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The nine main kinds

9 kinds of biryani every food lover must know

Ashish Joseph & Sharanya CR,TNN | Feb 24, 2015 The Times of India

There are several ways to make biryani - each style loyal to its local gastronomic history. Here are the India specific ones that every rice or biryani lover should know about

In brief

There is the Awadhi biryani and its Bengali cousin with its interloper spud. Malabar biryani can come with prawn or fish. The Bohri biryani is mild. The Dindigul biryani prefers jeera samba rice and has the tartness of curd and lemon. The Bhopal biryani is said to trace its roots back to Ahmed Shah Abdali’s army. Moradabadi, Hyderabadi, Ambur, Bhatkali. (From Sandip Roy)

Hyderabadi Biryani (Telangana)

Hyderabadi biryani is one of the most popular dishes in south India. For many home cooks and chefs, this dish from Mughlai cuisine is quite a challenge to make, and each has his unique way of spicing it up. What makes it stand out is the usage of saffron and coconut. This biryani is cooked in layers - the most challenging part in its creation. While most other biryanis are always dominated by mutton and chicken gravy, here the saffronmixed-rice takes over.Serve it with brinjal gravy.

Dindigul Biryani (Tamil Nadu)

This one's a favourite in Chennai with many outlets dedi catedly serving just Dindigul biryani.The rice used in it is very different - jeera samba rice instead of Basmati, giving it an entirely new flavour. The biryani also uses cube-sized muttonchicken pieces instead of big chunks. Apart from the usual masala, a lot of pepper is used.

Ambur Biryani (Tamil Nadu)

It's hard to miss out on the Ambur biryani if you are in Tamil Nadu.Take a trip to the sleepy little town of Ambur and the first thing that'll strike you is the in numerable biryani stalls dotting the Chennai-Bengaluru highway. There's chicken, mutton, beef and prawn as options, with the flavour of mint and coriander standing out. The highlight of this biryani is the fact that chefs soak the meat in curd be fore adding it to the rice, which imparts a unique taste to the dish. Have it with onion raita and brinjal gravy.

Bhatkali Biryani (Coastal Karnataka)

Coastal Karnataka: Though low on spice, the Bhatkali biryani has the right amount of flavour. This particular style originated from the Nawayath Mus lim community of Bhatkal, in coastal Karnataka. They use a lot of onions, green chillies in their style of cooking - also in the layered format. Unlike Ambur biryani, in which mutton pieces are soaked in curd, Bhatkali biryani chefs cook muttonchicken pieces in curd. This eventually makes the biryani less spicy.

Lucknowi Biryani (Uttar Pradesh)

Uttar Pradesh: Based on the Persian style of cooking, the Lucknowi biryani is made with the use of a completely different method known as dum pukht. As is the norm with most Persian formats, the meat and gravy are partially cooked and then layered in the dum pukht style. Served in a sealed handi, Lucknowi biryani is light on the stomach as it is low on spices.

Kolkata Biryani (West Bengal)

West Bengal: Kolkata biryani has its roots in the Nawabi style biryani of Lucknow. The chefs from Awadhi kitchens brought the signature biryani recipe to Kolkata, which later got tweaked into the unique Kolkata biryani that we know today. The Kolkata biryani is unique, thanks to its subtle use of spices combined with ghee, Basmati rice and mutton. The addition of potatoes and boiled eggs also lends a different flavour to the d dish. Use of nutmeg along with saffron and kewra gives this biryani its signature aroma.

Malabar Biryani (Kerala)

Kerala: Malabar biryani, famous in Kozhikode, Thalassery and Malappuram areas of Kerala, is characterised by the unique variety of rice called khyma rice, the rich flavour of spices, and the generous usage of cashewnuts and raisins.Chefs in Kerala add these ingredients generously while preparing the biryani.The key difference lies in the method of preparation. The rice is cooked separately from mutton gravy and mixed well only at the time of serving.

Sindhi Biryani (Sind Province, now Pakistan)

Pakistan: Sindhi biryani, which originated in Sind, Pakistan, is quite spicy and zesty.Sour curd, generous use of spices and chilli mark this form of biryani. Usage of kewra or mitha ittr is another differentiating factor. Sindhi biryani recipes also use potatoes and prunes.

Bombay Biryani (Maharashtra)

Maharashtra: What makes Bombay biryani special is the use of potatoes in it.Be it vegetarian or non-vegetarian biryani, potato is a must. The preparation uses a layered method, where half-cooked basmati rice and cooked meat are put on dum-style.

History

A

Aunindyo Chakravarty, April 20, 2025: The Indian Express

One day, Mumtaz Mahal, the life and love of Emperor Shahjahan, found herself in an army barracks. The queen was aghast at how malnourished the soldiers looked. She went back to the palace and ordered the master of the imperial kitchen to come up with a nutritious dish that could easily be cooked near the battlefield. The royal chefs created a one-pot meal made of rice, meat, ghee, and condiments, which was then served to the soldiers.

And thus, was born India’s most popular home-delivered dish – biryani.

Okay, this is almost certainly an apocryphal tale. It has not been mentioned by any contemporary writer or historian who lived in those times. A queen caring about ordinary soldiers sounds nice, but it is unlikely to have ever happened.

It is much like that other popular biryani origin story – the one involving Nawab Asaf-ud-Daulah of Awadh. The year was 1780. Awadh had been hit by a terrible famine. The Nawab, anticipating Keynes’ theory of government intervention in the economy centuries prior, came up with a brilliant employment-generating scheme. He would get thousands of workers to build a grand mosque during the day, and then break it down at night, only to rebuild it the next morning. It was a perpetual job machine.

Every night, before the demolition, the workers would take large pots, fill them with meat, rice, ghee, saffron, and other spices, seal them with dough and leave to cook on dum, over embers overnight. They would eat it the next morning, after a hard night’s toil.

This working-class dish reached the royal kitchen, where it was suitably refined for the nawab’s palate. This came to be known as the dum pukht biryani. Again, this is a lovely story, but like the Mumtaz Mahal tale, there is no contemporary evidence to prove its authenticity.

We do, however, have evidence of similar dishes being cooked in the imperial kitchens of Jalaluddin Akbar. Abu’l Fazl recounted a few recipes in the first volume of the Ain-i-Akbari. Among them, the closest was a dish called shullah, made of meat, rice, ghee, gram, onions, ginger, garlic, round pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. There was another called duzdbiryan, which had only three ingredients – meat, rice, and salt.

The dish that sounded most like biryani, called biryan, didn’t have any rice at all. Abu’l Fazl categorised it under the set of dishes containing “meats with spices.” His biryan recipe contained measurements for salt, ghee, saffron, cloves, pepper, and cumin seed, for a whole ‘Deshmandi sheep.’

This is not surprising, since, in Persian, biryan simply meant to roast or fry. The Persian dish that shares the name biryani is made of chopped meat and liver that is layered on top of lavash bread, and has no rice in it. Iranians eat something called birinj (rice) biryan, which is a kind of fried rice cooked with saffron and topped with nuts and berries, very different from the biryani we eat.

So, how did we get our biryani in India?

It was, most likely, a name that became popular in the last stages of the Mughal empire, where local meat and rice preparations were modified into a popular street food. Even today, if you visit the walled city in Delhi or in the markets around Nizamuddin dargah, streetside vendors with large deghs carrying biryani dish it out on small plates, much like a chaatwalah would.

In fact, biryani was never meant to be eaten by the elite. A friend, who traces his lineage to Asaf-ud-Daulla, once derisively called biryani hoi pulao, the pulao of the hoi polloi or the common people. Ashraf families in the north only ate pulao, especially Yakhni pulao, a much more delicately flavoured, and lighter dish. For them, biryani was an overly-spiced, crass dish better suited to the proletarian palate.

The only royal connection to any biryani is probably the unique Kolkata biryani, developed by the khansamas of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, who had been exiled to Calcutta by the British. We are told the improbable story that the impoverished Nawab could no longer afford meat, so his cooks substituted it with potatoes and boiled eggs.

Back then, the East India Company paid him one lakh rupees per month, which is more than Rs 2 crore today. Surely, despite all his expenses, he could have afforded meat in his biryani? In the mid-19th century, potatoes were still considered a rare vegetable in North India, and the exiled Nawab might have been delighted to find them so easily available in Bengal.

Interestingly, one of Kolkata’s most loved biryanis, served at the Royal Indian Hotel, began adding potatoes only in 2017. The restaurant was founded 120 years ago by a descendant of Wajid Ali Shah, who had just moved to the city from Lucknow. He began to serve a spicy pulao called khushka, mutton qalia, and mutton chaap, to the largely Muslim local community, which had migrated with the Nawab.

Royal only started serving its famous biryani in the 1940s. It was a variation of the Lucknowi Yakhni Pulao, made with a spiced mutton stock. In my opinion, it retains the subtlety of an haute pulao, while maintaining the more robust punch of a biryani.

Here’s my easy-to-make version of the Royal mutton biryani.

Then when you come to Here’s my easy-to-make version of the Royal mutton biryani.

Celebrated Chefs

Takamasa Osawa

Arab News

Takamasa Osawa is a Japanese chef and the founder of Biriyani Osawa, a specialty biryani restaurant in Tokyo. He is known for his disciplined, Japanese-crafted interpretation of biryani and for promoting the dish in Japan. His restaurant has received recognition from the Michelin Guide Tokyo with a Bib Gourmand.

Early life and inspiration

Osawa developed an interest in flavored rice dishes from childhood. He has recalled experimenting with rice at home, including mixing it with Chinese dashi to create a fried-rice-like flavor.

His interest in biryani began around 2009, when he travelled to South India. During the trip, he encountered biryani and was impressed by its complexity, aroma and quality. He described the experience as encountering "delicious cooked rice with a curry flavor". He became fascinated with the dish and ate biryani almost every day while travelling.

After returning to Japan, Osawa was frustrated by what he considered the limited availability and quality of authentic biryani. He subsequently decided to learn how to make the dish himself and began researching and experimenting with different techniques.

Career

Osawa began his professional culinary career around 2012. He worked at the Indian restaurant Garam Masala in Kyodo, Tokyo. In March 2012, while working there, he established a temporary restaurant called Biriyani Masala in a shared kitchen.

He later became involved in Japan's emerging South Asian food community and co-established the Japan Biriyani Association. Through the association and his own cooking, he helped introduce large-batch biryani culture to Japanese food enthusiasts.

Biriyani Fundamentalism

Osawa describes his culinary philosophy as "Biriyani Fundamentalism" (ビリヤニ原理主義).

The philosophy centers on making biryani as delicious as possible rather than strictly reproducing a particular regional style. Osawa emphasizes aroma, rice texture and overall flavor.

His motto is:

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His stated goal is to create biryani that can move people regardless of their cultural or culinary background.

Osawa has also expressed an intense personal commitment to the craft, stating that if he cannot make delicious biryani, he has no value in being alive.

Biriyani Osawa

Template:Infobox restaurant

Biriyani Osawa was established in Kanda, Tokyo, in August 2021.

The restaurant was created following a period of significant personal and professional difficulty for Osawa during the COVID-19 pandemic. After experiencing depression and unemployment, he was encouraged by an acquaintance to raise funds through crowdfunding.

In May 2021, Osawa launched a crowdfunding campaign with a goal of ¥5 million. The campaign ultimately raised more than ¥13 million from 963 supporters. He additionally borrowed approximately ¥15 million to realize his restaurant concept.

The restaurant operates around a highly specialized concept. It serves only one main menu item: biryani. Reservations are required, and customers begin eating together at a precisely timed moment corresponding to the completion of the cooking process.

The restaurant features a 10-seat counter surrounding the kitchen. This layout minimizes the distance between the kitchen and customers, allowing the freshly steamed biryani and its aroma to reach diners immediately.

Osawa describes the restaurant's mission as providing the highest possible quality of biryani while maintaining simplicity and purity.

Culinary philosophy

A major challenge for Osawa is maintaining consistency in large-batch biryani preparation. He has described the cooking process as highly unstable and has sought to refine each stage scientifically.

Rather than attempting to reproduce one specific regional form of biryani, his approach prioritizes:

• Maximum aroma

• Excellent rice texture

• Overall flavor

• Consistency

• Simplicity

• Purity of ingredients and technique

He views his Tokyo restaurant as a culinary laboratory where recipes and techniques can be continuously tested and improved.

Recognition

Since its opening, Biriyani Osawa has reportedly sold out its seatings and received national culinary recognition.

The restaurant was recognized by the Michelin Guide Tokyo with a Bib Gourmand.

Relationship with India and the Middle East

Osawa first encountered the Middle East in 2013, when he travelled through Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and Iran. His interest in rice, spices and the cultures surrounding biryani influenced his appreciation of the region.

He first visited Dubai in 2023. The primary purpose of the trip was to eat biryani, following an invitation from a close friend who had lived in the city for many years.

Osawa was particularly impressed by the prevalence of biryani in Dubai. He observed that the dish could be found in restaurants, cafeterias, kiosks and delivery services, with numerous regional variations.

He contrasted this with his efforts to promote biryani in Japan, where he has advocated for the dish to become a national staple.

Osawa has also praised Dubai's cultural diversity and openness to foreign cuisines. He has described food as a means of creating understanding between different cultures.

Dubai pop-up

In November and December, Osawa brought Biriyani Osawa to Dubai for a limited pop-up at Yamanote Atelier's Ferdous 2 branch.

The pop-up ran from 26 November to 2 December, with a special VIP preview held on 25 November.

The preview was attended by the Consul-General of Japan in Dubai, Imanishi Jun, Yamanote Atelier founder Sheikh Suhail Al Maktoum and other guests.

Osawa described serving his Tokyo-style biryani in Dubai as an honor because of the city's strong and established biryani culture.

Future plans

Osawa's long-term ambition is to open a restaurant in India. He believes that establishing a base there would allow him to work directly with local producers and seasonal ingredients while avoiding the need to import ingredients.

He intends to continue operating Biriyani Osawa in Tokyo as a laboratory for recipe development and refinement.

Although his current restaurant focuses on a high-end, single-dish model, Osawa also wants to expand biryani's presence throughout Japan. His plans include developing inexpensive mass-market biryani and potentially supervising biryani products for convenience stores.

His ultimate goal is to make biryani a staple of Japanese food culture. He has expressed the hope that future generations might describe its history as:

Recipes

Royal mutton biryani

Ingredients

For the stock

Mutton on the bone: 500 gm

Desi ghee: 150 gm

Onions: 3 large

Garlic: 20 cloves

Water: 1 cup

Ginger: 3-inch piece

Cloves: 12

Green cardamoms: 8 + 4

Salt: 2 tsp

Curd: 200 gm

Milk: 200 ml

Lime juice: 1 tbsp

Red chilli powder: 1 tbsp

Mace (Javitri): 2-3 strands

Nutmeg (Jaiphal): 1/4th piece

Cinnamon/Cassia: 2 one-inch sticks

Saffron: 4-5 strands soaked in 20 ml milk

For the rice

Basmati rice (soaked): 2 ½ cups

Water: 8 cups

Cloves: 5-6

Green cardamom: 5-6

Bay leaf (tej patta): 2

Salt: 2 tsp

Sugar: 1 tsp

· First, wash the mutton pieces well and pat them dry.

· Thinly slice the onions, grind the garlic into a paste and mix with the one cup of water, and finely grate the ginger. Keep all these ready.

· Heat the ghee in a large heavy-bottomed pan (a pressure cooker will do).

· Fry the sliced onions in batches so that they are brown and crisp. · Add the fried onions to the garlic-water and pour it back into the hot ghee.

· Now add the salt and cloves. Stir and cook for a minute.

· Break up 8 pieces of green cardamom in a mortar pestle and add to the pan.

· Add the mutton pieces and stir well.

· Add the grated ginger and stir.

· Now, add the curd on top. Do not stir.

· Cover the pan and let it simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.

· Remove the semi-cooked mutton pieces to a plate or bowl. Try and see that the mutton pieces are not covered with the ‘debris’ of onions, ginger, garlic or the whole spices.

· Let the stock cool for a while so that the ghee rises to the top. Using a ladle, remove as much of the fat as you can. Strain the ghee into a separate bowl.

· Add lime juice and red chilli powder into the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes.

· Strain this stock to get a clear liquid. A fine muslin cloth, placed on a strainer, works the best.

· Take 200 ml of milk in a large bowl and gradually add the warm stock into it, stirring constantly so that the milk doesn’t curdle.

· Make a paste of the mace, nutmeg, cinnamon, and the remaining 4 pieces of green cardamom, and add it to the stock mix.

· Add the saffron soaked in milk to the stock.

· Taste to see if it needs more salt.

· Wash and dry the pan you used earlier and add the mutton pieces to it. Cover it with the stock and cook on medium-low heat, till the mutton is almost cooked.

· Again, remove the mutton pieces and cook the stock till it is reduced to about one cup.

· Put the mutton pieces back into the stock and set them aside.

· In another pan, take 8 cups of water, add salt, sugar, cloves and green cardamom. Cover and bring to a rolling boil. Let it simmer on a medium-low flame for another 10 minutes.

· Now, drain the soaked rice and add it to the pan. Cook uncovered till the rice is 50 per cent done.

· Drain the rice and layer it on top of the mutton and stock mixture in the first pan.

· Drizzle the drained ghee, which you had kept in a separate bowl, on top of the rice.

· Seal with aluminium foil, cover and cook on low heat for 15-20 minutes.

· Stop cooking when you see the stock has been absorbed by the bottom layers of the rice. You will need a thin spatula to check it without disturbing the top layer too much.

· Lightly fold the layers, from bottom up, to mix the separate layers of meat and rice. The white and yellow-orange rice strands should remain separately visible.

· Your yakhni pulao-inspired biryani is ready.

Aunindyo Chakravarty was Senior Managing Editor, NDTV Profit & NDTV India. Aunindyo has been cooking since he was eight, and he believes he is much more skilled as a cook than as a journalist.

Recipes

Dindigul biryani recipe

Ingredients

Jeera Samba rice: 1 kg (for 10) I Mutton: 1.5 kg

Onion: 400 gm

Tomato: 400 gm

Mint leaves: 1 bunch

Coriander leaves: 1 bunch

Ginger-garlic paste: 6 sp (approx 30 gm)

Cinnamon: 4

Cloves: 4

Star anise: 4 pieces

Marati moggu (type of caper): 4

Jathipathri: 4

Curd: 250 ml

Oil: 200 ml

Ghee: 50 ml

Chilli powder: 5 tsp

Coriander powder: 7 sp

Pepper powder: 4 tsp

Method

Cut the mutton into small pieces and soak it in curd for 20 minutes. Wash the rice and soak it in water for half an hour. Keep the biryani vessel in the stove and add oil, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, star anise, marati moggu, jathipathri, mint leaves (50%) and coriander leaves (50 %). Then add sliced onions. Saute well until it turns transparent. Add gingergarlic paste, followed by sliced tomatoes. Mix well until it merges together. Add the mutton pieces along with the curd, coriander powder, chilli powder and then add a glass of water. Add the required amount of salt at this stage and cook the mutton. Once it is cooked, add the pepper powder, soaked jeera rice, the remaining mint and coriander leaves. When it starts bubbling, put the lid on the fire and add the weight (in dum style). Leave it for about 20 mins and then add ghee.Serve it with raita or brinjal curry.

(Inputs by Chef Damu, R Rajesh and Hushmoin K Patell)

(Recipe by Chef Damu)

Biryani as a fast food/ takeaway

Anoothi Vishal, McBiryani: Why India’s fave dish is losing its dum, August 12, 2018: The Times of India

Which is the best biryani? It’s a question bound to bring tempers to a boil. The refined, restrained-on-spicing “pucci” Avadhi biryani has always battled it with its Deccani counterpart, Hyderabad’s bolder “kachchi” biryani, sometimes labelled a “pulao” by champions of Lucknow because rice and meat are cooked together in the same pot. A biryani, by definition, is a layered dish. Rice and meat are cooked separately, then layered and cooked on dum in the Avadhi version.

The Calcutta biryani holds up its distinct identity with potatoes and eggs intact. There is the Ambur biryani of the south, made famous ostensibly by a former cook of the Arcot royals who opened a shop in the small town of Ambur and had loyalists and imitators queuing up. There are the non-courtly varieties, such as from northern Kerala’s Moplah community, showing off spice and dried fruit bounty as well as connections brought by ancient trade. And there are hyper-local versions like Dindigul biryani which, loyalists say, is distinctive not only because of its shortgrained rice but the very water it’s cooked in, from a local lake!

This dum diversity is one reason why local biryani joints have never really been able to establish large-scale presence in other parts of the country. In Kolkata, where small biryani shops sprout in every lane, brands like Arsalan and Aminia have been expanding but only within the city and areas in Bengal. Hyderabad’s famous Paradise is trying to go national but yet to replicate its Deccan success all over. Dindigul’s best known Thalapakatti is a phenomenon in Tamil Nadu with 38 stores, and plans to expand in southern India but a nationwide presence is debatable.

Meanwhile, bolstered by middle India’s appetite for rice-with-spice, a clutch of startups without any culinary legacy have also entered the space, trying to emulate QSR scalability. One of the best of this lot, Biryani By Kilo, for instance sells 40-50,000 kilos of biryani per month, says its founder Vishal Jindal.

With an initial funding of Rs 10 crore, they hope to have a topline of Rs 100 crore-plus in the next two years. India seems to be biting, but the question is what exactly?

While Jindal says that “we follow (traditional) recipes, SOPs and processes very stringently”, commercial biryani inevitably lacks nuances and flavours that aficionados crave.

“There’s nothing wrong with commercial biryani but I don’t recommend it! Hyderabad has so many amazing home cooks, who cater. Their food is soulful, authentic, full of flavour and the ingredients are more carefully selected,” points out Upasna Konidela, vice chairperson, CSR, Apollo Foundation, known to be a fit foodie. Entrepreneur Shaaz Mehmood, who belongs to an old Hyderabadi family known for its biryani, adds: “The biryani recipe can never be set. It depends on andaz, the skill of the cook and how ingredients change with changing weather et al. Only one person is allowed to marinate the meat in our home, no two hands,” he says.

Dum Pukht’s Ghulam Qureshi, perhaps our top chef for traditional Indian restaurant food, confirms how making the biryani is an art. Cooking it is an elaborate process that begins with identifying and procuring prime cuts of meat and the best old basmati money can buy (for Avadhi biryani). “The aroma of basmati is what gives flavour. In the old days, the area around Tehri had the best rice and the story goes that the nawabs got rice from a particular village called Manjara there,” says Qureshi, as he cooks up a dish that is aromatic, restrained and just exquisite.

Pearly white grains of rice, each separate yet coated in flavour, glisten with ghee and milk. There’s no hodgepodge masala, so the saffron stands out. The meat falls off the bone with the touch of a fork. Finally, as the pot is unsealed, a beautiful fragrance escapes, beckoning us to lunch.

Take away these nuances and you realise, a biryani not so artfully crafted is not really biryani!