Mutton Biryani

What Mutton Biryani is

Mutton biryani follows the identical layered, sealed method, with one difference that changes everything: goat or mutton needs far longer than rice does. The meat is either part-cooked before layering or given a much longer dum, and the result is darker, richer and more strongly spiced than the chicken version.

Dietary: Contains dairy

Allergens: Dairy

Where it comes from

Where goat is the everyday meat — across much of North India, Pakistan and Nepal — mutton biryani is the default and chicken the substitute, not the other way round. The longer cook suits an animal with more connective tissue, and the bones give the rice a depth that chicken cannot. It is the version usually cooked for weddings and Eid, in pots large enough to feed a street.

How to eat it

As with chicken biryani, raita is the only accompaniment it needs. The bones are part of the dish and the marrow is prized — expect to use your hands, and expect a plate for the bones. Take rice and meat together in one portion rather than eating the meat first. If the pot has a browned crust at the base, ask for it; it is the most sought-after part and is usually shared out deliberately.

Goes well with

• Cucumber and mint raita
• Mirchi ka salan
• Sliced onion with lemon and green chilli

Ingredients

• 1 kg Bone-in mutton or goat, cut into chunks
• 500 g Basmati rice
• 300 g Thick yoghurt — More than for chicken; it has more work to do.
• 1 tbsp Raw papaya paste — Optional, a traditional tenderiser for goat.
• 4 large Onions, thinly sliced
• 4 tbsp Ginger-garlic paste
• 2, 1 stick, 2 and 5, 6 Whole spices: bay, cinnamon, black and green cardamom, cloves
• 3 tbsp Biryani masala
• a pinch in 60 ml Saffron in warm milk
• 1 large bunch each Mint and coriander
• 5 tbsp Ghee
• to taste Salt

Spices in this dish

• Cinnamon — Warm, sweet and woody, with a faint peppery heat underneath. Cassia, the common …
• Cloves — Intensely pungent, sweet and warmly medicinal, with a numbing effect on the tong…
• Bay Leaf — Tej patta carries a warm, cinnamon-and-clove-like aroma with almost none of the …

How to cook it

1. 1Marinate overnight with a tenderiser

   Combine the mutton with yoghurt, ginger-garlic paste, papaya paste if using, biryani masala and salt, and refrigerate overnight. Goat genuinely benefits from twelve hours; this is not the same as the four hours chicken wants.

2. 2Fry the onions to birista

   Slowly fry the sliced onions in ghee until deep brown and crisp, then drain. Keep the flavoured ghee — it goes back into the pot.

3. 3Part-cook the meat

   Cook the marinated mutton in a covered pan on low heat for forty-five minutes to an hour until nearly tender, adding a splash of water only if it threatens to catch. Layering raw goat with rice is possible but needs a much longer dum and far more judgement; part-cooking is the reliable route.

4. 4Parboil the rice to 70 per cent

   Boil the soaked rice in heavily salted, whole-spiced water for four to five minutes, until each grain still has a firm white core, then drain immediately.

5. 5Layer, seal and cook on dum

   Meat in the base, rice over it, then fried onion, herbs, saffron milk and the reserved ghee. Seal tightly, four minutes on high to raise steam, then forty minutes on the lowest heat over a diffuser.

6. 6Rest before opening

   Ten minutes sealed and off the heat lets the steam settle back into the rice. Serve by lifting from one side so each plate gets rice, meat and the browned base.

Calories and nutrition

Per serving — 1 plate with raita (about 460 g)

Approximate values for a typical restaurant portion, calculated from standard ingredient tables. Actual figures vary with the kitchen, the oil used and the portion served. Not intended as medical or dietary advice.

Other dishes to read about

• Chicken Momo — Nepal's steamed dumpling, eaten by hand with a bowl of sesame-tomato achar.
• Veg Momo — The vegetarian momo, where the filling has to be seasoned harder to carry itself.
• Butter Chicken — Tandoori chicken finished in a tomato and cream gravy — mild, and deliberately so.
• Lamb Curry — Bone-in lamb cooked slowly until the sauce thickens around it.
• Chicken Biryani — Rice and marinated chicken layered raw, then sealed and steamed together.
• Veg Biryani — Vegetables cut to hold their shape, layered with rice the same way as meat.