Biryani is considered one of the most popular South Asian and Middle Eastern rice dishes. It is a hearty dish in which raw meat is cooked in a mixture of spices and then layered with plain Basamati rice. Biryani can be made with chicken or lamb (it can even be made vegetarian) and is usually served as the main dish of a large family banquet or dinner.

Among the best known types of biryani is the Hyderabadi style of biryani. Hyderabadi biryani is a variety of biryani that consists of marinating the meat in a combination of yogurt, vegetable oil and spices / aromatics and then cooking the meat directly with boiled rice. This varies from other types of biryani in which the meat and masala (that is, the spices) are cooked in vegetable or canola oil and then layered on top of the rice and baked in the oven.

Sadly, I think there are some aspects of Hyderabadi biryani that actually make it less flavorful than other types of biryani. This is where I feel Hyderabadi biryani errs:

1) All spices and aromatics must be cooked in oil. This is almost certainly the most critical mistake Hyderabadi biryani makes. Simmering the necessary biryani seasonings (for example, ginger garlic paste, chili powder, turmeric, cardamom) in oil allows these spices to release their full flavor in the masala oil, much more than is produced when they are simply mixed with cold yogurt and oil. . If spices and aromatics are not heated, the necessary chemical reactions that give off much of the flavor simply cannot take place. Hyderabadi biryani loses a lot of flavor and spice due to this bug.

2) Cooking raw meat for thirty minutes does not leave it tender. Most Hyderabadi biryani recipes suggest that the marinated yogurt meat be layered directly in a pot and then baked in the oven with the semi-cooked basmati rice. This does not give you tender meat. The only method to make the meat tender is to cook it slowly for a minimum of an hour and a half. Biryani recipes that recommend just thirty to forty minutes of cooking honestly won’t.

3) Flavor the basmati rice. Sadly, the biggest flavor I’ve seen incorporated into plain basmati rice in a Hyderabadi biryani recipe was simply a couple of cardamom pods or spices placed in the pot of water the rice is boiling in. This will give the plain rice a slight aroma, however it will not add any substantial flavor to the rice. To give the plain biryani rice a genuine flavor, you need to add a little masala oil to the boiled rice when you are preparing it for baking.

So even though Hyderabadi biryani is the most well-known type of biryani, in my opinion, it is certainly not the tastiest.