egg biryani

To go with the indian spiced marinated roasted chicken I wanted to make a biryani which is an Indian rice dish.  Rice has never been a favourite of mine, but cooking it this way gives it some flavour and can actually be a main dish not just a side dish. I used several different recipes as an inspiration for this.

This made enough to feed 12 as a side dish or 6 as a one dish meal.


1 onion sliced and browned in oil until crisp
1 tablespoon of oil or ghee
1 bay leaf
5 green cardamom pods
2 black cardamom
1 broken stick of cinnamon
1 large onion chopped
2 garlic cloves grated
1" fresh ginger grated
4 medium tomatoes or equivalent cherry tomatoes chopped
1 jalapeno chili chopped
small handful of fresh mint chopped
small handful of fresh cilantro chopped
6 eggs hard boiled
1/4 cup of roasted cashew nuts
2 cups of almost cooked rice

Fry the whole spices in the oil along with the chopped onion and garlic.  When the onion is soft and just turning golden, add the tomatoes and cook down a little, then add the grated ginger and jalapeno peppers.

Stir in and cook a little longer, then add the min and cilantro

Add the hard boiled eggs sliced in half and cashew nuts stir in.

Add the almost cooked rice on top of the tomato egg mixture and top with the browned onion and more chopped cilantro and mint.

Place a lid on and cook on the lowest heat for about 1/2 an hour.  The rice will finish cooking in the steam and absorb some of the flavours of the herbs and mixture.

When you spoon it out you get some of the intense flavoured mixture on the bottom along with some of the soft mild rice. This went very well with the Indian spiced marinated roasted chicken  kale salad with pomegranate and aloo gobi, and was also very good for lunch all on its own the next day.