A world renowned dish, The whole meal! BIRIYANI. The aroma of the Basmati rice, steamed with authentic Indian spices, chunky pieces of mutton or chicken. Initially introduced by the Nizams of Hyderabad, its taste was said to be so divine that it was presented as a reward to the soldiers, to those who would fight, win and were lucky enough to witness another sunset.
Each city has its own way of trademarking its Biryani, mostly varying on the method of cooking and ingredients. There are two methods layering or pakka method and other is the Dum method. While in the pukka method layers of meat and rice are cooked together, in the kutchi style they are cooked separately and then later mixed together.
The biryanis from southern part of India consist of various spices and tomatoes. The biriyani from dindugul, a region in Tamil Nadu is made using 18 different spices and a special variety of rice knows as “jeeraga samba”. The biriyani in other regions are made using basmati rice, and ingredients vary in regions.
Lucknow Biriyani
The capital of Awadh region,the famous lucknowi or Mughlai biriyani is from this region. The cooking is usually done in dum method where the meat is cooked in ghee and whole spices and the rice and meat is layered on top of each other and garnished with saffron milk.
Calcutta Biriyani
This biriyani fills our stomach to our hearts content. This is a simple biriyani with just a flavor of the meat and rice with potatoes.
Hyderabad Biriyani
This biriyani is a layered biriyani with various spices and usually made up of mutton or ghosth. The meat and the rice is cooked in separate pots and mixed together and is out on Dum. Dum refers to medium of heat from exterior side of the pot.
Thallasherry Biriyani
From the region of Thallasherry amidst the malabar region, made with thallsherry kozhi also knows chicken. The meat of chicken is bit hard as it’s country grown. The biriyani is spicy with coconut oil, the biriyani is served with the gravy on the bottom and rice on top. The gravy is cooked separately with lot of brown onions. And the rice is cooked in boiling method with cashews.
To conclude, whatever the style of biriyani it’s always mouthwatering when you see and you are in heaven when you take the first bite of this dish.
Anirudh Reddy
Reddy’s blog 