7-8 pax.

Ingredients:

Ingredients	Quantity	UOM	Remarks
Mutton	1	kg	Follows a 1-1 ratio with rice, but this is considered little (my family doesn’t eat a lot of meat). You can add more if you want.
Rice	1	Kg
Big Onions	6	pieces
Tomato	4	pieces
Coriander & Mint leaves	1	Handful
Green chilli	8	Pieces
Lemon	1 piece
Cinnamon bark	3-4	Pieces	The bark should be finger length (i.e. one whole cinnamon bark is broken down into smaller pieces, then you add in 3-4 of those smaller pieces)
Cloves	6-8	Pieces
Cardamom	6-8	Pieces
Star Anise	3-4	Pieces
Garam masala	1.5	Teaspoon
Biriyani masala	3	Teaspoon
Chilli powder	1	teaspoon
Turmeric powder	0.5	Teaspoon
Ginger-garlic paste	3	Tablespoon
Cashew nuts	10-15	Pieces	Break them into half.
Plain yoghurt	1	Cup
Ghee	2	tablespoon

 

Steps:

Part 1

1.       Clean & cut the onions and tomatoes into small pieces

2.       Clean the meat.

3.       Put the meat into a pressure cooker.

4.       Put salt to your liking, 1 tbsp of ginger-garlic paste and half a cup of water into the pressure cooker.

5.       Cook the meat till it’s roughly half-cooked or you hear 4 ‘sounds’ from the pressure cooker. Once done, leave it aside.

Part 2

6.       Clean the rice.

7.       Soak the rice in a pot of water (without any heat) and season it with salt. Leave it soaking for 30 mins.

Part 3

8.       In another large pot (this would be the main pot where all the ingredients will come together), pour 100ml of oil.

9.       Pour 1 handful of onion into the oil. Once they are golden brown, take out the fried onion and leave it aside to rest. This will be used as garnish at the end.

10   Pour 2 tbsp of ghee into the oil.

11   Add the cinnamon, cloves, cardamon and star anise into the oil. (This will give fragrance to the rice)

12   Add the cashew nuts. Fry till light golden brown.

13   Add all the remaining onion and fry it till it’s half-cooked (shouldn’t turn brown).

14   Add all the tomato, and fry till it’s half-cooked.

15   Add 2 tbsp of ginger-garlic paste and 1 cup of plain yoghurt.

16   Cook for 2 mins, then add the cooked meat from Part 1.

17   Add garam masala, biriyani masala, chilli powder and salt. (Quantity as stated in the ingredients list)

18   Add some water if it looks too dry.

19   Add 1 handful of coriander & mint leaves and all the whole chilli.

20   Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon.

21   At this juncture, it’s important to do a taste-test. If you want it to be spicier, add more chilli powder or chilli. Add salt to taste.

22   The texture should be something like a gravy – shouldn’t be too runny or too thick. Add water if it’s too thick.

23   Leave it on low heat.

Part 4

24   Drain the water and keep the rice from part 2.

25   Pour the rice into another pot and place it atop low heat. Add the necessary amount of water to cook the rice

26   Cook the rice until it’s half-cooked. Make sure not to cook it fully at this point.

27   Test: If you squeeze one grain of rice, it should break into 4 pieces. This is a crucial test.

28   Once you achieve that level, drain out the water, but make sure to keep this water in another pot.

Part 5

29   Add the half-cooked rice from Part 4 into the gravy-like mixture in Part 3.

30   Close the pot with a flat, metal lid.

31   Place the pot of water from Part 4 on top of the lid. The purpose of this is that the large cooking pot will heat up the water, which will then provide heat to the rice from above i.e. the dum biriyani effect.

32   Cook the rice on low heat for about 10 mins.

33   Once done, add the fried onions from Part 3 Step 9 as garnish.

34   Add some ghee on top of the rice if you would like to. If it’s too oily, then this won’t be necessary.

35   Take pictures and Enjoy!