The Hyderabadi Style Of Biryani: How It's Cooked & Why It Fails To Deliver

The Hyderabadi Style Of Biryani: How It's Cooked & Why It Fails To Deliver

Biryani is considered one of the most popular South Asian & Persian rice dishes. It is a rich dish in which raw meat is cooked in a combination of spices (known as a masala) and then layered together with basamati rice. Biryani is made with chicken or lamb (it may even be prepared without meat), and it is generally served as a main course of a feast or a big family dinner.

One of the most well-known styles of biryani is Hyderabadi biryani. Hyderabadi biryani is a type of biryani that requires marinating the meat in a blend of yogurt, vegetable oil, and spices / aromatics and then cooking the marinated meat with par-boiled basmati rice. This differs from other forms of biryani where the meat and masala are simmered in oil and then layered with rice and baked.

Regrettably, I think that there are a few elements of Hyderabadi biryani that actually cause it to be less flavorful than many other forms of biryani. Here's where I think Hyderabadi biryani goes astray:

1) All spices need to be cooked in oil. This is almost certainly the most critical mistake that Hyderabadi biryani makes. Simmering the essential biryani seasonings (e.g., ginger garlic paste, chili powder, turmeric powder, clove) in oil enables these spices and aromatics to secrete their full flavor into the masala - well beyond what is released when they are merely mixed with plain cold low fat yogurt and oil. If the spices & aromatics are not heated, then the necessary chemical reactions that give off much of the flavor essentially cannot take place. Hyderabadi biryani loses out on a great deal of flavor & spice because of this mistake.

2) Cooking raw meat for 30 minutes won't make it tender. Most Hyderabadi biryani recipes recommend that the marinated yogurt / meat mixture be layered into a pot and simply baked with the par-boiled rice. This will not result in tender meat. The only method of getting your meat tender is to slow cook it for a minimum of one and a half hours. These biryani recipes that recommend merely thirty to forty mins of cooking simply will not get it done.

3) Flavoring the basmati rice. Sadly, the most seasoning I have found added to the plain basmati rice in a Hyderabadi biryani recipe was just a couple of cardamom pods or spices thrown into the water in which the rice is boiling. This will lend the plain rice a slight aroma, but it will not give any significant flavor to the rice itself. To really flavor your biryani rice, you have to add some of the spiced masala oil to the par-boiled rice when you're preparing it for baking.

So although Hyderabadi biryani is the most well-known type of biryani, in my mind it's definitely not the most tasty.

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