Eggs coated with aromatic herbs & spices, cooked together with fragrant semi cooked basmati rice in dum style, is a wonderful treat for any day.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Indian
Prep Time 30 minutesminutes
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Servings 5
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
Ingredients
Egg Base
8Eggsuse 4 - 8 eggs depending on your consumption.
¾cupOil
1large Onion sliced
1cupMint Leaves chopped
2tablespoonsGinger Garlic Paste
1 small - medium Tomato, choppedapproximately 1 cup when chopped
10Green Chilies cut length wise
½teaspoonChili Powder
1teaspoonCoriander Powder
Biryani Masala½ teaspoon Cardamon Seeds, 3 Cloves, small piece cinnamon, ½ teaspoon Shah Jeera
1teaspoonSaltthis is an approximate measure. I have not measured it. Adjust to taste
½cupYogurt
½lime juice or 2-3 tablespoon lime juice
1cupCilantro/Kotmir chopped
Cooking Rice
3cupsBasmati Ricecup size - 180 ml
6Cardamoms
4Cloves
½inchCinnamon
½teaspoonSaha Jeera/Black Jeera/Caraway seeds
2Bay Leaves
1Biryani Flower
Other Ingredients
Few strands of Saffron
¾cupMilk
1 - 2 Tablespoon Ghee or Butter
Instructions
Prep Work
Boil eggs on stovetop or in electric pressure cooker such as Instant Pot (IP). In IP, take a cup of water in the inner pot, place a trivet or steamer, arrange eggs on it. Pressure cook on manual / pressure cook setting for 5 minutes, release pressure after 5 minutes and place in ice cold water for 5 minutes.
Peel and make some slits on each egg or poke with a fork or a knife.
Wash rice wash and soak for 30 minutes.
Egg Base
Make slits on boiled eggs and marinate with salt, red chili powder, yogurt, little ginger garlic paste, chilies, coriander leaves and dry spices.
Take oil in a pan and fry onions until light golden brown. Once onions are fried, take ½-¾ fried onions and ½ the oil in a separate bowl. Leave the remaining oil and fried onion in the pan.
To the same pan, add ginger garlic paste, mint and saute for a minute. If you didn't marinate chilies with yogurt, add chilies now.
Add tomatoes and cook until tomatoes are mushy. Reduce flame to low.
Add marinated eggs and immediately stir. This is very important. Cook eggs stirring frequently on medium flame until oil begins to separate.
Taste and adjust seasoning. Add lime juice, give a good stir and turn off the flame.
Cook Rice
10 minutes into soaking rice, boil a pot full of water in a 2 ½ - 3 quart saucepan or a pot.
When water comes to a boil, add all the ingredients listed under cooking rice, except rice.
Now discard water, add soaked rice and cook for 5 minutes on high flame. Basically, after adding rice, water should boil again and rice should roll over. This will take about 1 - 1 ½ minutes, and continue to boil for another 3 ½ - 4 minutes. I just put the timer and forget about it. And this is the most crucial step to get good, grainy biryani rice.
Once rice is about 60% cooked, reserve some boiled water and dump rice in a colander or a strainer.
Arrange & Cook
When is semi cooked, spread rice on eggs. Sprinkle fried onions, saffron milk, received water from cooking rice.
For richer taste, pour 1 - 2 tablespoon of ghee as well.
Cover the pan with aluminum foil, put on the lid, seal the pan with aluminum foil.
Cook on high , for 3 minutes or until steam escapes from the pan, reduce the flame to low and cook for 12 minutes. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes before opening.
Serve hot with your favorite raita or gravy.
Notes
Measuring Cup – I used the measuring cup that comes with the rice cooker. 1 cup = 180 ml. All the cup measurements are with this cup.
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 is 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.
Biryani in the Oven - Prepare the egg base and cook rice as mentioned in the recipe. In the last step of cooking in 'assemble and cook' can be done in the oven. Preheat the oven to 400F. In 'cook rice' step, cook rice for 7 minutes instead of 5 minutes until rice is almost 80-90% cooked. Then grease an oven safe long baking dish, arrange eggs and rice in layers as mentioned in the recipe. Seal the dish 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.