Ever since Neanderthal man invented fire and wheel, of all the other pregnant inventions the most adorable one, as my senses reckon, is the Biriyani. It is not just the Biriyani, but is the Bi-rri-yaa-ni. The word in itself, has arranged syllables that lit up my eyes when I hear it just before my lunch or even before the supper at times. The moment I am keying this piece my mouth is watering since I had a pretty ordinary lunch. Don’t want to dwell onto those things. Rather would like to narrate the subject in detail.
Would you believe me, if I say, my tongue is familiar to almost hundred tastes of biriyanis, sadly just named as either Dum,Hyderabadi or Thalappakattu or the quintessential Tamilnadu homemade biriyani. To me biriyani entails a chicken biriyani or at least egg biriyani where your fiscal constraints thrust you to opt for a cheaper choice. More seriously, to prepare/order a vegetable biriyani is as sinful as watching a silk sumitha movie without a two piece scene. (No offence vegetarians!)
There can be other instances where you are provided with a mutton/fish/beef biriyani. But I put aside all the other options and prefer just chicken biriyani exactly like the way I prefer to watch virendar sehwag in Test matches than one day or even T20 matches as the probability of an assured feast is more in both these cases. So in the context of this article biriyani implicitly refers to chicken biriyani.
Wikipedia states that biriyani is a word that is derived from Persian language. Ah, I am more obsessed with the word than the dish itself (as quoted above). Not only me, most of my friends, relatives, colleagues are almost addicted to biriyani, for the simple reason being that, or at least as I have found out is, it is a blend of rice and chicken predominantly, which happens to be the most obvious choice of the south indian youth. (The aforementioned crew of friends and relatives is majorly from the southern part of india)
The basic precepts of “biriyani making” differ from place to place and person to person. I don’ t want to plunge into the technical details of that but would like to arouse the million dollar question of what goes well as a side dish with biriyani. The options are limited though, with Raitha (we call it pachadi in TN), Brinjal curry and chicken curry/Gravy/Sherva.
Whenever I was out in hunger and in desperation for good food, biriyani has never disappointed me, except a very few times. Selectively, I would pick the talappakattu biriyani (The restaurant name is also the same, right opposite to LIC building, Chennai) and the Dum biriyani at the movenpick hotel recently as the best of all the 300 odd biriyanis (including Redundancies) I have batted sofar. But such comparisons would prove futile as a biriyani is a biriyani is a biriyani is a biriyani.
If you want to taste biriyani, I am there to accompany you and if you want to taste a homemade one, I am pleased to prepare for you on a weekend, Trust me. Hopefully I have given ample stimuli to the harmones that secrete saliva and trigger hunger in you.
Last but not the least, my father calls me a biriyani freak. Yes, I am. Again, as my encephalon supposes there is no harm in being a biriyani freak than a chronic drinker or a chain smoker. Have a happy week ahead and my advances Christmas and New year wishes!
