Madras Chicken Pulav

Wash rice 6-7 times and soak in water for 30 minutes. Keep this aside.

For preparing masala, first take curd and pureed tomato in a bowl. Mix well.

Add lime juice and required salt. Add green chillies, mint leaves and coriander leaves.

Add garam masala, pepper powder, cumin powder, biryani masala, chicken masala and fennel powder. Mix well with your hand. Keep this aside.

In a medium sized non-stick pan, heat 2 tbsp ghee. Once hot, add cashew nuts and raisins. Fry lightly. Keep this aside.

Add 1 tbsp ghee to the same pan and add onions. Saute till dark brown in color.

Put cinnamon stick, cardamom, bay leaf and cloves to the sauted onions and fry for 1 minute.

Add ginger and garlic pastes and fry lightly.

Add the previously prepared masala mixture and heat in low flame, mixing continuously for about 10 minutes.

Add the uncooked chicken pieces to this mixture. Give it a boil and cover the pot with a lid. Taste and add more salt if required. Cook for 15-20 minutes in medium flame.

After 15-20 minutes once the chicken is cooked well, take the chicken pieces out of the pot leaving the gravy behind in the pan. Place the chicken pieces on a separate plate.

Add 4 tall drinking glasses/1 litre of hot water to the gravy in the pan. Boil for 5 minutes. Check salt, bearing in mind that there should be enough for the rice that will soon be added as well. Add more if required.

Drain water from the soaked rice and add rice to the pan of gravy. Mix well. Boil.

Once the rice boils, add the kept aside chicken pieces into the pan.

Reduce flame to medium.

Cover with a lid and cook for 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally with a ladle so that rice does not get burnt at the bottom.

Once done, see that there should be no traces of water in the pulav. If you find traces of water, open the pan and cook till water is dried out from pulav.

Add yellow color to this. (Optional)

Add the fried cashew nuts and raisins to the pulav at the very end. Mix well and serve with raitha & lots of love.