Mama Shah's Famous Biryani Recipe

There's a certain melancholy in being the child of first-generation immigrants: a "third-culture kid", a "diaspora youth" – call it what you may.

From my childhood years, I remember being in primary school and watching my friends swap lunches during morning tea break. With careful consideration, they would assess the scents, sight and overall promise of the contents handed to them. Inside each Tupperware box, a neatly presented morsel of food, packed lovingly by the other's mother the night before.

Some staples shone brightly year after year: the quintessential Aussie Vegemite sandwich (with the perfect mite-to-butter ratio); Kellogg's K-Time berry-flavoured baked twist bars, Uncle Toby's sticky and sickly sweet Roll Ups and – of course – the gluttonous goodness of Le Snak's cheesy dip and crackers (another Uncle Toby's original).

The daily lunch swap was a comforting, reliable and rewarding ritual. It was also one in which I never took part.

Because as much as my friends liked me, there was only so much enthusiasm small-town Australian kids could muster for a rather alien looking mutton karahi, or palak paneer, or daal chawal. Occasionally, I'd ask my mom to give me jam on my naan, instead of the usual aloo bhaji, hoping this might help "modernise" it.

Don't get me wrong. Having travelled where I have now, having eaten what I’ve eaten, I know I'm lucky to understand the value of a traditional homemade korma – compared to a $37 over-sweetened, under-stirred "haute cuisine" butter chicken. Waiter, puh-lease.

But this realisation hadn't struck back then. And so, as I sat there with my friends every day on the paved concrete outside class, I quietly ate my own food. That was, until I brought biryani to school.

Biryani is a most magical thing, adored in the South Asian parts of the world. In fact, it's so good that nations in the subcontinent have spent decades arguing over its origins, each wanting to claim it as their own.

Personally, I think of biryani as a bonding force between my two worlds, a means by which I have been able to introduce my non-subcontinental friends to the flavours of my roots (without eliciting tears due to spice).

And the biryani made by my own mother, affectionately known as Mama Shah, well – that gets everyone salivating. Even my third grade, country farm-living friends were willing to look past its “exoticness” to appreciate the scrumptiousness within. On the days I brought biryani to school, I was everyone’s envy.

Mama's biryani is a stylised Punjabi-Pakistani interpretation of the much-loved dish. It's punched with flavour, but not drowning in chilli. It’s filling, but not cursed with that layer of oil or ghee that famously straddles the top of many South Asian curries. And it's rich, but the heaviness is cut through by zesty slivers of ginger, and the welcome freshness of whole mint.

That said, perhaps the one thing that really gives Mama's biryani its edge – that "X" factor – is the way it features potato. Handfuls of chunky, crunchy fries come sprinkled atop the entire dish, like a bounty dropped from the heavens above. This spectacle alone is both enticing and familiar enough to win the heart of any kid, even from the smallest of small Aussie towns.

To Mama's biryani, I owe many friendships. It has been a saving grace on many a potluck dinner, birthday feast, or pre-exam cram session with the girls. I share this recipe like a part of my soul. Never has it graced a table that hasn't subsequently made several requests for a step-by-step guide.

So, without further ado, I present to you, Mama Shah's famous biryani recipe. This particular recipe will feed about ten young'uns, five brown parents (hungry from the heat of a charged political debate), or three ravenous teenage boys just back from playing soccer.

The tools you’ll need to give rise to your vision (and your rice):

• 1 deep pan, or deep fryer.

• 1 large pot to boil the rice.

• 1 large pot to cook the chicken and eventually hold the entire dish. If you're pro enough to already own a handi, use it.

• Several utensils for stirring. My grandma always said wooden spoons helped attain the best flavour. I’ve no way to really confirm nor deny this, but the internet seems to agree.

• Several takeaway containers, because nobody is leaving empty-handed once they’ve had this banger of a meal.

Tip: as tested by every brown aunty or uncle who dominates like a boss in the kitchen, a gas stove may just halve your cooking time. Note, by "aunty" and "uncle" here I mean my parents' friends – not to be confused with their siblings back in the motherland.

What you will be digesting until the next morning (because you overate):

• 1.5 kilograms of chicken, preferably Aus size 12 (without sounding like we're fat-shaming it). Skin removed and cut into 10 pieces.

• 5 medium onions, halved and sliced. None of the "no-tears" red onion nonsense. Yes, the real deal will make you cry, but it will also make your guests cry with pleasure when you present them the end product.

• 1 pack of Shan's biryani masala. And hold up, before you say this is cheating, you should know Mama Shah has tried every spice combo under the sun and Shan really has perfected it. Why fix something if it ain't broke?

• 1 tablespoon of ginger paste, heaped.

• 1 tablespoon of garlic paste. But more realistically, as much as you can get away with before people start to notice.

• 2 large tomatoes, chopped.

• 1 piece of fresh ginger, thinly sliced.

• 1 handful of fresh mint, stems removed.

• 3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunky fries.

• 1 kilogram of high-quality basmati rice. India gate is a cult classic (and for once, it has not paid for this endorsement).

• 1 pinch of saffron strings. Otherwise, yellow food colouring will do.

• Cooking oil of your choice.

• Salt.

How to win the hearts (and stomachs) of the local South Asian community:

1. In a large cooking pot, fry 1 chopped onion in half a cup of cooking oil.

2. Add the ginger and garlic pastes.

3. Add 1 heaped teaspoon of salt. Fry the mixture until the onions start to caramelise, and the smells begin to attract people from adjacent rooms.

4. Add chopped tomatoes.

5. Cook the mixture until the tomatoes soften, stirring occasionally.

6. Add the chicken pieces, with tenderness (because that's what makes the chicken tender). Then add the whole pack of Shan masala.

7. Cook until the colour of the raw chicken changes to an opaque white. Keep stirring throughout. This usually takes about 10 minutes, but some aunties will tell you the wild murghi their fathers hunted in their youth cooked twice as fast ... and that they're starving ... and also you should hurry up.

8. Add half a cup of water.

9. Cover the pot and cook on medium heat until chicken is done. Make sure the extra water has evaporated. The remaining contents should be a gravy-like mixture. Set aside for later.

10. In your other large pot, bring water to the boil for rice.

11. While the water is boiling, rinse the rice carefully 3 times in a large sieve.

12. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to the boiling water. Mix until dissolved.

13. Drain the rice and add it to the boiling water. Crucially, there must be at least 2 inches of water sitting above the rice (or two-thirds of your index finger if you're freestyling). A good rice soak is a deep rice soak.

14. Cook the rice until it's close to being done. As in, when it's "done" enough for you, when you're in a famished stupor, to start shovelling mouthfuls in your face, even though you know it probably needs some more time.

15. Drain the rice of excess water.

16. Pivot to chicken. Shift all of it into a separate dish, for now.

17. Then shift half the rice to the chicken pot, spreading it out evenly and lovingly, parallel to the base.

18. Layer all of your chicken on top of this rice, before covering it completely with the remaining rice. Let those layers get acquainted, they're eventually going to get real close.

19. In a separate deep pan, heat some oil and fry the fries until they’re radiant and crisp. If you're feeling luxurious, you may want to double fry them – but this is only for the most special occasions, really.

20. Once they're done, remove the fries and deep fry the remaining 4 chopped onions in the same oil until they turn a dark golden-brown.

21. Drain all the fries and onions of excess oil (as well as can be done when oil has a starring role). Scatter the fried onions over the now three-layered biryani. Sprinkle on the fresh mint and sliced ginger.

22. Sprinkle a few shreds of saffron, too. Or, just add yellow food colouring if you are too lazy or broke to go hunting for saffron. I get it, it's about as common (and affordable) as gold flakes in some parts. So I won't hold it against you.

23. Cover the pot with a lid and cook everything together for another 7-10 minutes on very low heat, until the rice is perfect. Alternatively, if you don't like using timers, you can simply watch through the whole Bole Chudiyan sequence one and a half times (daily Bollywood dose: check).

24. The time has come for those layers to mesh. Mix, mix, mix it like you mean it. But also, with as much grace as you can manage so the rice doesn’t break. Then again, don’t beat yourself up if it does break a little. Some of us have the magic touch, but not everyone is so blessed.

25. And finally – unleash several (and I mean several) generous handfuls of those delicious crispy, golden fries over the top.

. . .

You'll find you now have yourself a hell of a meal. What comes next is simple.

Savour the fruits of your own labour (you cooked it so you get dibs on first plate, duh). After that, make sure you feed the hungry (friends and family crowding the kitchen).

Share your food far, wide and with abandon. And don't forget to exercise your bragging rights. You've produced a beautiful biryani baby, so you should be proud of yourself.

But most importantly, have this recipe with you, because people will want it. And when you pass it forth, do so with a full heart. Thrust it into the world with vivacity, and the same sense of love and belonging I felt all those years ago, when my third-grade friends in that small town took their first, wide-eyed bites of Mama Shah's famous biryani. Wah!