Rinse & cut whole chicken or chicken pieces.
Marinate the chicken with all the marinating ingredients listed above.
Mix well, cover & allow to marinade for as long as possible. Be sure to remove from the refrigerator an hour before cooking otherwise the meat will tend to be hard from the shock of the heat.
Place rice in a bowl. Wash rice until water runs clear.
Add rice into a medium sized pot. Fill the pot with water & place on the stove-top on medium heat. Add in a drop of oil, salt to taste, 2 bay leaves, 1 cinnamon stick & 1 star aniseed. Mix & bring to a boil until rice is cooked.
Once the rice is cooked, drain & set aside.
Place the biryani dhall (masoor) in a small pot.
Rinse a few times & then fill the pot with water. Bring the biryani dhall (masoor) to a boil on medium heat until soft.
Once the biryani dhall (masoor) is soft, drain & set aside in a bowl.
Peel, rinse & cut potatoes into quarters. Place in a microwavable dish. Microwave for 4-5 minutes.
Remove from microwave & add a drop of yellow food colouring. Mix well, coating all the potatoes.
Heat 3 tablespoons of cooking oil in a wide pot & place the potatoes in the hot oil.
Fry potatoes until golden brown & cooked throughout.
When potatoes are cooked, remove & set aside.
Peel & sliver 1 onion.
Fry in the same oil that the potatoes had fried in.
Fry onions until golden & set aside on a plate.
Sliver the other onion & set aside.
Chop or blend tomatoes & set aside.
In a large pot, heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil.
Add in the onions that were set aside. Thereafter, add in the other 2 bay leaves, 1 cinnamon stick, elachi pods, 1 star aniseed & curry leaves. Fry until onions are translucent. Add the ginger & garlic paste, turmeric powder, jeera powder, dhania powder, garam masala & chili powder. Add a little water if necessary. Simmer for 30 seconds.
Add in the chopped tomatoes.
Cook until soft, whereby tomatoes start forming a gravy.
Mix well & add water if necessary.
When tomatoes are cooked, drop in the marinated chicken pieces.
Mix well & allow to cook until meat is soft & tender.
Whilst the meat is cooking, go back to the cooked rice. Separate the rice into halves (add half in one bowl & another half to another bowl).
Add a teaspoon of yellow food colouring to one bowl of the rice & mix well.
Now you should have one bowl of white rice & one bowl of yellow rice.
Take the bowl of white rice & gently mix with the yellow rice making sure that most of the white rice doesn’t become yellow.
Next, add half of the masoor (biryani dhall) to the rice. Gently combine.
When the chicken is cooked, add salt to taste.
Thereafter, add in the remaining bowl of masoor (biryani dhall) to the chicken.
Also add in the fried potatoes.
Mix well.
Add about a ¼ of the rice mixed with masoor to the pot of chicken.
Combine well.
Empty the cooked chicken from the pot into a casserole.
This is the masala part of the biryani.
Empty the rice into a separate casserole.
Garnish the rice with the fried onions.
Serve whilst hot.
Serve by plating the rice first followed by the masala.
Serve Chicken Masala Biryani with pea dhall, curried dhall, carrot salad, carrot sour milk salad or pickles.
I served it with carrot salad.
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