1. Hang yoghurt

1. Take about 300–400g yoghurt and hang it in a cheesecloth set over a strainer over a bowl. This will remove all the excess water, and yield thick yoghurt for the mutton marinade.

2. Make biryani moshla 1 (roasted)

1. Weigh out and add all the spices (except the last three, that is, shah jeera, cumin seeds, and rose petals) to the pan. Gently toast on low heat until aromatic, about 4–5 mins.
2. Now add shah jeera and cumin seeds, and roast for another couple of minutes before adding the rose petals at the very end. After adding the rose petals turn off the heat, give it a few stirs, and transfer immediately to a grinder jar.
3. Grind to a fine powder, then pass it through a fine strainer to eliminate any larger particles. Set aside. You will need a total of 8 g of this spice mix (referred to as 'biryani moshla 1') during the various stages of this recipe. The rest can be stored in an airtight jar for future use.

3. Make biryani moshla 2 (unroasted)

1. Weigh out green cardamom and mace, and grind them to a fine powder (note that we're not toasting these).
2. Pass it through a fine strainer to eliminate any larger particles. Set aside. You will need a total of 8 g of this spice mix (referred to as 'biryani moshla 2') during the various stages of this recipe.

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4. Ginger–garlic paste

1. Weigh out ginger and garlic, and blitz them to a smooth paste. We will need this for mutton marination.

5. Marinate mutton

1. Marinate the mutton with all the listed ingredients. Set aside until needed.

6. Soak rice

1. Wash and soak good-quality, long-grained basmati rice for about 2 hours.

7. Prep onions & potatoes

1. Peel and wash the potatoes, and halve them. Smear them with ¼ tsp yellow food colour and 10 g salt.
2. Finely slice 300 g onions. Of this, we will use half to make birista, an the other half while cooking mutton.

8. Make birista

1. Heat 140 g vegetable oil in a pan. Fry half the onions (150 g), stirring constantly until brown. Remove from the heat immediately to prevent them from burning, and spread over a plate to allow them to cool and crisp up.
2. Once completely cool, sprinkle ¼ tsp salt and crumble the birista to a powder. Set aside (we'll need this while layering).

9. Cook potatoes

1. Now, to the same oil, add the potatoes, and fry them on medium heat until lightly coloured on all sides, about 5 mins.
2. Add 250 ml hot water, and boiled with the lid on. Once the potatoes are soft (this should take about 20 mins), uncover the pan, raise the heat, and dry off all the excess water. Remove from the pan and set aside.
3. You should still be left with a considerable amount of oil. Remove half of it using a ladle, and we will use the remaining half that is still in the pan to cook the mutton in (see stage 10).

10. Cook mutton

1. To half the vegetable oil remaining in the pan after cooking the onion and potatoes, add 50 g ghee.
2. Keeping heat low, temper first with bay leaves, green cardamom, cinnamon and black cardamom. Let the flavours of these spices infuse in warm oil for about 1 min, before adding cloves, peppercorn, and kababchini for about the last 10 secs.
3. Add the sliced onions (the remaining 150 g), and fry on high heat, stirring constantly, until brown, about 6 mins.
4. Add the marinated mutton and braise it very well on medium heat, until the raw smell of the spices goes away. This should take about 30 mins or so.
5. Add biryani moshla 1 & 2, and braise for another 5 mins.
6. Transfer to a pressure cooker, add 300 ml hot water, and cook 15 mins after reaching full pressure. The quantity of water is key here, as this will form the stock which we will use in layering. If there's too much liquid, you will have to discard the excess stock (and the flavours with it!).
7. Allow the steam to release naturally before opening the lid.

11. Separate meat, stock & fat

1. Once you open the lid of the pressure cooker, before disturbing anything or stirring, collect all the mutton fat (rogan) that has floated to the top. Out of this, weigh out 200 g, mix it with 25 g ghee, and set this fat mixture aside for layering. We don't need the rest of the rogan for this recipe (adding all of the rendered fat will make the biryani a little too greasy).
2. Next, fetch the mutton pieces and lay them on the tray. The mutton is ready to be layered too.
3. Finally, strain the stock so that you have a liquid without any solid particles. Out of this, we need only about 300 g stock. If you have excess, you can either not use it, or you can reduce the stock down so that you are left with ~300 g liquid. Set the stock aside for layering too.

12. Make saffron doodh

1. Bloom saffron in about 20 g hot milk for 15 mins. After that, rub the saffron between your fingers to release the flavour and colour into the milk.
2. Add a pinch of yellow food colour, and set this mixture aside for layering.

13. Make moshla doodh

1. In another 250 warm milk, mix in half a teaspoon each of biryani moshlas 1 and 2, and 4 g salt. Set aside for layering.

14. Make essence mix

1. Mix together kewra water, rose water, and meetha attar in the given proportions. Set aside for layering.

15. Khoya kheer & alu bukhara

1. In a grinder, powder 40 g khoya kheer. Set aside for layering.
2. Weigh out 40 g alu bukhara and set it asdie for layering.

16. Prepare for layering

Now that we've prepped most of our ingredients, it's time to double-check and gather them in one place for layering. You should have:

• Cooked mutton pieces
• Boiled potatoes
• Soaked rice (strain the water)
• Birista powder
• Khoya kheer (crumbled to a powder)
• Alu bukhara (40 g)
• Mutton stock (350 g)
• Mutton rogan + ghee mixture (225 g)
• White ghee (75 g)
• Saffron milk
• Moshla doodh
• Essence mix
• Biryani moshla 1 (2 g)
• Biryani moshla 2 (2 g)
• Shahi gorom moshla (2 g)
• Lime
• Atta dough, for sealing

17. Prepare to cook rice

This stage should be started just before you are ready to start layering the biryani haari, and all the components listed in stage 16 above are already assembled.

1. Set about 6 L water to boil, and season it with 1.5% or 90 g salt.
2. Make a loose baggie (with a piece of cheesecloth and twine) containing green cardamom (crushed), black cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and bay leaves.
3. Add this to the water, along with 10 g kewra water and 5 g ghee.
4. Cover and allow it to come to a boil, giving the spices a chance to infuse the water.

[We will leave it here at this stage, and come back to cooking the rice half-way through the layering process.]

18. Layering & dum

There are four layers in total.

LAYER ONE

• Grease the bottom of the biryani haari with 2 tsp of ghee (use out of the 75 g ghee we've set aside for layering purposes).
• Squeeze in half a lime.
• Add all of the mutton stock.
• About 30 ml of the moshla doodh.
• ¼ tsp biryani moshla 1 (use from the 2 g moshla set aside for layering).
• ¼ tsp biryani moshla 2 (use from the 2 g moshla set aside for layering).
• All the shahi gorom moshla.
• Another 1 tsp ghee.
• All the alu bukhara.

LAYER TWO

• Layer all the mutton pieces.
• Layer all the potatoes.
• Sprinkle one-third the biryani moshla 1.
• Sprinkle one-third the biryani moshla 2.
• Sprinkle one-third the khoya kheer.
• Sprinkle half the birista.
• Sprinkle one-third the essence mix.

Cover the haari for the time being; we will now cook the rice.

Cooking the rice:

Once the water has come to a boil, and it is aromatic from the whole spices, add the rice. Follow the time specification on the packet, but keep checking so that it's not overcooked. The rice needs to be cooked until lengthened, but to only 80% doneness. Strain it immediately, and proceed to the layering.

LAYER THREE

• Add half the cooked rice.
• Add half the rogan + ghee mixture.
• One-third the biryani moshla 1.
• One-third the biryani moshla 2.
• One-third of the khoya kheer.
• Remaining half of the birista.
• One-third the essence mix.
• Half the moshla doodh.
• Half the saffron milk.

LAYER FOUR

• The remaining rice.
• The remaining rogan + ghee mixture.
• The remaining biryani moshla 1.
• The remaining biryani moshla 2.
• The remaining khoya kheer.
• The remaining essence mix.
• The remaining moshla doodh.
• The remaining saffron milk.
• The remaining ghee.

Pray you have added everything that needed to be added, and put the lid on. Seal the lid with atta dough, leaving a small opening. This will allow us to check if the dum is complete.

For the dum:

1. Set the haari over direct high heat for 6–10 mins, depending on the material and thickness of the vessel.
2. Meanwhile, also set a flat iron tawa or skillet to heat up fully.
3. Transfer the haari it to the heated tawa, so that it now receives indirect heat through the tawa, on medium-low heat.
4. Leave it on dum for 25–30 mins. The dum is complete when you see steam coming out of the gap that you left in the dough while sealing the lid. If you bring your ear close to the bottom of the haari and listen carefully, the sound should change from one of boiling or bubbling, to a soft crackling sound.
5. Turn off the heat, and allow it to stand for 10–15 mins before cracking the lid open.

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