Sohla El-Waylly offers a simplified version of the layered chicken and rice dish

Difficulty: 2/5

Ingredient Availability: 4/5 Time: 4 hrs 15min

I’m no expert on chicken biryani, but from the first time I tried it, I was hooked. The flavors were deep yet fresh, a near perfect mix of richness, fragrant spices, and acidity. Paired with some raw onions, or whatever sauce the restaurant gave that day, this dish was always well rounded and satisfying. So, when I saw this recipe from Sohla El-Waylly from Bon Appetit, I was intrigued and excited. Looking at the ingredient list, I was immediately struck by the lack of spices and flavorings. After that, there was the whopping call for 3/4 cup of salt (worry not, this is not a problem at all). In the synopsis of this recipe on the website, Sohla describes this biryani as a simplified version of the dish, while adding that “biryani is all about the rice.” After about an hour of prep, an overnight marination, and an hour and a half of cooking, this is the result.

Key Ingredients and Omissions:

I essentially followed this recipe exactly, with the only omission being the dried fruits because honestly, I never had fruit in any biryani before, and it didn’t seem like a necessary addition. I personally didn’t miss them, but I won’t judge if you’re faithful to the recipe.

1. I opted for ghee this time around (full disclosure, I had made this recipe once before). Although I didn’t taste them side by side, I wouldn’t say you’re missing anything by going with a neutral oil like vegetable or canola instead.

2. I already had an onion at home when I went shopping for this recipe, so Instead of buying two red onions, I just got one and used the one I already had for the fried onions in the recipe. I guarantee you that you couldn’t taste the difference.

3. I went with walnuts in this recipe. I had pine nuts and almonds at my disposal as well, but decided against them. Why? For one, I don’t like almonds at all. For two, I tried this recipe before with the pine nuts and figured out that pine nuts aren’t good for much else than pesto.

4. This Royal brand basmati rice is the best thing I could find in my local grocery store. Sohla recommends “premium aged basmati” with a “golden hue” which may require a trip to a more specialized store, but I think for most, this rice will do just fine. Perhaps, if I had done a little more looking I could’ve found a better aged rice, and perhaps it would’ve made a slight difference in the end.

Tools:

• Sharp Chef’s Knife

• Rasp Style Grater/Microplane

• Spoon (for peeling ginger)

Cooking review:

Onion Raita:

1hr 15 min (keep in mind for all times, I also took pictures )

The onion raita is a non-negotiable for this dish, you’ll find out why later. I spent most of the time in this section preparing each component to be mixed or blended together. For example, peeling the ginger alone took me at least 10 minutes (I used the spoon peeling method). On top of that, it’s hard to move forward when your eyes are burning from cutting an onion. Overall, although an hour and 15 minutes may seem like a long time for a sauce and preparing a marinade, everything was very easy and the time went by pretty quickly. After I puréed the marinade, I immediately noticed how much it looked like a raspberry or strawberry smoothie, while smelling strongly of garlic and onion in the most pleasant way possible. After the marinade was ready, I peeled the skin off of the chicken (which was very easy) and threw the chicken in the bowl with the marinade to marinate for a 24 hours. Instead of throwing away the chicken skin, I put some seasoned salt on it and baked it up for about 30-45 minutes. It would work well as a topping for this dish, ramen, a salad, or even just as a snack. You can see how this section turned out below:

Rice and Assembly:

3 hr

Finally, it’s time to put everything together. This is where that 3/4 cup of salt comes in. It’s used in 3qts of water to boil the rice, just like when you’re cooking pasta (although you probably still wouldn't use quite this much). While waiting on the water to boil, I went a head and rinsed my rice. From my understanding, this helps the rice remain as separate grains instead of clumping up. Removing the excess starch from the rice simply makes it less sticky. Although the recipe suggests 3 rinses, It took me 6 to get the water to what you see below. I rinsed the rice once more after taking that picture, for a total of 7 rinses. After that, the water was still not ready for the rice, so I proceeded to chopping the nuts, slicing the onions, and preparing the ghee. Once the water was boiling, I added the rice, which only took 4 minutes of cooking for me to get to the al dente point Sohla describes. Be careful while adding the rice, as the hot water may splash. Next, I fried the onions in the ghee, which took 11 minutes to get to the point you see below. I went an extra step and sprinkled them with salt after frying them. I fried the nuts for 4 minutes until they were browned. After frying, there were some particles left in the bottom of the pan, but they didn’t give the final result a burnt flavor at all, so don’t worry if you can’t get every little bit out. The sugar step in the recipe is pretty straight forward, but once you’re ready to add your chicken and marinade, be ready. With the little ghee left in the pot along with the sugar in the dutch oven on medium high, adding your wet chicken and marinade is sure to splatter. For me, I didn’t have to wait for the marinade to come to a simmer once added, this was pretty much immediate. The layering steps are straight forward and once everything was back on the heat, it took 10 minutes to start seeing steam escape from the lid of the dutch oven (I never heard gurgling this time, but I did the first time I made this). From this point on, you can relax. I baked  mine for 45 minutes as prescribed and let it rest for 30 minutes before disassembling the layers and digging in.

Analysis:

Now, the important part. After following all those steps you’ll be greeted with an excellent chicken and rice dish. And that’s the only problem with this recipe from a taste perspective. It’s not supposed to be just chicken and rice. I wanted chicken biryani. Don’t get me wrong, it tastes good. The chicken is very tender and the sugar definitely adds some pleasant caramelized sweetness to the dish. The rice is well cooked with a very nice texture, spot on for all the biryanis I’ve had previous to this one. There is also some nuttiness, which could be from frying the nuts in the ghee, or the sugar again (either way I like it). The nuts served along side get better the more you eat, but initially are a little strong for my taste. I personally would omit them going forward, but I might miss the textural element they add. There’s nothing really wrong about this dish at all, but for it to be great, especially for a chicken biryani, I felt it needed something more. The onion raita definitely brought this dish closer to the biryanis I’ve had before, adding some acidity and tartness like the onions and special sauced the restaurants add on the side. With all the savoriness and richness in this dish, the raita is a must make and must add for this dish to balance it all out. However, what I think is really missing here are all the different spices that make themselves obvious when I had my first biryani experience. While I do not know exactly what the restaurants used or what is traditional, I know it had to be a lot more than just cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and garlic. I can definitely tell that this is related to those other biryanis from the base flavors, but without those other stronger spices, this can’t be a great biryani. But that’s not what it was meant to be. Sohla herself said it’s a simplified version, and for that I can’t really complain. It was easy to make and a pleasant eating experience. All things considered, I have to give this a 7/10. If it were simply a chicken and rice recipe, it’d have a 10/10, but I think with the addition of a few more spices, this could’ve been a little closer to that classic biryani profile and a 10/10 in my book.