Published: Feb 18, 2022 by usha

Egg Dum Biryani

Name: Egg Dum Biryani
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 30 min
Ingredients: 8 Eggs (use 4 - 8 eggs depending on your consumption. ); ¾ cup Oil; 1 large Onion sliced; 1 cup Mint Leaves chopped; 2 tablespoons Ginger Garlic Paste; 1 small - medium Tomato, chopped (approximately 1 cup when chopped); 10 Green Chilies cut length wise; ½ teaspoon Chili Powder; 1 teaspoon Coriander Powder; Biryani Masala (½ teaspoon Cardamon Seeds, 3 Cloves, small piece cinnamon, ½ teaspoon Shah Jeera); 1 teaspoon Salt (this is an approximate measure. I have not measured it. Adjust to taste); ½ cup Yogurt; ½ lime juice or 2-3 tablespoon lime juice; 1 cup Cilantro/Kotmir chopped; 3 cups Basmati Rice (cup size - 180 ml); 6 Cardamoms; 4 Cloves; ½ inch Cinnamon; ½ teaspoon Saha Jeera/Black Jeera/Caraway seeds; 2 Bay Leaves; 1 Biryani Flower; Few strands of Saffron; ¾ cup Milk; 1 - 2 Tablespoon Ghee or Butter

Jump to Recipe

Egg dum biryani recipe with step by step instructions is a must try for egg lovers. Eggs coated with aromatic herbs & spices, cooked together with fragrant semi cooked basmati rice in dum style, is a wonderful treat for any day.

Egg biryani in a low bowl and, small bowls of salan and raita on the side.

One of the delicacies from my home town is Hyderabadi biryani and today's recipe is Hyderabad style anda biryani. The more popular varieties are Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani and Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani but the anda version is equally tasty.

Preparation of anda biryani recipe is similar to pakki shrimp dum biryani. Since eggs are already boiled, prepare a thick base by roasting eggs in spices, tomato and yogurt. Then arrange egg base and rice in layers and cook on low flame in a tightly sealed pot.

Ingredients
Instructions
Serving
Store
Expert's Tips
FAQ
Related Recipes
Detailed Recipe

Ingredients

There are 3 sets of ingredient list for egg biryani. List 1 is for the base or the egg curry. List 2 is for cooking rice and list 3 has rest of the ingredients required for preparation of dum biryani.

Egg Base

Eggs - recipe calls for 8 eggs. Adjust the count based on your egg eating habit. 6-8 eggs are ideal for this recipe.
Oil - Prepare with oil or half oil and ghee. We prefer oil and for some flavor and richness, add 1-2 tablespoon of ghee.
Herbs - chopped mint and coriander leaves enhance the flavor of biryani.
Green chilies & homemade ginger garlic paste.
Spices - Use store bought biryani mix or a make it at home by blending together cardamom seeds, cloves, shah jeera and a small piece of cinnamon stick. You will also need some chili powder and salt to taste, and coriander powder.
Yogurt - use thick yogurt. Sometimes I use ½ Greek yogurt and plain yogurt.
Tomato - it is optional but I prefer as it gives some nice masala to egg base.
Freshly squeezed lime juice.

Cooking Rice

Rice - use basmati extra long grain rice for nice texture and a long grain of rice.
Whole Spices - Cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon, shah jeera, bay leaves and biryani flower for aroma. I get biryani flower from India. Skip it if you do not have it in your pantry.
Herbs - chopped mint and coriander leaves.
Oil & Salt - is for grainy rice texture.

Other Ingredients

Onion - for frying.
Saffron soaked in milk.
Ghee or butter for some flavor.

Instructions

There are 3 components to egg biryani. Prepare an egg base or a curry, semi cook rice, arrange eggs and rice in layers and cook in a tightly closed pot on low flame.

Prepare Egg Base

Collage of egg biryani preparation; preparing eggs for marination, frying onion and preparing curry base.

Hard boil eggs as you normally do, peel and make 4-6 vertical around the eggs (#1 in collage). Marinate eggs with salt and chili powder. Sometimes I marinate eggs in yogurt, little ginger garlic, chilies, coriander leaves and dry spices (#2). Choice is yours.

In a wide saute pan, take oil and fry sliced onions to light golden brown (#3). Take half the fried onions & half of the oil in a bowl and keep aside. Prepare the base by sautéing ginger garlic paste and mint in the same pan with remaining oil and fried onions (#4).

Collage of egg biryani preparation - preparing egg curry base.

Then sauté chopped tomatoes (#5). If you marinated eggs with just chili powder and salt, add eggs & green chilies now, mix well, cover and cook until tomatoes are soft.

If you marinated eggs with yogurt, once tomatoes are soft (#6), reduce the flame, add eggs and stir quickly and this is very important (#7). Then increase the flame to medium cook until oil begins to separate and curry thickens (#8). Turn off the flame, squeeze lime juice.

Cook Rice

Wash and soak rice for at least 30 minutes. 10 minutes into soaking rice, bring a pot of water to boil. Add all the ingredients listed under cooking rice, except rice (#9). Then add rice and cook for 5 minutes on high flame (#10). Reserve a cup of water transfer rice to a colander. Rice should be about 60% cooked.

Collage of egg biryani preparation - cooking rice, saffron milk and pot of biryani ready to cook.

Assemble & Cook

Before you cook rice, prepare the curry and soak saffron in warm milk (#11). Once rice is ready, immediately assemble biryani for dum style cooking (cooking in a sealed pot by the steam generated).

In pan in which we cooked egg base, arrange rice on egg base. You can arrange rice in two layers are in one layer. Since this is a small quantity, I so only one layer of rice.

Sprinkle remaining fried onions, oil, saffron milk and ghee if using (#12). Cover the pan with 2 aluminum foils, close the pan with a lid and wrap the foil around the pan & lid, to seal any gaps in between.

Place heavy pan or weight on the biryani pan, cook on high flame for 3 minutes until steam is formed inside and can hear some sizzling. Reduce the flame to low and cook for 12 minutes. Turn off the flame and rest for at least 15 minutes before serving.

Serving

Serve biryani with your favorite raita, salan, chicken curry or mutton curry. I usually serve with onion raita, cucumber raita, spinach raita or tomato perugu pachadi (yogurt chutney).

Store

Store leftovers in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. Microwave and serve. We always find biryani lot tastier the next day. Flavors seep into rice and leftovers always tastes great.

Expert's Tips

Rice - Use good quality extra long grain rice. I prefer Royal Chef's Secret Extra Long Grain Basmati Rice. For today's recipe I used Kohinoor Gold Extra Long Basmati Rice, which is also good.
Cooking Rice - Key to a perfect biryani is the texture of rice. So it is very important to pay attention to rice when cooking. I usually put a timer on when I add rice to boiling water. This way I won't forget and end up over cooking.
Do all the prep work such as preparing the egg base, soaking saffron in milk, and a colander or a strainer ready before cooking rice, that is before you add soaked rice to boiling water.
Once you cook rice, immediately prepare the pot for dum style cooking, else rice will continue to cook sitting in colander from the steam.
Under Cooked Biryani - Once you cook biyani let it rest for 15 minutes before opening the lid. Slowly open the lid from one side and check if rice us cooked. If it is under cooked, cover the pot and let the rice cook in the stream for another 5-10 minutes or as necessary.
Over Cooked Biryani - There is no way to fix over cooked biryani rice. Next time adjust the cooking time accordingly. You can either reduce the cooking time of rice in 'cook rice' step or reduce the time when cooking in dum style. I would do the former.

FAQ

Can cook hard boil eggs in electric pressure cooker such as Instant Pot?

Yes you can. Take a cup of water in the inner pot of electric pressure cooker. Place a trivet or a streamer in the inner pot, arrange eggs. For perfect hard boiled eggs, pressure cook on manual/pressure cook setting for 5 minutes, release pressure after 5 minutes and place eggs in ice cold water for 5 minutes.

Can I cook egg biryani in the oven?

Yes you can cookk biryani in the oven. However, you still need to do all the prep work on the stovetop. The last step, 'assembling & cooking' can be done in the oven.

Prepare egg curry base and cook rice as mentioned. Preheat the oven to 400F. Then cook rice on stovetop for 7 minutes, almost 80-90% and then arrange eggs and rice in layers in an over safe baking dish. Seal it with aluminum foil.

Reduce the temperature to 350F and bake biryani for 20 minutes or until done. Temperatures of ovens vary from oven to oven, so first time you cook in the oven, check the rice for doneness before removing from the oven.

Close up shot of bowl of egg dum biryani.

Detailed Recipe

Anda biryani bowl with fork and spoon on the top right corner, swigs of cilantro to the top left of the bowl.

Egg Dum Biryani

Eggs coated with aromatic herbs & spices, cooked together with fragrant semi cooked basmati rice in dum style, is a wonderful treat for any day.

5 from 17 votes

Print Pin Rate

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Indian

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Servings:

Calories: 723kcal

Author: usha

Equipment

1 wide 3 quart saute pan to cook biryani.
1 saucepan, 2 ½ - 3 quart in size to semi cook rice.
3 bowls to keep aside fried onions & oil, to soak saffron in milk and to reserve some water in which rice was boiled.
1 colander or strainer to put cooked rice.
Aluminum Foil
Heavy object like cast iron pans or exercise dumbbells