Sprinkle some salt on the meat and let stand for 15-20 minutes. Wash the meat and drain all water.
Take all the spice from red chili to caraway seed, grind
Take the pot where biryani will be cooked. Add the meat and yogurt, ground spice mix, garlic and ginger paste and salt. Marinate for anywhere between 30 minutes to overnight
Add about 2 tablespoon of butter/ghee on a frying pan on medium heat.Add some sugar, just a little to the oil before adding the onion
Add very thinly sliced onion and sautee until fragrant and golden brown
Wash, peel and cut the potato in big chinks. Usually into 2 pieces for a medium potato. Sprinkle some salt.Fry the potatoes until slightly golden on the same pan used for the onion
Wash rice and drain all water
Boil 3 cups of water. Add salt.Add the rice
Turn off the stove at the first sight of water boiling (bubble forming on the water) after adding the rice. Rice will be uncooked at this point
Add the saffron to the milk and warm. keep aside
Add butter/ghee to 1 cup of hot water that was set aside
Add the prepared potatoes on top of the marinated meat
Sprinkle some fried onion
Add the alubokhara (prunes), if using
Add half the water-butter mixture
Layer in the prepared rice
Sprinkle the remaining water-butter mixture. Add the remaining hot water in a way that water doesn’t go above the rice layer. You may not need to use all of the hot water. Be careful at this step. water should not go top of rice other wise you would have soggy biryani
Sprinkle the saffron milk
Sprinkle some fried onion
Close the lid tightly of the handi and seal it with the dough
Now the final task is to put this on dum or slow cooking. For the mutton to be fully cooked this has to be put on heat for at least an hour. So to prevent it from burning I always put the handi on a tawa/skillet and not directly
Serve with salad, kebab and chutney. Add the hard boiled egg
Recipe Notes
Note:
Meat and rice ratio is 2:1 is the main mantra
You can cook this in oven too. Heat up your fan oven 180C. Close the lid tightly of the handi and seal it with the dough. Place is the oven for 1.5 hours. I have not tried this method yet. But my mother does. Note that every oven is different hence heating time might be different.