4 Levels of Biryani: Amateur to Food Scientist | Epicurious

[Music] i'm steven and i'm a level one chef i'm rinco and i'm a level two chef i'm danielle alex creator of diversity kitchen and i've been a professional chef for 15 years this recipe was developed over the weekend i tried it on my girlfriend actually so i'm wishing her a speedy recovery i'm joking she survived the biryani i'm making today is called kachi biryani kachi means raw so the rice and the shrimp cooked together they aren't pre-cooked before we start i wanted to take a lot of the traditional components and elements of making birani however i'm using freaka grain instead of basmati [Music] the first step of making biryani is the rice we're gonna take basmati rice put it in the colander take your eight cups of water this is how much you're supposed to drink in a day wash it off oh yeah that's nice soak the rice to loosen some of the starch this seems right this makes the rice more fluffy let it soak for at least 30 minutes freaking grain it kind of has like a green hue kind of got like a smoky flavor and it's a great source of fiber the water is boiling i add salt to the water add your rice like so and then you mix it up i'm going to give it 10 minutes and then i'm going to come back and see where it is you left it on for 15 minutes drain the rice before it gets all mushy next time we're going to use a rice cooker let's make everybody's life easier no water weight and here is my rice now i'm going to prep the rest of the ingredients we're going to start with the lamb prep i'm gonna cut it up into two inch cubes and i'm gonna put this in my bowl so i will start making the marinade for the shrimp garlic break off a piece of ginger i'm using the side of the spoon take the skin off you don't need to peel it and i love using a microplane because it gets it nice and fine so fennel seeds coriander seeds grind these first but smelling nice already nutmeg goes in cayenne pepper mace my mother's bengali garam masala cardamom cloves and cinnamon [Music] and then my yogurt not greek yogurt just a plain unsweetened yogurt it starts to tenderize the meat already a little bit of salt [Music] the shrimp has been shelled and deveined it's very important the shrimp goes in i am covering it and ideally i would leave this overnight and just really let this kind of marinate letting it rest for about an hour you know a few hours is good too bye-bye shrimp now we're going to go ahead and start prepping our vegetables we take the potatoes we're attempting to cut one inch cubes could we do it i don't know life's crazy sometimes doesn't work out i do not like the skins on so i missed a step i forgot to peel the potatoes before i cut them but we will survive do you need to peel the potato it just makes for a nicer and smoother texture you're not going to have a soggy skin that's kind of half falling off i like to use these smaller baby potatoes because i can leave them whole they look nicer i think in the rice and it's less work for me then we just hold those in the water so they don't brown now the tomato is there any skin i should peel on this before i move any further i'm going to make this into cubes now we're going to work with the ginger oh now you want to use the potato peel i hear your judgment and i acknowledge it and i deserve it then i'm gonna grate it i think this is enough my bicep safe this is enough garlic smash it take off the skin i'll do the onions even though it's gonna make me cry time for some catharsis i can already feel these onions are strong so as you can see i want to do them nice and thin i might need a makeup retouch the onions are all done we're going to peel the carrots the reason i'm cutting it like this is because i think it's pretty did i peel the carrots you know what do i need to peel the peas okay so now we have everything ready to go so now we can start cooking i'm gonna place some ghee into my pot add garam masala chili powder clove star anise indian bay leaf cumin seeds cinnamon stick cardamom pods turn this down a touch add ginger garlic paste oh yeah it smells great then i'm gonna add my lamb a touch of salt black pepper so i'm just gonna give this a little toss i'm gonna add half an onion there add water and then i'm going to add my rose water and scrubbing water i'm going to go ahead and let this simmer for about an hour until the lamb is nice and tender first we're going to start with our vegetable oil you want to get the oil to a nice fryable temperature i'm gonna take my ghee add our butter move this around and then we're gonna add our onions yeah that's what you wanna hear you wanna hear that sizzle the temperature is friable when you're seeing a lot of good bubbles around the onion i'll actually do this in two batches to make sure that you're using a lower heat so we fry the onions for about 10 minutes i am putting it on paper towels to allow the excess oil to drain out set them aside batch two and here are my caramelized onions a little bit of salt now i'm gonna par cook my potatoes and i'm gonna put them in some water i'm gonna add my turmeric to the pot with a nice pinch of salt get these onions sweating some extra vegetable oil if you mix turmeric with cayenne pepper you get this very nice deep orange color but turmeric happens to be very good for you so it's a bonus okay so it's come to a boil so i'm going to turn this down to a simmer a gentle bubble add in the potatoes giving the potatoes a quick sear that locks the spices around them i'm not cooking them all the way through because they're going to finish cooking once i assemble the birani here are my potatoes now i'm going to make my saffron milk so to get the color out of the saffron i steep it in some milk i'm gonna add my rose water first scrupine water and then my saffron and just give it a nice little stir and you sit there we can move on to our frika i'm going to use part of this wonderful broth that's very flavorful to par cook our frica and i like to just double strain this through the cheesecloth and through a finer sieve and there you know we can pick out our cinnamon stick we'll pick out our star anise our onion i'm draining out the water from the soaked rice sometimes some skin gets in the game now i'm gonna measure out a little bit of the lamb broth with water to par cook our freaka and there we go it has great color i'm gonna add my water and i like to add a touch of lemon because it just brightens it up a little teaspoon bay leaf clove cardamom sometimes you know too you can just open them up give them a little like smash and release some of that pinch of salt and my frica we're only par cooking this right the freak has now come to a boil so i'm just going to reduce it to a simmer and let it simmer for about five to eight minutes to par cook it so perfect i'm just gonna strain this my freak is par cooked so now we can get started on the assembly of the birani so now that our onions are sweating we want to add our garlic and then our ginger and then you want to cook this for about a minute cinnamon bay leaves are in i stir the rice for about a minute add in a little bit of salt some more ghee and then our ginger garlic paste curry powder cayenne smells like i know what i'm doing the garam masala mix it up good and then we're going to add our cumin our chili so i like to let that cook out for a minute now we're gonna add potatoes black peppercorns because they are smaller i am putting them in a spice bag cloves and didn't know and then i'm gonna add my lamb and we still have the bay leaf from when we cook the lamb it's no problem just leave it in there we're gonna add our water this is about two cups and then we're gonna add the cake carrot i'm going to add a pinch of salt crack some pepper so i take half of the rice mixture and put it out so i have half the rice at the bottom creating the base layer here's another fun ingredient dried plums shrimp goes in and it's chopped with the remaining rice this has been cooking for about 10 minutes the potato skins are now tenderized now we're gonna add in our green peas we're gonna mix them around we got these beautiful caramelized onions we're gonna add half of those the remaining stays for garnishing and we're gonna add our rice oh yeah that's nice and then we can add our potatoes and add my milk and my broth and then i'm gonna add my paprika now we're gonna add our yogurt we're gonna add some more salt sprinkle the saffron to give it a nice treat the downside to using frika unlike basmati is since basmati is white you can really see the strands of the saffron and the saffron milk because i'm using frica it's not going to have that dynamic bright color that kind of comes through when you use white basmati rice add in some more curry before we put half a teaspoon so now we put another half a teaspoon we're going to mix it up another half a teaspoon of cumin and cayenne turn this down the water's down you don't want to burn your rice so making a fairly stiff dough you'll see what i do with it flour water half the joy of cooking is being able to get your hands dirty this is an old ancient trick if you want it long enough to seal your pot so adding in the water two parts of water to every one cup of basmati rice so i added some ghee to this biryani spice bar goes in so now i am creating the seal to my pot which traps the steam and all the flavors the biryani is on very low heat sealed shut now i give this about 45 minutes i like to check on it really about 25 minutes after just to make sure that all my liquid has not evaporated and make sure that it's not at a rolling boil you want those spices and that that broth to really just take its time and the freaka grain to absorb all that good flavor so biryani is done now i'm letting it rest for about 10 minutes while this is happening this biryani gets a lot of garnishes and what i like to do is just fluff it mix it right because we have onions on the bottom we have carrots and we have the lamb that looks actually pretty good if this tastes good i will bring it home and my girlfriend will try it and she will see how it was supposed to come up if it isn't this never happened but the first ingredient in my garnish is the cucumber tomatoes i'll just add some balance because then you have like the hot rice then the cold tomato and it's like oh what's that freshness you eat that freshness yes the egg so the second egg i'm not slicing it i am trying to cut it halfway through see my egg flour now for the moment of truth i have to pry this open that's how tightly it sealed my pot look at that i think it looks great the last thing that i add to this before i plate and add the garnishes is rose water this is too subtle a flavor to hold its sole if you add it while the biryani is cooking add in pistachios almonds fried onions we finish it with some of our caramelized onions and then i like to add a touch of fresh cilantro this is how you could tell i'm a vegetarian i try to put all the greens in one plate here is my egg flour and to serve the biryani i have raita this is a yogurt salad this wrath is a pineapple and red onion raita you cannot have biryani without raita and this is my biryani here is my biryani my rendition of lamb birani [Music] make sure you got a little bit of everything sound good this time around i think my girlfriend would like it just because it's spicy this time it didn't come out mushy and i followed the recipe to a tea this time i forgot to peel the potatoes and carrots but besides that nailed it this is everything i'm looking for in this biryani the difference between mine and say a traditional is that i really am getting more of that freak of flavor where as you bite it kind of pops in your mouth different but still very good biryani is an indian dish that's layered with flavorful grains and other ingredients and served with the yogurt sauce the word biryani comes from the word biryan which basically means to fry before cooking let's see how each of our three chefs made theirs steven and rinku both used basmati rice basmati is an aromatic rice that's traditionally grown in the fertile soil of the himalayan mountains in india and pakistan it's an extra long slender grain with a slight indentation at the tip it's slightly sweet nutty and floral and has an exquisite aroma the primary aroma compound which is released during cooking is two acetyl one pyrulene which is present in most varieties of rice but up to ten times higher concentration in basmati incidentally the same compound is found in popcorn steven soaked his basmati rice to remove some of the naturally starchy exterior of the grain this seems right used an excess of water for boiling his rice and then drained it rice foiled in an excess of water can become mushy and deformed by the force of the water on the rice when it's poured from the pot to the strainer make sure you have the right amount of water rinco used the correct ratio of water to rice so that the maximum amount of water was absorbed to produce the fluffiest rice which was about one and a third to one and a half cups water to one cup basmati rice danielle used frica which is a whole grain derived from young wheat that has been roasted and cracked it's traditionally used in the middle east and northern africa this ancient grain unlike a lot of others has not been modified it's a grain that is pretty pure to what they were eating thousands of years ago it has a roasted and slight smoky aroma and flavor from the development of pyrazine molecules during roasting it's more nutrient dense than most rice varieties with higher protein and fiber so induces a slower glycemic response or blood sugar spike than rice it's slightly chewy and dense compared to the basmati rice that our level one and two chefs used the typical cooking ratio is two to two and a half cups of water to one cup frica steven didn't peel his carrots or potatoes which is fine since both are thin however sometimes potato peels can contain solinine which is concentrated in bright green spots solenin is a potent neurotoxin so be sure to check your potatoes and remove any green spots that you find if i had to do it over again i would have peeled the carrot and i would have peeled the potatoes rinku added high fat sour cream and blended all these ingredients together to make a paste and marinated her shrimp in it for several hours the longer the marinade time the better the penetration but be careful if you leave a protein too long in an acidic marinade you may get a mushy texture due to the proteolysis of the proteins that come in contact with the acid she marinated her shrimp for two hours which gave a perfect result danielle marinated her lamb meat in a ginger yogurt sauce yogurt has a low ph value because lactic acid bacteria ferment lactose a sugar and milk and converted to lactic acid as the ph drops the milk proteins become destabilized and combined with other constituents in the milk that has the effect of becoming thick the acid is an excellent marinade for the tougher cuts of lamb that she used in her biryani rinku toasted her ricing ghee which adds a nutty flavor profile to her biryani this toasting or dextronization shortens the starch molecules and makes the rice less likely to stick together a lot of the cloudiness is the loose starch in the water danielle sauteed her seasoned lamb to brown it and develop toasted and roasted flavor notes from the mared reaction she then braised it in water with rose water and cura or screw pine water screw pine is a type of shrub with long palm-like straight aromatic it adds floral flavor to danielle's biryani its main flavor compound is the same found in basmati rice 2 aceto 1 pureline we call it acetyl pyrlene the flavor compounds are extracted during a steeping process in water these are traditional flavors that you will find in more of a traditional birani next time you're in the mood for a layered dish that's full of flavor and so satisfying we hope you'll take some of these tips from our three insightful chefs and they said i couldn't do it i don't know who said it i know someone said

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 999,569

Keywords: 4 levels, 4 levels of biryani, best biryani, biryani, biryani recipe, biryani rice, briyani, chicken biryani, chicken biryani recipe, easy biryani, epi, epicurious, epicurious 4 levels, epicurious biryani, freekeh, homemade biryani, kacchi biryani, kacchi biryani recipe, lamb biryani, lamb biryani recipe, make biryani, make biryani rice, make chicken biryani, make shrimp biryani, restaurant biryani, restaurant style biryani, shrimp biryani, shrimp biryani recipe

Id: fxzymt2ZZwo

Length: 19min 51sec (1191 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 10 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Merru]

Never in my life i though I would see shrimp dhum "biryani".

[u/[deleted]]

Boiled eggs in biryani? Why?

[u/[deleted]]

All the recipes were pretty terrible.

[u/ali9800]

Ammi's home-made Karachi biryani for life!

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/hotmugglehealer]

I'm not strong enough to watch this.