Biryani central

Is biryani becoming Chennai’s best-known dish? Do you spell it with a brrr! As in briyani?
Or do you claim that the most authentic recipes come from down South where the horse traders from Arab countries brought their traditional foods with them? For those who have tasted the delicate fragrance of the Lucknawi, or Awadh style dish that is gently steamed in mutton stock and flavoured with saffron soaked in kewra (Pandanus leaf) water, this is the original Persian style dish, that they called ‘Birian’.Equally, however, the Hyderabadi variation where the rice and mutton, marinated by secret combinations of spices, jealously guarded by the grandmothers in every family and cooked together in large bottomed pots with small necks that would be sealed with dough is considered to be the real one.
My own grandmother claimed that she had her recipe straight from a Mrs Zairuddin, who pressed the secret of her family biryani before she and her whole clan went to Pakistan weeping copiously as they left. This is a very simple delicate version of the dish. The meat is cooked separately into a korma, the rice is three quarters boiled and the two ingredients layered very carefully in-between with a bed of mint, coriander leaves and fried onions with spoonfuls of milk to which saffron has been added and the whole thing, sealed and steam cooked. Sometimes, she would add fried cashew nuts, raisins and shards of golden onion, which is a Kerala biryani speciality. It was so good that we used to weep in memory of Mrs Zairuddin, may her soul rest in peace, whenever she made it.
Obviously there are as many different kinds of biryani as there are communities and families. In Chennai at the moment, the biryani du jour is one that I call the Turban biryani. There are different claimants as to who first invented the name. ‘Thallappakkati’ and since it’s now being settled in court, we shall not actually mention who takes the honours, except to say that the Tamil versions of the dish whether from Madurai, Dindigul or Thirunelveli use the small grained rice known as Jeeragasamba. This is altogether a good thing since it stands up against the dominance of basmati rice that is seen as the only rice worth using in a biryani. The Ambur biryani uses basmati. The Turban biryani places also give you a helping of gravy made from the mutton, or chicken bones, curd raita and papads. Hyderbadi biryanis usually include a side dish of brinjals, or fried chillies. An interesting side light is that the corner shops advertise their biryanis with the number 786 to distinguish Halal meat biryanis with the other kind. Halal biryanis are said to be compassionate, since the goat is soothed into being at peace as its throat is cut. The Chettinad variety always includes a boiled egg hidden under the mound of rice. Many of these biryanis are of a uniform brown colour these days, or lurid with artificial orange colouring that passes for saffron.
Yet it’s always served with style even in the meanest of corner shops where a large aluminium dekchi serves as portable container and buffet table. The maitre d’, usually a youth who has set up a stall digs into the dekchi with a small aluminium plate, making sure that there is one piece or two of the meat, slaps the sides into a smooth round pyramid adds the garnish and presents it to the customer as if he were the Nawab of Awadh himself.
That’s the secret of a good biryani. It’s a plain dish with hints of history hidden within its grains.