Mutton biryani

Before you start

• marinate the mutton 4 hours ahead, or overnight
• a heavy wide pan with a tight lid
• about two hours on the day itself

Ingredients

Serves 4 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 600glamb shoulder — mutton on the bone if the butcher has it — it takes longer and tastes of more
• 400gbasmati rice
• 200gnatural yoghurt
• 3 tbspghee
• 4onions
• 2 thumbsginger and garlic
• 1 pinchsaffron
• 50mlmilk or water — warm, for the saffron
• 1 tbspgaram masala, chilli and turmeric
• 1 tbspgreen cardamom, cloves, bay leaves and cinnamon
• 1 large bunchmint and coriander
• 1lemon

Method

8 steps

1. fry · 28m

   Onions sliced thin and fried slowly in the ghee until brown and crisp, then two-thirds lifted onto paper. This takes twenty-five minutes and there is no version of it that takes eight.

2. fold · 8m

   Mutton turned through the yoghurt, ginger-garlic, ground spices, lemon and a third of the fried onion.

3. rest · 4 hours walk away

   Four hours in the fridge, or overnight. Mutton needs this in a way chicken does not, and the yoghurt is what is doing it.

4. simmer · 1h 15m walk away

   Meat and all its marinade into the pan with a little water, lid on, lowest heat, until a piece gives completely under a spoon and the gravy has gone thick and dark.

5. boil · 14m

   Rice soaked twenty minutes, then boiled in heavily salted water with the whole spices for exactly five minutes and drained. It finishes in the steam, and rice cooked through now is mush later.

6. fold · 6m

   Meat spread over the base, rice heaped on top, saffron milk poured across in streaks, herbs and the rest of the fried onion over that. Nothing is stirred, now or at any later point.

7. simmer · 40m walk away

   Lid on, a folded cloth or a rope of dough round the rim if the fit is poor, the lowest heat there is, and left completely alone.

8. finish · 6m

   Ten minutes off the heat before it is opened, then lifted from the bottom with a wide flat spoon so the layers reach the plate as layers.