So I made Sindhi (layering) Chicken Biryani yesterday for the first time 
Nobody liked it 
Pic nai li?
what went wrong? If you don’t mind me asking ? meaning, was the flavor off, or rice mushy.. etc ?
Life is difficult…
LP, pic ka khayal aya tha but juld he zehan sy nikal gya bcz of so much else going on around. But it looked & smelled quite nice. The aroma that arose after ‘dum’ made me hungry too. But jub first bite li tau… 
akaprincess, actually all of us are quite used to eating mom made biryani. This biryani I made was a surprise. Nobody knew because I was making it in my studio (kitchen) with the recipe I saw online. I added all the spices as per the recipe. It tasted ‘okay’ but not like my mom’s we all are familiar with. My mother’s dishes all have very balanced spices. I think I miscalculated the proportions. The recipe I saw was for 1/2 kg chicken. Mine was 1+ kg so I increased the amount of all the spices & think went overboard so after mixing the gravy with rice, the spices & their aroma was slightly more than what everyone’s used to. And I love adding lots of coriander leaves and mint leaves in most of my dishes so those were also too much and also the tomatoes layering also had too many pieces. Plus, the rice although not mushy but towards the softer side hence it looked and tasted like ‘masala’ biryani than Sindhi. Rice looked lesser than gravy. And biggest lesson I learned yesterday. Never use common 2-3 years old premium rice for biryani. Always always always use BASMATI rice. Any other type of rice are not meant for biryani. But my sister who also is a newbie in cooking (She started cooking after her marriage) liked the taste of my biryani. She said its not that bad. My mother also said that spices are not balanced but more than they’re supposed to be. Unki strong khushbu muj samait sb k sr py charh gyi & we could not eat like we normally eat mom made biryani.
Next time, I am really going to control my urge of using more spices for more flavor. Balance is the key for a nice flavor, not use of spices in larger quantities.
PP, really? Aw
we did see you making that stuff, we also saw nobody liked it…
when I make food, I do the same, when it comes to doubling up the spices, but yes it does depend which spices you are using.. for example, typically peppercorn isn’t doubled up because the taste is too strong and will overtake the other flavors.. I use basmati only for rice dishes, I never tried any others so I can’t say how they are.
practice will make you perfect at biryani, don’t worry 
I have been making biryani for years and even now sometimes I have my off moments with it. And you know what, mom’s food will always be mom’s food, no one can beat it 
so don’t feel bad it doesn’t taste like hers hehee
Teehee… That’s what I told my sister when she refused to eat it after seeing a plate full of more masala & loads of spices than rice. She said, “If you expect me to eat it then you shouldn’t. I feel full just by the smell of it” I said, “You must know that this is the very first time I have made biryani & not with mom’s recipe. I’m not such a bad cook.” Then she reluctantly agreed to try it. And then said it wasn’t that bad. Although, she still ate mom made ghiyya/gosht & chicken shami kebabs 
my mom, however, was not impressed at all. She is the one who told me it’s stupidity to not use BASMATI rice for cooking. She said 2-3 years old rice are only used for dishes like kheer where you require the rice to become mushy. And basmati rise up / become full after being cooked & offcourse taste much better. I actually confused ‘premium quality’ rice with BASMATI rice. When i looked at the packet again, nowhere did it say, “BASMATI” rice. Premium quality does not mean BASMATI. Never bought rice in my life before so learned a new lesson.
And I doubled all the spices like jaifal /jaivatri, black cardamom, cinnamon, zeera, haldi, pepper corns, cloves, tezpaat, green chillies & every possible thing that goes into biryani 
awww don’t get discouraged. if you like to cook, keep trying.
I alternate between boxed masala and making my own mixes to change up flavor. I try to use “my own” as much as I can because I get to control quantities, whereas boxed is premixed obviously. there are plenty of mixes you can find online to make at home, including youtube for biryani, karahi, haleem etc. the chef will tell you to add certain quantities of the ingredients which you can put in a jar and use when needed. you can try those also.
everyone has a different “haath ka zaika” when it comes to cooking, I’m sure you have heard of that .. I used to think I was a great cook lol my khushfemi was taken away recently lolllll and now I’m trying to get my taste back
about the rice, I haven’t heard of premium quality, whatever that means lol.. I have heard of sila rice which I think is also used to kheer and stuff like that. .. ahu bara (it’s the one with the deer on it) is the best basmati in my opinion.. try a few brands to find your favorite.
and hey, at least to me, having more masala is better than having pheeka food :k:
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Yeah there are mixes available but I don’t want to depend on them. I want to learn proper cooking & as you said, vary & have knowledge of & control on what ingredients go into any dish I make & create my own unique taste. My mother also said I should have asked her the recipe instead of using from internet. I wanted to be ‘different’, unique, possibly better. I do think it was not so bad for a first. My mother ate little bit in the morning & said only prbs are stronger spices & wrong type of rice.
Yes, I heard 'sela ’ rice being used for zarda. I will check out ‘ahu bara’. My mother said ahe uses ‘Guard’. I remember seeing super kernal in kitchen long long time ago. Maybe she has changed to guard I didn’t notice but gonna try those next.
I only knew that BASMATI rice are supposedly premium quality. When i saw the packet with that label, in my mind, I got them confused with BASMATI. My mother said they were not BASMATI. So I went to get the packet to show her & realised nowhere did it say ‘BASMATI’ on the packet. Only ‘premium quality’. Whereas BASMATI supposedly 10 years old.
And I totally agree that having more masaala in life is definitely better than pheekapan 
And by the way, thanks for the encouragement 
I just recall that I have also tried a BASMATI rice called ‘Falak’ to make palao some time ago and they had turned out quite decent.
Also I just ate little bit of biryani from yesterday & it tasted so good. My mother left for another city today or would have made her taste now & get a second opinion from her. They aren’t really that bad. Rice are softer, not full & firm but not mushy either & spices not too over. Maybe my mother is tougher in her feedback so I stay humble & try harder.
so anyways, 2 lessons for next time. BASMATI rice / lesser spices.
Did somebody say biryani 
Its been forever since I ate Sindhi biryani
The monkeys are coming to get ya…
The other other is already very close to you, but you cannot see it
@SID_NY “The interview”??
Oh so you’re a biryani lover. I like it only if made by mom otherwise it’s just another food item. And with so many mixes available, you can make it too. I followed a recipe by Food Fusion. It’s quite nice if the proportions are followed exactly as in the recipe or spice quantities made less incase you don’t like too much masala gravy. I made it for the first time not because I like it but because my sister likes it & I heard from different people (except mother) that making good biryani is tricky. And to me, most kind of challenges are simply excitement. So I made it for some excitement 
is sindhi biryani actuallly sindhi?
third string, my mother grew up in Karachi & said the recipe she follows is ‘Sindhi Biryani’. The one I made was very similar to hers because it involved layering. I made only one layer of all ingredients but she makes 2-3 layers of rice/gravy & 1 layer of all the other ingredients.
i need to know the origins
^^ Whose origin? Mine? I think my ancestors were Egyptian Jews. WTH does that have to do with biryani? Maybe the dish is as old as the Jewish religion hmm…