Spice explorer

Biryani, in the tradition of northern Indian cookery, brings together two recipes - a marinated lamb korma in a reduced gravy, and a pulao rice. The word itself derives from the Persian word "beryân", which means baked - it is a characteristic of this dish that it is baked.

In India, the sealed pot containing the biryani would be lowered into a barely hot tandoor and left to cook for as long as two hours. An oven, though, is more controllable.

The classic recipes for biryani often call for the addition of raisins and either cashew or pistachio nuts. This practice goes back to the Mogul era of the16th century and probably earlier still, because Persians often mixed fruit and nuts in rice dishes. However, it's not essential and Vineet Bhatia, chef at Zaika in London's Fulham Road, prefers to omit them so that the taste he achieves is more savoury. Nor does he cook the rice in water and milk, as some authorities recommend.

To seal the handi (cooking pot) containing the rice and meat, Indian chefs have always used a kind of inedible dough called atta, like the huff paste used in England to bake hams during the 17th and 18thcenturies. After cooking, this was thrown away. Bhatia has improved on this by covering the rice and meat with a flaky crust, halfway between a paratha and a puff pastry.