• Rinse 0.5 kg of basmati rice softly in clean water. Repeat it again to clean it fully and then soak it in a bowl of fresh water. Keep it aside.
• Meanwhile boil 4 eggs if you are going to prepare egg biryani. Keep it aside.
• Take a suitable vessel that can cook ½ kg rice. Place it on the small burner and light the burner. (prefer 3 or 4 litres vessel so that we can avoid spill over while cooking).
• Add 200 gm (3 medium sized onions) of thinly sliced onions in the vessel and pour in 125 ml cooking oil to fry the content. (prefer rice bran oil, ground nut oil or refined sunflower oil).
• Add 3 small pieces of cinnamon, 3 pieces of clove and 3 pieces of cardamom. Also, we need to add 1 piece of star anise.(We need to add these 4 spices to bring out good flavor in our biryani)
• Keep the flame in high, start stirring (frying) the onion and spices together till onion turns brownish red.
• After the onions turn brownish red, turn the flames to LOW (simmer).
• Take 50 gm of peeled ginger and 25 gm of garlic, grind them until it becomes paste. Add this ginger-garlic paste and stir it for another 10 seconds.
• Ginger-garlic paste is one of the main ingredients which gives rich taste and flavor to the biryani.
• Add ¾ tablespoon of red chili powder and ¾ tablespoon of iodized salt.
• Add 100 ml of curd and 2 green chilies.
• Now, stir the contents for another 10 seconds to mix well. (The secret behind adding chili powder is that it will mix well in oil and give good colour to the biryani.
• Add 200 gm (3 medium sized) of sliced tomatoes.
• Turn the flame to HIGH and start stir frying the contents for at least 3 minutes.
• Add exactly 800 ml of water.
• Keep the flame in high – close the vessel with a suitable lid – allow the water to boil for 2 to 3 minutes.
• Now, remove the lid, gently stir the contents for 5 seconds.
• Close the lid, keep the flame in LOW and allow the water to boil for another 10 minutes in low flame.
• It’s time to add the already cleaned ½ kg of basmati rice to the contents in vessel.
• Start to stir gently the contents so that rice and masala mix well.
• Turn the flame to high. Close the lid – leave it to boil for 1 minute exactly.
• Open the lid, turn the flame to LOW now. It’s time to check the taste of salt and spice.
• Take a drop of water from the middle of vessel and taste it.
• In case if we feel saltness or spiciness is needed, we can add a little accordingly.
• Skip the below step alone to prepare plain biryani.
• It’s time to add 4 boiled eggs to the vessel.
• We can slice the egg at the sides. Slicing at the sides will enable egg to absorb the masala. (We can add up to 10 boiled eggs if needed, there is no need to change the spice/salt or water level)
• Sprinkle ¼ table spoon of garam masala on the top – this will give good flavor.
• Close the lid, keep the flame in low – allow the contents to cook for approximately 10 minutes.
• Remove the lid, first remove and keep the eggs in a side of the vessel so that we don’t break it.
• Now we can gently take the rice out to serve.

Serving Suggestion:

We can have Onion Raitha, Brinjal Chutney and Sweets as side dish to get greater taste.