Thalassery Chicken dum Biryani

Thalassery is a town located in Kannur district on the malabar coast of Kerala. This town has a lot of specialities and is seen as a land of Cricket, Circus, Cakes and more.

Thalassery is very famous for its food cultures and is a paradise of culinary innovations. Thalassery biryani is famous for its distinguishing and delectable taste.

I have heard a lot about this biryani but never got a chance to taste it.The preparation of biryani varies from one place to another. In this Thalassery style, the chicken is fried before adding to the masala. It gets slowly cooked in the masala, blended well with the juices and spices.
This is an exotic dish prepared during special events in northern Kerala.

I saw many cookery shows in which they prepare this and once I was checking my dashboard and found this biryani recipe in Jay’s blog Tasty appetite, which has many wonderful collection of recipes and thought of giving it a try as my husband who is also a great admirer of malabar cuisine, insisted me into this attempt.

So for Eid I prepared this for the first time and now this biryani has become one of the hot favorites among my festival recipes :-)

Ingredients:
For rice:

1. Basmathi rice- 2cups
2. Water- 2 ½ cups
3. Cloves- 4nos
4. Cinnamon- 1 small stick
5. Cardamom- 3nos
6. Bay Leaf- 1no
7. Onions (sliced)- 1no
8. Ghee- 1tbsp
9. oil- 1tbsp

Method:

1. Heat oil and ghee in a heavy bottomed pan. Throw in the whole spices and sliced onions, fry till it turns into golden brown in colour.
2. In this add the washed and soaked rice. Fry for some time. Add water and cook closed till the rice is ¾ th done. Keep it aside.

For Masala:

1. Chicken -1kg
2. Turmeric powder- ½ tsp
3. Chilli powder- 1tsp
4. Lemon juice- 1no
5. Salt- as per required
6. Onions- 3nos
7. Green Chillies- 3nos
8. Ginger and Garlic paste- 1tbsp
9. Tomatoes- 2nos
10. Curd- 1cup
11. Coriander Leaves- ½ cup
12. Mint Leaves- ½ cup
13. Garam Masala powder- 1tsp
14. Salt- as per taste
15. Oil- 1tbsp

Method:

1. Marinate the washed chicken with turmeric powder, chilli powder, lemon juice and salt. Keep this in refrigerator for 3-4 hours.
2. Shallow fry the marinated chicken and keep it aside.
3. Heat oil in a pan. Fry sliced onions till it turns golden brown in colour. In this add the green chillies and ginger and garlic paste and stir well.
4. Grind tomatoes, coriander leaves and mint leaves. Add this to the above onion mixture and stir for some time.
5. Add the garam masala powder, curd and salt and mix well. In this add the fried chicken and mix till all the masala blends well.
6. Cover and cook the chicken for some time till a little gravy is left. At this moment we can add little water if needed (if you feel the masala is dry).

Ingredients for assembling:

1. Onions- 2nos
2. Coriander Leaves (chopped)- ½ cup
3. Saffron- few strands
4. Milk- 2tbsp

Method for assembling:

1. Fry the onions till golden brown and keep it aside.
2. Mix saffron in warm milk and keep it aside.
3. In a heavy bottomed vessel first spread a  little amount of chicken gravy, over that spread the cooked rice.
4. Sprinkle coriander leaves and small amount of saffron milk on top .
5. Repeat the process of layering till the top is covered with cooked rice.
6. Over that sprinkle some fried onions and saffron milk and dum it with wet cloth or with dough and close tightly. Place some sort of heavy object on top of the lid, so that the steam does not escape.
7. Heat a tawa and place the heavy bottomed vessel on the tawa and cook on low heat for 10-15 minutes.
8. Now the biryani is ready to be served with raita, pickle and papad.

I am sending this to Kerala Kitchen an event hosted by Divya Kudua of Easy cooking.