Healthy Wealthy One Pot Dish - Chicken Briyani Recipe

I have recently started buying basmati rice for our daily cooking as it contains less starch than the usual one. All the more excuse to eat more rice, but funnily enough, for an Indian family, we have rice maybe only 3 days a week. Other days are pasta, noodles or capati.

I have attempted to cook one pot chicken briyani once but it did not turn out well because I missed several things. For one, I dumped sauteed chicken right into the rice cooker with the uncooked rice and expected the cooker to be ok with it. The repeated turning off of the switch got me slowly realise that maybe it does not work that way. It was a havoc then. 

The uncooked rice was soaked with chicken and its seasonings, and was not cooking. I do not know how to cook rice without the cooker, sad but true. Well yeah so its easy for my mom to say 'it is easier to cook rice on a normal pot' but I had never done it, and I can't be there to monitor it all the time. No prize for guessing why. 

Then I saw my life saviour, the pressure cooker! So I quickly dumped everything inside and hoped it will cook fine without spoiling the dish or the cooker. It did not turn out perfect (try cooking soaked rice) but hubby was such a darling to down everything like its the best food in the world. Can't say the same about the kids though.

After several one pot dishes later, now I know. Cook the rice halfway and then pour in your ingredients, cooked or not. Else the rice cooker with turn off on you.

So here I am again attempting my chicken briyani again, in the rice cooker.

You Need:

Chicken marinade:

ginger + garlic paste
chicken, chopped small
some turmeric powder
very little chilli powder
1tsp corn flour
salt and pepper for seasoning

Sautee:
1 onion, diced
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
a few cloves and cardamom
1 tbsp cumin powder
2 tbsp coriander powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup water
ginger + garlic paste
salt to taste
some oil

basmati rice, quantity as desired
some chopped coriander leaves

Method:

1) Marinate the chicken as per the ingredients for an hour or two.
2) Heat up some oil in the wok, once hot enough, sautee the star anise, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves till fragrant. Add in the onion and fry till golden.
3) Add in the cumin and coriander powder. After a quick stir add in the chicken and let it cook for 5 minutes. Season with salt and the garlic ginger paste.
4) Start to cook the rice in rice cooker as per normal way.
5) Add in water and milk, cook for ten minutes.
6) Carefully pour in the cooked ingredients into your rice cooker and stir. If you want to add more vegetables you can also do it now.
7) Now let the rice cooker do its stuff. Once the rice cooker turns off, leave it for good ten minutes in the keep warm mode.
8) Serve with chopped coriander leaves.

I had some spring onion instead, so I sprinkled that. Otherwise coriander leaves are always ideal for any spice related dishes. Also the briyani is quite dry so best taken with some gravy. Since this is the healthy version I restrained from adding any kind of oil or ghee. Else they should be added when cooking the rice. And perhaps more milk and some tomato puree would help to moisten the rice better.

This is what we do in our free time these days. Get the toys together and arrange them on a Avengers Assemble! Note that some poor fellas missed the photo shoot because of broken legs or missing arm. Ah, Boys!