Awadhi Cuisine - Rice Preparations

Rice Preparations

Biryani derives from the Persian word Birian, which means "roasted before cooking." Biryani is a mixture of basmati rice, meat, vegetables, yogurt, and spices. Lucknow biryani or awadh airyani is a form of pukki biryani. Pukki means "cooked." Both meat and rice are cooked separately, then layered and baked. The process also lives up to the name biryani in the Persian meaning "fry before cooking'.

It has three steps. First, the meat is seared in ghee and cooked in water with warm aromatic spices till tender. The meat broth is drained. Second, the rice is lightly fried in Ghee, and cooked in the meat broth from the previous step. Third, cooked meat and cooked rice are layered in a handi. Sweet flavours are added. The handi is sealed and cooked over low heat. The result is a perfectly cooked meat, rice, and a homogenous flavour of aromatic meat broth, aromatic spices and sweet flavours.

Among various Biryani the Lucknow and Hyderabad style are dominant, with a friendly rivalry. Chitrita Banerji a Bengali writer in her book Eating India: exploring a nation’s cuisine in an inevitable comparison between Awadhi and Hyderabadi biriyani, picked the Awadhi version as the winner.

The vegetarian version of biryani might have some Textured vegetable protein based protein balls to present the impression of a meat-based dish for vegetarians.

The difference between biryani and pullao is that pullao is made by cooking the meat in ghee with warm aromatic spices until the meat is tender, then adding rice and cooking in the sealed pot over low heat till done—but with biryani, the rice is boiled or parboiled separately in spiced water and then layered with meat curry or marinade (depending on the type of biryani), then sealed and cooked over low heat until done.

Tehri is the name given to the vegetarian version of the dish and is very popular in Indian homes.