Continuing with the trend, this article again focuses on another Indian spice blend. This as you have figured out from the title is a spice blend used specificaly for biriyanis, specificaly Hyderabadi biriyanis. Hyderabadi biriyanis are classified into 2 types as per the cooking process. Kachi meaning raw in which the raw marinated meat is cooked along with layer of partialy cooked rice on top with the lid sealed for the dum process and Pakki meaning cooked in which meat is cooked beforehand then the almost cooked rice is layered on top followed by the dum process. A lot of spices go into the meat while making a biriyani. These spices mainly contain aromatics, spice powders and whole spices along with tenderizers. Earlier back in 2014 when i strated learning about biriyani i used to add a lot of spices into the meat while marinating or cooking the meat. which contained powdered spices, tenderizers and whole spices.
Adding whole spices to your biriyanis ruins your mouthfeel while enjoying them. So, later as i came across many other recipes and techniques. I thought of combining most of the dry spices and turning them into a raw fine powder which can go into the meat so that you dont have to add any other dry spice separately. This makes the job easier. Yes, there are a lot of prepackaged biriyani spice powders available which are generaly just dry roasted garam masala with preservatives and few components here and there. Besides that you have to add other spices separately into the meat.
Here is where my spice blend stands out. This powdered spice blend contains almost all of the dry ingredients that go into the meat. It is a raw blend which is ideal for low and slow cooking. It contains some exotic ingridients that are unique to hyderabadi biriyani including an aromatic tenderising agent along with the usual Garam masala blend (see my previous article on garam masala blend). Add this magic powder to your meat for the biriyani and see the difference. The recipe is as follows:
Hyderabadi Shahi Biriyani Masala
Equipment
- Grinder
Ingredients
- 20 grams coriander seed
- 20 grams cumin seed
- 15 grams Turmeric Powder
- 15 grams Red chilli powder
- 10 grams Kashmiri chilly powder
- 10 grams black cumin seed
- 8 grams clove
- 6 grams blackpepper corn
- 10 grams fennel seed
- 3 Bayleaf medium
- 3 black cardomomn
- 15 green cardomomn
- 1 stick cinamon 3-4 inches
- 3 star anise
- 4 mace
- 1/2 nutmeg
- 6 grams cubeb pepper
- 1 kapok bud large
- 2 and 1/2 tbsp Stone flower natural meat tenderiser
- 3 tbsp dry rose petal
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
- Grind all the ingridients into a fine powder. Strain and again grind the grits.
- Repeat this process to get the maixmum amount of spice powder. Discard the remaining grits
Notes
- This recipe gives 151 grams of spice powder as the end product.
- Keep in an air tight container.
