R015Matta Rice, Properly Cooked
Kerala's parboiled red rice, by absorption and by draining
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R018
Thalassery Chicken Biryani, Rebuilt
Jeerakasala, dum-cooked, in a portion you can name
Photograph: Adobe Stock · representative of the dish
Plan ahead: plus 30 minutes marinating — required.
The re-engineeringFat cut from a typical 120 g of ghee and vanaspati to 18 g of ghee plus 15 g of coconut oil across six portions; skin off the chicken; rice fixed at 50 g dry a head instead of an open pot. The masala, the grain, the raw-chicken method and the sealed dum are untouched.
Thalassery biryani is not a lighter northern biryani. Its distinguishing feature is not technique but grain: it uses jeerakasala, also called kaima, a short, thin, intensely aromatic Wayanad rice that needs no soaking, and it is cooked pakki style, layered and sealed with live charcoal on the lid. The chicken goes into the masala raw, not pre-fried, which is why a properly made one is less oily than its reputation. The vanaspati that fills restaurant versions is an artefact of the Gulf-remittance decades, not of the dish. What follows respects the method and refuses the vanaspati.
Before you start: This dish has three streams and they must be ready together. Marinate the chicken first and let it sit while you slice 300 g of shallots — that is 20 minutes of knife work and the single largest job in the recipe. Have the fried garnish, the herbs and the seal ready before the rice goes on, because from the moment the rice is drained you have about four minutes to assemble.
Thalassery Chicken Biryani, Rebuilt
Active 55 minutes Total 1 hour 40 minutes
Scale
6 servings
Ingredients — tap to tick off
- For the chicken and masala
- ✓450 g skinless chicken thigh, boneless, in 4 cm pieces
- ✓300 g skinless chicken breast, in 4 cm pieces
- ✓80 g (⅓ cup) thick curd, whisked smooth
- ✓25 g (a 5 cm piece) ginger, and 20 g (about 5 cloves) garlic, ground to a paste with 20 g (about 4) green chillies
- ✓2 g (1 tsp) ground turmeric
- ✓2 g (1 tsp) freshly ground black pepper
- ✓2 g (1 tsp) fennel-heavy Kerala garam masala (M01)
- ✓15 g (1 tbsp) coconut oil
- ✓300 g (about 30) shallots, thinly sliced
- ✓200 g (about 2) tomatoes, chopped
- ✓2 g (1 tsp) coriander seed, coarsely crushed
- ✓2 g (1 tsp) cumin seed
- ✓6 g (1 tsp) M07 the 70:30 salt
- ✓30 g (about ¾ cup, packed) coriander and mint leaves, chopped
- ✓15 g (1 tbsp) lime juice
- For the rice
- ✓300 g (1½ cups) jeerakasala (kaima) rice, rinsed and drained, not soaked
- ✓4 cm cinnamon, 4 cloves, 4 green cardamom pods, 1 bay leaf
- ✓2 litres water
- For the garnish and the seal
- ✓18 g (1 tbsp) ghee
- ✓24 g (about 16) cashew nuts, halved
- ✓15 g (2 tbsp) sultanas
- ✓10 g (¼ cup) coriander and mint leaves
- ✓a pinch of saffron or 1 g ground turmeric steeped in 30 ml warm milk
Allergens: Milk, tree nuts (cashew), sulphites.
Equipment: Wide heavy pan or uruli, 28–30 cm, with a lid that sits flat. A second pan for the rice. Aluminium foil or a strip of atta dough to seal. Substitute: a cast-iron casserole with a lid is ideal. For the charcoal on the lid, a baking tray of preheated 180°C (350°F) oven does the same job — set the sealed pot on the hob's lowest flame with a tawa underneath and put the whole thing in the oven for 20 minutes instead.
Per serving (estimated)
| Energy | 549 kcal |
| Protein | 31.9 g |
| Fibre | 4.3 g |
| Net carbohydrate | 50.9 g |
| Total carbohydrate | 55.2 g |
| Sugars | 6.1 g |
| Fat | 23.4 g |
| Saturated fat | 9.1 g |
| Sodium | 390 mg |
From ICMR-NIN IFCT 2017 and USDA FoodData Central. Per-serving figures stay the same when you scale.
Method — tap a step to mark it done, tap a time to start a timer
- Marinate the chicken with the curd, the ginger-garlic-chilli paste, the turmeric, the pepper and the garam masala. Cover and leave at room temperature, or up to in the fridge. The chicken does not get fried at any stage, so this is where it takes on flavour.
- Heat the coconut oil in the wide pan and add the shallots all at once with a pinch of the salt. Cook on a medium-low flame, stirring every minute or two, until they have collapsed, lost their water and turned an even golden brown with darker edges, . They should smell sweet and faintly jammy, not sharp. Lift out a quarter of them for the garnish.
- Add the crushed coriander and the cumin and stir 30–45 seconds, until they smell toasted.
- Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring, until they have broken down completely and a thin rim of oil shows at the edge of the mass, . That rim is the cue that the water has gone.
- Tip in the marinated chicken with all its marinade and the rest of the salt. Raise the flame, stir once, then cover and cook , stirring twice, until the chicken is firm, opaque right through, and sitting in a thick masala rather than a liquid one. The thigh pieces should give no resistance to a fork; the breast should be just set. If the masala is loose, uncover and boil it down for — a wet masala makes a wet biryani.
- Stir in the chopped herbs and the lime juice, then take the pan off the heat and level the surface. Taste it now: this is the last chance to season anything.
- Boil the rice while the chicken finishes. Bring 2 litres of water with the cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and bay to a hard rolling boil. Add the rinsed rice and boil , uncovered, until a grain squeezed between finger and thumb is soft at the edges with a thread of firmness at the very centre — about seven-tenths cooked. It will finish in the dum. Drain immediately and completely; do not rinse.
- Fry the garnish in the ghee in a small pan: cashews first, 40–60 seconds to pale straw; then the sultanas, 20–30 seconds, until they puff. Lift both out. Keep any ghee left in the pan.
- Layer at once, while the rice is steaming. Spread all the drained rice over the chicken masala in an even blanket. Scatter the reserved fried shallots, the cashews, the sultanas and the last of the herbs over the top and trickle over the saffron milk and any remaining ghee. Do not stir.
- Seal the pan: press foil over the rim, or lay a rope of atta dough round it, and set the lid on hard. Put a tawa or heat-diffuser between pan and flame.
- Dum on the lowest possible flame for . If you are using charcoal, set three or four live coals on the lid at the start. Do not open it. The rice is finishing in trapped steam and every lift of the lid costs you a minute of it.
- Rest off the heat, still sealed, . Then open it, run a flat turner down the side of the pan to the base, and lift rather than stir — bring the masala up through the rice in sections so each plate gets both layers. Serve by weight the first few times: 320 g on a 23 cm plate, with a pachadi or raita and a pulse beside it.
Why this worksSealing the pan turns it into a low-pressure steam chamber. The rice, drained at seven-tenths, finishes by absorbing steam and the masala's own volatiles rather than water, so the aroma compounds released by the chicken and shallots condense into the grain instead of leaving through the lid. Putting the chicken in raw means its juices are inside the dish rather than in a discarded frying pan.
Sourcing note
Jeerakasala is the recipe, so try hard before substituting. Kerala grocers in the Gulf, London, Toronto and the New Jersey corridor stock it as "Kaima" or "Jeerakasala"; online sellers ship it everywhere. If you genuinely cannot get it, use basmati and change three things: soak it 20 minutes, boil it 4–5 minutes rather than 6–7, and accept that the finished dish will be longer-grained and less perfumed — recognisably a biryani, not recognisably a Thalassery one. Shallots are not optional either; onions make a sweeter, flatter masala. Where shallots are dear, use 220 g shallots and 100 g red onion.
If you are watching…
Blood sugar: 50.9 g of net carbohydrate is the largest single figure in this chapter, and it is a whole main course rather than a side. It is built to be eaten as the meal, with a pachadi and a pulse, not with a parotta on the side. If your glucose runs high, cut the rice to 250 g dry for six — 42 g a head — and add a third more vegetable to the plate; the dish survives it.
Blood pressure: 390 mg per portion is the highest sodium figure in this chapter and it does not earn the low-sodium icon. Two ways down: drop the M07 to 4 g and finish with lime rather than salt, which brings it to about 300 mg; or leave the salt out of the rice water entirely, which the drained rice barely notices, for about 340 mg. Against a 2,000 mg daily target this is a fifth of the day in one plate, so plan the rest of it.
Cholesterol: 9.1 g of saturated fat per portion is honest and it is not small. Most of it is the chicken's own fat plus the ghee. Using all breast instead of half thigh takes it to about 7 g; dropping the ghee and using coconut oil for the garnish takes it to about 8 g and costs you the aroma. A traditional restaurant portion would be nearer 20 g. This dish needs some of its fat and the book is not going to pretend otherwise.
Swap it
Chicken → 900 g bone-in skinless chicken. Better flavour, more work at the table, and the weights change: reckon 150 g bone-in as 100 g meat, and add 4–5 minutes at step 5.
Chicken → 750 g firm white fish in 5 cm pieces, added at step 5 for 4–5 minutes only. Protein drops to about 26 g a portion and saturated fat to about 5 g; the dish becomes a meen biryani and is genuinely good. (Allergen: this swap introduces fish.)
Jeerakasala → basmati. Longer grains, drier mouthfeel, less perfume; soak 20 minutes and boil 4–5.
Ghee → coconut oil throughout. Saturated fat is barely different, because coconut oil is 90.9% saturated against ghee's roughly 62%. This is not the swap it looks like.
Curd → thick coconut milk in the marinade. Dairy-free, sweeter, and the chicken tenderises less because you lose the lactic acid.
Scale it
Brown 600 g of shallots in two batches. Above 12 servings, cook two pots rather than one deep one: a 10 cm layer of rice does not dum evenly.
Make ahead · store · freeze
The chicken masala can be made a full day ahead and is arguably better for it — cool it fast, refrigerate, and bring it back to a simmer before you layer. Fridge 3 days, covered. Freeze 2 months, in portions, masala and rice together; the rice softens a little on thawing and the chicken does not suffer. Reheat covered with 2 tablespoons of water per portion, over a low flame or in a 160°C (325°F) oven for 20–25 minutes, until steaming hot right through. Chill within 1 hour of serving, as for any cooked rice.
Leftovers
Cold biryani reheats better than almost anything else in this chapter. Otherwise: pull the chicken out and fold it through R081, or fry the rice with a beaten egg and shredded cabbage for a very good and entirely inauthentic breakfast.
Troubleshooting
Rice mushy at the bottom, hard on top: the masala was too wet at step 6, or the flame was too high during the dum. Boil the masala down until a spoon drawn across the base leaves a clear track.
Rice hard throughout after the dum: it was drained too early — under six minutes — or the seal leaked. Sprinkle 60 ml of hot water over the surface, reseal, and give it 8–10 minutes more.
Bland, despite everything: the shallots were not browned far enough. Fourteen minutes is the floor and eighteen is better; pale shallots make a pale biryani no quantity of garam masala will rescue.
Chicken breast dry and stringy: it cooked with the thigh for the full 15 minutes. Add the breast pieces 5 minutes after the thigh next time.
Serve with
R081 Moru Curry · R087 Moru Kachiyathu · R088 Thakkali Curry · a raita from Chapter 23 · M01 Kerala Garam Masala
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