MUTTON BIRIYANI( kozhikodan style)

Biriyanis are definetly every ones personal favourite.Here we prepare biriyanis on most sundays and every one enjoys having it.Kozhikode biriyani is one of the most famous dishes in kerala. Its taste and flavour can never be held by any other dish.Biriyanis can be made with fish,chicken mutton,beef anything accoring to ones preferance.According to my preferance i would go for kozhikode biriyani at the topmost and the next would be the hyderabadi biriyani.The fire cooked hyderabadi biriyani gives an authentic taste for it.

Now let us see how a mutton biriyani is being made.The mutton has to be well cooked otherwise it may not taste that good and it would be in a rubbery form.

Mutton                                      1kg
Basmati rice                              4cups
Onions                                     6big
Ginger                                     2tbspn
Garlic                                      3tbspn
Green chillies                          6nos
Tomatoes                                 1small
Mint leaves                             3/4cup
Corriander leaves                   11/2cups
Cinnamon                              2nos
Cardamom                            5-6nos
Cloves                                  1teaspn
Poppy seeds                         1teaspn
Fennel seeds                        3/4teaspn
Salt                                       4teaspn
Garam masala                      1teaspn
Corriander powder               1teaspn
Chilli powder                        1teaspn
Turmeric powder                   1tbspn
Saffron                                   2-3strands
Milk                                        2tbspn
Ghee                                       1tbspn
Water                                     8cups

Boil basmati rice with 7cups of water .To this add in 2cloves,1small cinnamon,2 cardamom,2teaspn salt etc and let it cook on low flame.

FOR THE MASALA

• Marinate and keep the mutton with vinegar and curd
• Grind together all spices and keep it aside.
• Grind half mint leaves and half corriander leaves.
• Grind ginger,garlic and green chillies.
• Soak saffron in milk

In a cooker saute onions untill it becomes transclucent,to this add in all the ground spices,mint and corriander leaves,ginger,garlic and green chillies and saute well.To this add in all the masalas and saute again.Add in tomatoes and salt and mix well.Finally add in the marinated mutton and mix well add in only 1/2 a cup of water to this as mutton extracts a good quantity of water.Now close the lid and keep it for about 10 whistles,only then the mutton will be very soft.
Take a heavy bottomed vessel and layer it with half of the mutton gravy and above it spread the rice and above it lemon juice,ghee,saffron,corriander and mint leaves.Repeat the procedure for the next level also and close the lid and keep a heavy article above it so that it will be very tight.Keep this on a low flame for about 10mins.Switch off the flame and let it rest for another half an hour.Then open it and mix well untill whole rice and masalas gets together.Now serve this with some raita,chutney and dates pickle....
                      oooopppps now my mouth has started watering.....

 Note:
Here i have used only a small quantity of ghee as mutton has a good amount of ghee in it.
Adding more ghee will be more tastier but health wise i opted for less amount of ghee.