Chicken biryani without the guesswork

Ask ten people why their biryani did not turn out and nine will blame the masala. It is almost never the masala. It is the rice — boiled two minutes too long, so the layers turn to porridge under the steam.

This serves five to six.

What you need

• 750g chicken, in pieces
• 3 cups basmati rice
• 3 onions, sliced thin
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 cup yoghurt
• 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• 1 cup oil
• Mint, coriander, green chillies
• Salt, and lemon

Whole spices, for the rice water and the masala:

• 1 tbsp whole garam masala
• 2 star anise
• 4 green cardamom
• 2 black cardamom
• 1 stick cinnamon
• 6 cloves
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp cumin seeds

Ground:

• 1.5 tsp red chilli powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• Half tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp garam masala

The rice — read this part twice

1. Soak the rice 30 minutes. Not less, not two hours.
2. Boil a large pot of water — more than you think. Salt it until it tastes like a soup. Add a bay leaf, a black cardamom and a few cloves.
3. Add the rice. Now watch it. At 70% done it is ready: the grain should break when pressed between thumb and finger but still have a hard white line in the middle.
4. Drain immediately. The rice finishes cooking in the steam later — this is the whole trick, and it is where most biryani is lost.

The masala

1. Fry the onions in the oil until deep golden. Take out half for the top.
2. Ginger-garlic, then the whole spices — cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, star anise, cumin. Thirty seconds, no more.
3. Chicken in, high flame, until the colour changes.
4. Tomatoes, chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric and salt. Cover and let it collapse.
5. Whisked yoghurt at the end, on a low flame, stirring — or it will split.
6. Cook it down until the oil separates. The masala should be thick, not runny. Watery masala makes soggy biryani.

Layering and dum

1. Masala at the bottom. Rice on top. Scatter the reserved onions, mint, coriander, green chillies, garam masala and a squeeze of lemon.
2. Seal the lid — dough around the rim, or a tea towel under it.
3. Lowest flame, 20 minutes. Put a tawa underneath so nothing catches.
4. Rest 10 minutes off the heat before you open it. Mix from the sides, not the middle.

Where the spice shows here

Biryani uses more whole spice than almost anything else you cook, and whole spice is the one thing that cannot be faked — nobody can put husk inside a clove or a cardamom pod.

Two worth checking in your own kitchen:

• Cloves. Press one with a fingernail. A fresh clove leaves oil on your nail. A dry one is old and will taste of wood.
• Green cardamom. It should be green, not bleached pale. And it should smell before you crush it, not after.

That is the honest reason to buy whole: not that ours is magic, but that with whole spice you can check for yourself, and with ground you are trusting someone. Everything above is on our shop page.