Marinating chicken

- Wash the mint and cilantro leaves thoroughly and puree them in a mixer
- Marinate chicken with some salt, turmeric and mint-cilantro puree
- Set aside for at least 45 minutes


Prepping rice

- Rinse and soak organic basmati imported from India in water for 20 minutes
- Drain the water
- Add 2 cups of filtered water , 1 teaspoon of salt (adjust to taste), 1 teaspoon ghee and to the rice water and mix well. Pressure cook the rice in instant pot for 4 minutes
- Natural release the steam


Prepping chicken

- Click on Sauté mode on Instant pot and set it to Medium setting
- Generously coat the pot with some oil. We prefer either Extra virgin avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil
- Once the oil is hot, add bay leaves and whole garam masala to the oil and let the spices temper
- Add about 2 lbs. of diced red onions and cook them until they turn golden
- Add some salt, ginger, garlic and some tomato puree imported from Italy or de-seeded and un-skinned pressure-cooked tomato
- Cook ingredients for few minutes
- Add the marinated chicken and stir for few minutes
- Cancel Sauté mode and pressure cook chicken for six minutes on normal pressure
- Natural release the steam
- Click again on Sauté mode and set it to Low setting
- Adjust salt and cook for few minutes
- Click Cancel and add some grounded/powdered garam masala


Soaking Saffron

- In a small bowl add some water and soak a pinch of saffron strands, we will use this during layering-process


Caramelizing onions

- Click on Sauté mode on Instant pot and set it to Medium setting
- Generously coat the pot with some ghee
- Add about 1 lb. of diced red onions
- Add some salt and cook the onions until they turn golden


Layering biryani

- Preheat oven at 350 F
- Take a bake ware and coat it with some oil and parchment paper
- Take half of the cooked rice and layer it as the bottom layer
- Splash some filtered water on rice, this will keep biryani moist
- Now sprinkle some of the saffron water over the rice to add color and flavor
- Spread chicken pieces over the rice and spread them evenly; you shouldn’t need more than half of your prepared chicken. We will serve the remaining chicken with biryani as a side dish
- Also spread some of the gravy from the chicken in empty pockets
- Take remaining half of the cooked rice and layer it on top of the chicken layer
- Now splash some filtered water again on rice to keep this layer moist
- Now sprinkle some of the saffron water over the rice for additional flavor
- Take some of the gravy from the chicken and using a spatula spread it on top of the rice layer
- Take the caramelized onions and spread it using the spatula to make it the top most layer
- Now cover the dish with aluminum foil and heat it in oven for 15-20 minutes
- Remove from oven and let it cool
- You could serve immediately; however we recommend leaving it in refrigerator overnight. This increases the flavors inside the biryani and also increases the resistant starch in basmati rice
- To re-heat biryani tray, preheat the oven at 350 F
- Splash some filtered water on the biryani to keep it moist before placing in oven. Alternately you could re-heat in microwave
- Serve with the extra chicken preparation as a side dish