Clean, rinse and soak basmati rice with water for about an hour.
Cut boneless chicken into small bite side pieces.
Cut onions into long thin strips. Be sure that the slices should be uniform otherwise onions won’t be fried uniformly.
Heat vegetable oil in a deep yok or kadhai and fry onions in medium heat until light golden brown.
Soak saffron in warm milk for 10 to 15 minutes.
Take chicken pieces into a bowl. Mix with 1teaspoon lemon juice and ginger-garlic paste. Then add in 2 cups of beaten yoghurt, all the powdered spices, 1 stick cinnamon, 3 green cardamoms, 1 black cardamom, chopped coriander-mint leaves, chopped green chillies and salt.
Add in salt and mix everything well with the chicken pieces. Crush half of the fried onion and add into the chicken. Mix well again.
Also add in 2 tablespoon of ghee and mix.
Note that chicken pieces should completely coat with the spicy yoghurt mixture. So be generous to add in yoghurt. If you feel that chicken pieces are not covered completely with the mixture, add more yoghurt. Cover and keep aside for at least 2 hours for marination.
Heat sufficient water in a big saucepan to cook the rice. Add in 1 tablespoon of salt and rest of the whole garam masala like cinnamon stick, green cardamom and cloves. Also, add in 1 teaspoon of lemon juice. When water starts boiling add in the rice.
Cook in high heat until the rice cooks almost 70%.
In the meantime, transfer the marinated chicken with yoghurt mixture to a heavy bottomed broad saucepan. Place in the stove top with medium heat.
With a perforated spoon transfer half of the 70% cooked rice over the chicken and spread uniformly.
Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of ghee, 1-2 teaspoon of saffron milk,some mint+coriander leaves, some fried onions and 1 drop of biriyani essence.
Now spread the rest of the rice (drained) over the 1st layer and sprinkle herbs, fried onions, saffron milk, ghee and essence as before. Cover with an aluminum foil.
Put on the lid to seal completely so that steam won’t come out. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook for about 20 minutes. This is the process of dum. The meat and rice will cook on the steam produced.
After 20 minutes remove the lid and foil. Biryani is ready now. Carefully fluf the rice along with the chicken below with a flat spatula. You will be delighted by the flavour emits from the biryani.
Transfer to serving bowl, serve with some spicy yoghurt or any kind of meat curry. I served with some spicy yoghurt.
