I find that I make briyani when I have something to celebrate- an announcement of a wedding or a birth or just when my family gathers after a long time away. In my family, we prefer it to nasi minyak or nasi tomato. One of my Uncles love it so much that he'll eat it ' terduduk sampai mengah', sort of like lean back from shortness of breath because he'll eat it so fast.

I like to cook the meat together with the rice because you can use one pot and the flavour of the meat will infuse into the rice making it richer and more fragrant. Then I'll serve it with a jelatah (sweet-sour cucumber salad). The rice is already so rich and heavy, the other stuff that goes with it should be light.

Making briyani need not be complicated and because it's cooked together, you can just leave it to simmer and do something else.

Ingredients:
500g lamb meat, chopped in chunks
1 onion, sliced
2 inches ginger, sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 cups rice
1/2 cup ghee
1 pkt briyani spices (if you don't have it use- 1 tsp coriander powder, 1 tsp cumin powder, a cinnamon stick and 2 cardamom pods)
A little bit of saffron (optional)
31/2 cups chicken stock
Salt to taste
1 pandanus leaf
Coriander leaves
Mint leaves

"Tender meat within aromatic rice"

Now I can't stress this enough- you must buy the best bamathi you can afford- double grade A. Don't skimp on this. In my opinion a briyani is only as great as the rice you use. Great basmathi gives it an aromatic, almost nutty flavour.

The best briyani I ever cooked was when a friend of my father's brought basmathi back from Pakistan. The rice pack had a zipper on top! Good basmathi has a longer grain and healthier because of their low GI. I think the Northern regions of Pakistan and India are very dry and they get their irrigation from snow melt. So generally they can only plant rice once a year keeping the soil rich. Naturally this produces the best grains. Even their wheat is one of the best in the world, just have a taste of their fantastic chapatis!

Anyway back to our briyani.


Method:
Fry garlic, onion and ginger in the ghee until fragrant.
Add the briyani spices and saffron, stirring it a little so that it'll infuse the ghee.
Stir in lamb and fry it until it's half-cooked.


Add in the rest of the ingredients and cook for about 5 minutes.
Turn down fire to a low simmer and let it cook for about 25 minutes until the rice is fluffy.


Results:
The rice should be fluffy and fragrant studded with the chunks of lamb. It should smell so good that you'd want to eat it right away while it's still steaming hot.
I usually scatter some almond flakes, fried shallots, sultannahs and more mint.


Chef Says:

If you don't fancy lamb, you can use beef chunks (splurge and use tenderloin, so good!) or pieces of chicken. They all go very well with this recipe.

As we are a nation of gravy lovers, I also serve this briyani with a dhal curry or an aubergine dalca... delicious!