I love to make Chicken Tikka Byrianni but what is the sauce that you normally get to go with it i know 1 is Raita yoghurt but the other one when i ordered in restaurant looked a bit like Dall or Veg sauce??

Hi Nicole welcome to the site, each restaurant will do its own things but often with a dry curry like Biryani you will get things like a basic vegetable curry, sometimes mango chutney and as you say the riata

Steve

from what I can remember (I haven't had a 'restaurant' biryani in 20 years) one normally had a warmed over from frozen 'veg' curry, just flavoured mush, really.

If you are talking real Indian food, which is what this forum is all about, a chicken tikka biryani would not be a real dish. Chicken tikka is a kebab, so cooking it again in rice males no sense. I suspect your biryani is probably like the restaurant ones, just something mixed with pre-cooked rice, not an Indian dish at all.

The biryani is a complicated dish, and difficult to accomplish in its many forms (maybe as many as 40 different kinds). In a old Indian kitchen, there was only a clay range, on which the pots were heated by wood burners underneath, so an oven was not available (except for bread!). The biryani was cooked by putting the pot on the range, heated from below, then hot embers were placed on the lid, to provide heat from above, as well. One kind of biryani (a pukka one) uses raw lamb and raw rice. The difficulty is getting both to cook, the lamb usually takes up to an hour, the rice 20 minutes. Now the heat from below and above makes more sense.

Biryanis are almost certainly of a Persian influence, it even means 'fry before cooking' in Farsi, so I'm told, which sounds strange, until one considers the length of time the meat takes to cook. This sounds like biryanis where the meat is partly cooked before assembling the dish in the pot before further cooking. Biryanis would be served with other dishes, some with gravy, so the dryness of the dish would not normally be a problem.

HTH

...sometimes Lapis your hatred for Indian restaurant dishes is quite annoying. Jeez, Nicole will never want to ask a question on here again....she was only wondering what sauce accompanies a certain dish in an indian restaurant. You done have to insult the biriyani dish that she obviously enjoys making and eating. Lighten up, each to their own and all that eh?

Cheers

Steve

Hey I agree, I love cooking and eating biryani. I once watched a program where the Indian family took great delight and much time and effort cooking one in a clay pot for hours. The result looked fantastic.

that rant was mine!

I back up Lapis here, the cooking of "real" biryani is an art and is best done by Muslims (I may be wrong here). It is a painstakingly long process and precise timing and planning is the key. This is the dish where the "Ustaad" (head chef) would not allow his "Shagird" (assistants)to touch.

Watch the Hyderabadi Biryanii recipe, I came upon it today only;

http://www.ifood.tv/recipe/hyderabadi_chicken_biryani

Here are few more; http://www.indiamarks.com/guide/Biryani-Their-Kings-and-Kinds/113/

There are so many biryanies, here are few courtsey Wikipedia;

Hyderabadi Biryani

Iranian Biryani

Sindhi Biryani

Memoni Biryani

Kacchai Biryani

Tahari

Lucknowi (Awadhi) Biryani

Calcutta Biryani

Kozhikode Biryani

Thallapakattu Briyani

Thai Biryani

Sri Lankan Biryani

Malaysia's Nasi Beriani

Singapore

Shrimp Biryani

I only make 4; meat, chicken, seafood and vegetable. And Rajneesh is right, the best ones are made by good Muslim cooks who have been properly trained in the art, or thosewho have a family recipe and some well known chefs. Mine are good...ish, but not the best that I have eaten.

Very confused now, because we cannot cook it as it should be, does that mean we should not try to cook it at all? I love cooking biriyani as I have said, my efforts please me and my guests.

Surely it does not mean not to cook it at home ....that would be silly. It is just that the way the original dish is cooked is not the same as dished out in restaurants, which may be more of a fusion dish.

I do not have a tandoor but this does not stop me cooking Tandoori chicken, lamb tikka, nan etc. at home in the oven which maybe not as good as cooked in the tandoor, but delicious still. Same applies for pizzas etc..... So go for it with all guns blazing.

Well, just to throw the cat into the pigeons... I designed the site, I do much of the work on it and even help provide some of the content.

And I love British curry house food. It's an evolution and adaptation of the original cuisine, sure... but it's been around long enough now to be a recognised subcuisine of it's own that people enjoy and want to recreate.

Yes, this site is predominantly about authentic home-style Indian cooking, but it's not exclusive and it's certainly not condescending or dismissive of those who wish to emulate dishes they have enjoyed in local curry houses, authentic or otherwise.

Who knows, someone may start off by emulating those dishes and end up expanding their repertoire by trying other recipes on the site and loving them!

wilsonz, You have to try and make what you like, don?t give up. Any discussion can sometimes get heated, it doesn?t mean that one is being put down. Your Indian food doesn't have to be like restaurant food, but can be, if that is what you want and like. It is only that there aren?t many restaurant style recipes here on this site. But, there is no reason why you shouldn?t adapt any to it. One reason I don?t cook in that style is because it (I mean average curry house food) is too rich (with oil and spices) for my liking.

There are more and more very good quality Indian restaurants opening in UK , especially in big cities like London, that serve extremely good regional cuisines, as well as fusion food. These are run by properly trained, excellent chefs, rather than the old fashioned restaurant cooks, who were often people who had learnt to cook a few things only, by working as assistants in a kitchen, in the style of whoever was the main cook. They had no style of their own and not a huge repertoire. When people talk of their dislike of Indian restaurant foods, they are usually talking about such ?curry houses?, meant for people who think a curry is just and orange?ish slop with a lot of chillies, served with a yellow coloured rice, deep fried poppadum?s and onion raita!

Nicole, I personally do not serve a sauce/curry with a rich Biryani, it is a meal in itself. But restaurants do often serve some curry gravy or dish with it. After a while, they become the norm and people begin to feel that there has to be a sauce with it. That is my feeling anyway.

Biryanis are different to each region. They can be made with a meat/chicken Yakhni added to half boiled rice in layers and then putting on dum or by covering well marinated meat with half cooked rice or by mixing the meat and rice together on ?dum?. There may be other methods too, but I haven?t tried them. I sometimes make it with a leftover good curry and it turns out pretty good.

It is the special flavouring of this dish (saffron, cardamoms and other whole spices) that makes it so special. The recipes I have here give pretty good result but not the best I have eaten. By nature, I find it very difficult to use too much of unhealthy ingredients like ghee and oil and chillies, which may be one of the problem. For example, when I have made vegetable biryani with every vegetable deep fried first, it has tasted much better-more authentic, though I doubt that the original Moghuls ever ate vegetable biryani!

So, anyone who wants to try Indian food in any style they like, go for it. One more thing, Lapis is our resident scientist and has taught us all a lot about the science of food, don?t let?s forget that.

Please can we all calm down, I love cooking lots of recipes from this website, I grew up in Bradford and spent many an evening down Lumb lane visiting lots of restaurants with my uncle. He loved the sweet centre and relished their brain curry, served only with chappati's. I now live in Durham and we have only curry house of note. I cook my own style of curry picked up from numerous websites and love adapting to suit my own taste, surely this is what Indian food is all about, variety and adaptability, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Bon Appetite!

Hey, Wilsonz,

I pity you living in Durham, as far as restaurants are concerned (though Durham itself is a town I adore, what with the cathedral, the castle, and the Elvet).

During my 16 years teaching at Newcastle University, I never had a good dinner at an Indian restaurant in Durham, but that may have changed.

In nearby Newcastle, however, two decent regional Indian restaurants emerged in the 90's. It's those regional restaurants that one has to seek out in the UK, in my view. (There used to be a fab Kashmiri restaurant in Edinburgh, and I once had an Indian soup at a regional restaurant in London that was as good as any French consomm?.)

If people like bog-standard Indian restaurants, well, fine, though I confess that I share the snobbery exhibited by Lapis (for snobbery it is, but it's more than that: it's a distaste for what some of us see as dumbing-down).

Biriyani only good if cooked by muslims? Surely not! We can all learn from others.

Phil

all is clam here wilsonz i was just merely pointing out that i do not like indian restaurant food but each to their own is what i say. its jut not my thing that is all.

lapis can you tell me if green and brown cardamoms are related in anyway? i assume they are but do they contain the same chemicals? i didn't see the point in starting a new thread justto ask that question. thanks.

sid

Sid, do go ahead and start a new thread, think it will be an interesting question and easier to find in future.

Phil,

it is not snobbery on my part, I have hundreds of UK (and even Indian) 'Indian restaurant' meals, and to say,that, almost without fail, they have been poor at best, and a health hazard at worst would be an understatement. Even in India, in 'Westernized' restaurants, the food was too highly spiced (I mean spiced, not chilli hot) and too oily. Even my Indian gourmet friend (acknowledged as one of the best known gourmets in India) agreed. His food was as near to perfection as I have ever tasted, and a million miles away from 'restaurant food'.

So I know what good Indian food tastes like, and I have been not found it in most restaurants, in the UK and other countries. However, the last Indian restaurant I went in (off Tottenham Court Road, in London) was excellent, although South Indian, with dosas, sambals and rasams, and gunpowder! So it can be done.

For the most part, Indian restaurants have staff that have probably never tasted the real dish, as most of them come from Bangladesh. Just ask them why there is potato in the vindaloo!

As for sub-culture, that about describes it.

To the original poster, I did not intend to offend, I merely pointed out that mixing chicken tikka and rice does not constitute a biryani, those who make the real thing would not be impressed. If you like Indian flavours, have a go at Mamta's recipes.

I actually thought this site was about sharing and helping with a passion for food. That means if someone wants to know the best ways for making toast then people will help them out. I see no reason to call restaurant food as it does very well and makes millions of pounds for those involved. It may not be exactly the same (or in some cases vastly different to) home cooked cuisine but it doesn't make it wrong. If someone wants to make "Chinese takeaway curry sauce" and thats the spark to a new interest in making recipes then why not help out, give some advice and help further the interest with offering other ideas etc..

Steve

so how low are you going to go, Steve? KFC, McD's ? pizza emporia products?

TV dinners? Cook in sauces?

I think I have demonstrated that I am willing to help whenever I can. I have taken a long time to get to where I am today in my cooking ability, but I'm not prepared to lower my standards just to be pleasant.

Its really not about you lowering your standards to be pleasant, its about a passion for food.

I started cooking at an early age making " pizza toast " and "grilled fried bread" and by the time I was about 12 I was making full fried breakfasts for a family of 7.. I'm not saying that it was gourmet in anyway but it was the start of a long and winding passion for food/cookery and all its off shoots.

Back then if I'd have had access to a site like this maybe my 'talents' could have been shaped in a different way, more accurate, more diverse in technique and type... but I didn't.... The thing is, imagine what damage it might have done if someone had told me I'm making rubbish ..

As for KFC etc...well again why lower your standards, why not make a better version ? - Steve's Secret Spicy Fried Chicken Mix makes a very good "fried chicken" type of dish - Spicy Fried Chicken

If you speak to some classically trained chefs you might find they would dismiss all Indian/English/Greek/German (etc etc) food as they consider only French cuisine to be correct.. Would it make them right to suggest my/your well loved by all the family and friends, well made, tasty (etc) dish is rubbish because its not a French Classic... ?

The other thing you have to consider is not everyone is from the same background where the levels of a "decent meal" can vary from one extreme to the other. Someone from a poor background who has/had parents that didn't have a passion for cooking and didn't make a decent meal out of limit and cheap ingredients might find going out to a caf?/takeaway/restaurant a really special treat and is a major improvement on the food they normally eat. I've seen many families who live off nothing more exciting or healthy than beans on toast and anything that comes frozen and will cook on a tray in the oven (served with chips also from the oven).. if they asked about making something like they once had in a takeaway, am I going to tell them its rubbish and not to bother.. If its going to get them cooking something halfway decent then I'm going to help.

Steve

well, I think it is about standards.

My father taught me to cook a curry (an English curry, you know the kind, curry powder, apples, raisins, mango chutney). If someone had said to me, that is awful, you should try a proper recipe, it will be much better, I would have accepted it. After all, its the recipe that's being judged, not me!!

As regards the original post, I commented that chicken tikka and rice do not make a biryani, that is all. If anyone wants to eat chicken tikka with rice, that's fine, but don't call it a biryani, and don't put it on the menu in restaurants as such.

If you fry some meat and add a dollop of 'curry house' special mush and specially selected herbs and spices, call it a curry, but please don't call it Indian,

Lapis,

I take your point.

I also see what Steve is driving at.

Perhaps the snobbery is mine, not yours (though your response to that query perhaps came across as overly dismissive, without your intendeing it to be so).

I disapprove of certain things, such as Glaswegian deep-fried Mars bars (nothing against the Glaswegians, some of whom are close mates of mine, but this concoction is foul, in my view. Perhaps it's an urban myth: I hope so!).

I don't deny that this is snobbish of me, in some way: it's looking down on how other people behave.

That's an extreme example, I admit, but, les extremely, it pains me to see the French, of all people, buying jars of tomato sauce and pre-cooked meals in supermarkets. As for some of the things that count as 'chicken tikka massala' in British motorway 'restaurants': don't get me started!

By the way, I think that Nigella sometimes verges on inverted snobbery, by engaging in slap-dash cookery, in some respects.

Phil

I might be many things, (I know I am!) but being a snob isn't one of them, I treat everyone the same, I neither look down on people, nor look up to anyone (doesn't mean I don't have my heroes, though!).

I have a huge interest in music, all kinds (except C&W and rap, maybe punk types, as well) but I like it replayed with good (lets say very good) equipment. I have invested in good equipment (mostly of a bygone era) and derive great enjoyment from it. But if someone asked me which MP3 player or DAB radio I would recommend, I might have the same sentiments as I did when I saw chicken tikka biryani. It's nothing to do with snobbery, it's to do with standards, and the maintenance thereof.

As regards standards, as a nation, we are sliding down the slippery slope to oblivion, fortunately, I'm of sufficient years not to be around when we eventually fall into the pit of apathy. But I'm determined to go out having good food, well cooked, and listening to good music, well reproduced. And I'll enter heaven (or wherever!) yelling and screaming, saying that was one hell of a ride!!!

I used to buy expensive hi-fi equipment (in fact it was more audiophile than hi-fi), and I even built my own first decent set of speakers, making the boxes the right size for the speakers and crossovers I'd chosen etc) but these days with new tech, better build, smaller circuits, finer soldering, better magnets etc you can get the same quality from much smaller cheaper things...

Steve

applying the same scientific understanding to sound reproduction (notice I didn't say 'hifi') as I do to cooking, I realized most of the modern stuff is sold by how it looks and what it costs, rather than how it sounds. Even audiophile stuff is suspect: I use a record player built in the seventies and a valve amplifier built in the 1950's, a valve radio tuner built in the 60's and I'm building some 'speakers with paper coned drivers, all 'old school', but like a good, old recipe, it takes some beating.

Even though we have better cookers, better utensils, and sometimes better ingredients (although some are suspect!) a good, old recipe grounded in flavour development, rather than addition of same, and developed over many decades is still hard to beat, IMHO.

I too have a huge interest in cooking and music.

Lapis: I find rap tedious, and I find a lot of C&W schmaltzy. But The Dixie Chicks (Texas) are good, I find, and Sugarland (Georgia) are interesting: they've done covers of songs by REM and The Kings of Leon.

People like me, who are heading towards 60, or are past 60, need to beware of bceoming old farts, thinking that the world is going to the dogs. It probably isn't.

But then, some things seem to be going downhill, like manufactured goods not made to last.

Phil