Monday, January 24, 2011

Chicken Biryani, aka, What can I do with these Leftovers

Earlier this week I was looking around for a new recipe to try.  We had some leftover rice in the fridge, and I had some cooked chicken, and I wanted to come up with a way to use them.  Stir fry has been done to death, and of course I've already done burritos here for the blog, so it was definitely time to try a different tack.   In my search, I came across biryani.  Every culture has their own version of this, but generally is a dish made with rice, meat or veggies, and some kind of spiced sauce.  I based mine loosely on a variety of chicken curry recipes I've tried.


Chicken Biryani
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 cup almond slivers
1/2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tbsp ginger paste
2 tbsp garam masala
1 tbsp madras curry powder
2 large Roma tomatoes, chopped
1 can chickpeas
1 cup cooked chicken
1/2 cup chicken broth
2-3 cups cooked rice

1.  Preheat oven to 300F
2.  Put oil in wok or pan over medium-high heat.  Saute onions, almonds, garlic and ginger until onions are golden brown.
3.  Turn heat down to medium and add garam masala, curry powder and tomatoes.  Cook until liquid from tomatoes had evaporated.
4.  Turn heat to medium-low.  Add chickpeas (with the liquid), chicken and broth to pan. Simmer 3-5 minutes, or until all ingredients have combined into a nice, smooth sauce.
5.  Take a baking dish (I used a regular 9x13 dish), and begin layering the ingredients, starting with the rice.  Continue until you have used all the ingredients (I was able to get one layer of each, but in an 8x8 pan, you might get two layers of each), making sure to end up with curry on the top (so the sauce cooks down through the rice).
6.  Cover with foil and cook for 30 minutes.
7.  Mix the layers together before serving.  Enjoy!