What Is Biryani?
Biryani is a South Asian one-pot dish in which lamb, mutton, beef, chicken, seafood, or a mixture of vegetables is layered with rice. The layering technique is what differentiates biryani from other rice dishes, like a pilaf or pulao. There are a couple of different ways to prepare biryani. Sometimes the raw meat is cooked with the rice; this is called the "kacchi" method (kacchi is Hindi for "raw"). In others, the meat is cooked separately, as I do in this recipe; this is called the "pakki" method (pakki is Hindi for "cooked"). Regardless of the method, aromas are infused into the meat and the rice using a combination of spices, herbs, and extracts, while saffron threads and turmeric add bright hues of orange and yellow to the otherwise white backdrop of long-grain rice. The result is a highly aromatic and colorful dish of meat and rice. There are a lot of variations of biryani—like Bombay biryani, Hyderbadi biryani, etc.—as recipes and taste preferences can be quite different from region to region and even household to household.
