Marinated chicken cooked with fragrant basmati rice in curated spices makes this India’s most popular one pot meal.

My connection with biryani is a long one. My mother, an excellent food connoisseur, absolutely loved cooking. As a young bride, my mother learned from her mother many Mughlai cuisines and Biryani is one such dish.

On the day that mum made her biryani, the entire house would be buzzing with activity.  Since the moment she dropped all her spices in the hot pan of ghee — cardamom, cloves, whole black peppers, and more. As she laid the meat and rice painstakingly, then cover the pot with dough before cooking the biryani, the excitement of eating would increase with each passing hour.

Once it was eventually time to break through the hard, sealed dough and serve the biryani, the trapped fragrance would be released around the house.  The whole table would be in complete silence. For a good half hour, the silence around the table spoke volumes.

As a son, I learned from my mother the art of making Biryani and I continue to carry that tradition forward.