Kacchi Biriyani by Hafsa Taslim

Sprinkle some salt on the meat and let it stand for 15-20 minutes. Wash the meat and drain all water.

Take all the spice from red chili to caraway seed and grind them.

Take the pot where you want to cook the biryani and add the meat and yogurt, ground spice mix, garlic and ginger paste, and salt. Marinate the meat and keep it for anywhere between 30 minutes to overnight.

Add 3 tbsp butter/ghee to a frying pan on medium heat.

Add very thinly chopped onion and saute it until it’s golden brown and a nice aroma comes out.

Steps to prepare the potato:

Wash, peel, and cut the potato in big chinks. Usually into 3 pieces for a medium Idaho potato.

Rub some orange food color on the potato.

Sprinkle some salt.

Fry the potatoes until slightly golden on the same pan used for the onion.

Wash the rice and drain all the water.

Boil 6 cups of water and add salt.

Add the rice.

Turn off the stove at the first sight of water boiling again (bubble forming on the water) after adding the rice. Rice will be uncooked at this point.

Drain the rice completely, saving the drained hot water in another clean pot.

Steps to assemble the biryani layers and cook:

Take a tawa and heat it for 5 minutes.

Soak the saffron in the milk.

Add butter/ghee to 1 cup of hot water that was set aside in the rice preparation step.

Add the prepared potatoes on top of the marinated meat.

Sprinkle some fried onion.

Add the common plum.

Add half of the water-ghee mixture.

Layer in the prepared rice.

Sprinkle the saffron milk.

Make 4-5 indentations from the rice layer through the potato till the meat.

Add the condensed milk through the indentations.

Sprinkle the remaining water-ghee mixture.

Sprinkle the remaining fried onion.

Add the remaining hot water in a way that water doesn’t go above the rice layer. You may not need to use all of the hot water.

Cook on the stove for 2 hours.

Add the hard-boiled eggs.

Serve with salad,kabab, and chutney.