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You know the thing I hate the most when I eat a biryani ? Biting into a clove or a cardamom in between the beautiful morsels of perfectly cooked rice and meat. It just numbs your tongue and taste buds for a few minutes until you can start enjoying the true flavours of biryani once again. So for my biryanis, i use a minimal amount of whole spices and try to impart maximum flavour with freshly powdered spices. This is definitely a deviation from the traditional methods of cooking biryani, but what good is a recipe if it does not suit your taste and has your personal stamp on it!

I have struggled over the years to achieve consistency with the biryani I cook. It turns out great sometimes, the other times it is just average – like curry and rice mixed together. Sometimes the rice is overcooked, other times it is under cooked. There have been instances when there was hardly any rice and more meat and other times it is the reverse. Finally after years of trying, I have nailed my perfect biryani recipe with the right proportions and techniques to get it right everytime! I have experimented with cooking times, soaking times, the proportion of meat to rice, how much masala, how much liquid etc etc and voila – The perfect mutton biryani! Truly yumm! Check my tips listed in the recipe notes.

Purists will tell you that the mutton needs to be slow cooked and not pressure cooked – that’s when the flavour truly comes out. But you will see when you try this out, that there is no major shift in flavour by pressure cooking the mutton. It saves you a good 30-45 minutes in a pressure cooker, so why not!

In the video I made almost 2kg of biryani – if you are taking so much effort, might as well make it in bulk 😁, after all Biryani tastes better the next day. I am however scaling down the recipe to have a biryani that is around 1 kg. This is a long process with lots of ingredients, but if you follow it methodically this will go smoothly. I try to cook the different elements in parallel to save time. You may also choose to cook the mutton masala the previous day and cook the rice and layer the next day.

Mutton Biryani

8 great tips for a delicious mutton biryani

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Prep Time 30 minutes mins

Cook Time 45 minutes mins

Resting Time 10 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 25 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine Indian, Kerala

Ingredients

  

For Marination

• 1 tbsp unflavoured yoghurt
• 1 tbsp garlic green chilli paste
• 1 tbsp powdered spices/garam masala
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 2 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp crushed black pepper
• salt to taste

Prep – ginger garlic paste

• 10-12 garlic cloves
• 2 inch ginger piece
• 3-4 no green chillis

Prep – Powdered spices

• 1 tsp cloves
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 2 long cinnamon sticks
• 1 tsp green cardamom

For Mutton masala

• 4-5 tbsp ghee
• 1 tsp shahi jeera
• 3-4 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 3-4 green cardamom
• 1 black cardamom
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 star anise
• 4-5 black pepper corns
• 5-6 medium sized onions sliced
• 500 gm mutton pieces on the bone (preferably shoulder or leg)
• 1 tbsp ginger garlic green chilli paste
• 1 no big tomato pureed
• 2 tsp chilli powder
• 2 tsp coriander powder
• 2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1 tsp powdered spices
• 1 handful coriander and mint leaves chopped
• 1/2 cup water

Rice

• 500 gm basmati rice
• 2 tsp ghee
• 2 tsp milk
• pinch saffron strands
• water as required to cook rice

Instructions

 

• Pound the ginger, garlic and green chillis to make a coarse paste. Powder the spices to make the garam masala powder.

  Wash and soak the rice for 15-20 minutes.

  Marinate the mutton pieces with the marinade ingredients listed

  Slice onions thinly – I use my food processor to speed things up.

  Puree the tomatoes – also done in the food processor

  Chop washed coriander and mint leaves

  Soak saffron strands in 2 tbsp of warm milk
• In a thick deep pot, add the ghee and the whole spices listed above (pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, bay leaves, shahi jeera).

  When they start to sizzle add the sliced onions and fry on a medium flame until they are transluscent/soft.

  Speed tip : Meanwhile add the marinated pieces to a pressure cooker with 1/2 cup of water and pressure cook for 3-4 whistles.

  When the onions have softened, add ginger garlic green chilli paste and fry until onions have browned. (It took around 10-12 minutes for the onions to brown perfectly )

  At this stage add the coriander, chilli and turmeric powder and cook for 2-3 minutes on a medium flame

  Pour the pureed tomatoes and add salt to taste. Fry until the tomatoes cook down.

  Add the chopped mint and coriander leaves and stir to mix.

  By this time the mutton would have finished cooking. Strain the mutton pieces and reserve the cooking liquid/stock.

  Add the mutton pieces to the masala and stir to ensure that the masala coats the pieces nicely.Add black pepper and garam masala to the mix annd fry for 4-5 minutes. Add the reserved cooking liquid/stock to the masala. If the liquid level of the masala does not cover the mutton, pour in 1/2 to 1 cup of water. Let this simmer for 5-10 minutes, switch off flame and rest.
• I start this step when i am waiting for the onions to brown.

  Fill up a big sized pot with enough water to submerge the rice. Add 1 tsp of ghee, garam masala and salt to the water. Taste the water now to check that it tastes salty else the rice will be underseasoned.

  Once the water has come to a boil, add the soaked and drained rice and mix

  Around 5-7 minutes, carefully take a few grains of rice and break them. If they break easily that indicates that the rice is cooked. (Check video)

  Strain the rice and start adding it over the mutton masala
• After all the rice has been added over the mutton masala, drizzle 2 tsp of ghee over the rice. This will help the rice remain moist and not dry off. drizzle the saffron milk over the rice as well. Next sprinkle 1 tsp of garam masala and a few chopped coriander leaves on top. I do not add mint leaves on the top as they tend to blacken.

  Cover the pot with foil and close with a tight fitting lid.

  Heat a flat pan/tawa on high flame and place the pot on the tawa. Let the biryani pot remain on high flame for 5 minutes, after which reduce the flame to medium-low for 10-12 minutes. switch off the flame and let the pot rest undisturbed for another 10 minutes.
• Garnish with some fried onion slices, mint leaves and serve with a raita on the side.

Video

Notes

Tips:

1. Do not soak rice for longer than 30 minutes

2. Cook rice, mutton, masala in parallel to save time

3. Proportion of rice:meat should be approximately equal i.e. if you take 500gm of mutton take almost 500-700gm of rice

4. Quantity of onions should equal meat approximately i.e take around 300-400 gms of onions for 500 gm of mutton.

5. Brown onions evenly on a medium flame to make sure it melts in the gravy and gravy thickens.

6. Grind the spices prior to making biryani everytime. I do not recommend that you do this in bulk, as they lose their flavour. Stick to the measurements nnoted above, especially the fennel – It gives such a lovely floral flavour to the rich mutton gravy. You can use the leftover powdered garam masala in other chicken/meat dishes too. 

7. Do not add whole spices to the water to cook rice, rather add powdered garam masala to enhance flavour. 

8. Remember to taste the water in which rice is cooking – it should taste salty else rice will be underseasoned.

Keyword Biryani, Bulkcooking, Celebratorydinner, Meat dish, Mutton, onepotdinner