• Wash rice & soak for 15 minutes.
  2 cups jeera rice

Cooking mutton

• Add mutton, along with water & all ingredients for cooking mutton in a pressure cooker, put the lid on & cook on high pressure until the first whistle.
  450 grams mutton, ½ teaspoon turmeric powder, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 bay leaf, 2 cloves, 2 elaichi, 1 inch dalchini, 1 blade of mace, 2 cups water
• Cook on low heat for 10 minutes and turn off the heat.
• Drain the mutton pieces & discard the whole spices.
• Reserve the mutton stock for use later. This should yield 2 ¼ cup stock.

Making biryani masala powder

• Take the spices for biryani masala in a mixer grinder, powder it fine and set aside. This will yield approx. 4 tablespoons of powder.
  2 tablespoons coriander seeds, ½ tablespoon cumin seeds, ½ tablespoon fennel seeds, ½ teaspoon black pepper corns, 5 elaichi, 5 cloves, 2 mace blades, 1 inch dalchini, 1 tablespoon stone flower, 2 bay leaves

Making onion paste

• Take all ingredients for onion paste in a mixer grinder & grind to a smooth paste.
  25 sambar onions, 5 green chillies, 1 inch ginger, 15 cloves garlic

Making biryani

• Heat oil & ghee in a cooking pot, add onion paste & cook on low for 5 minutes until it gets well roasted & oil leaves from the sides of the pot.
  3 tablespoons coconut oil, 4 tablespoons ghee
• Add cashew powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder & salt and fry for a minute.
  ¼ cup broken cashews ground to a fine powder, 1 tablespoon kashmiri chilli powder, ½ teaspoon turmeric powder, 2 ⅛ teaspoon salt
• Add the drained mutton & 3 tablespoons of the biryani masala powder & mix well.
• Add 3 tablespoons of chopped pudina, 3 tablespoons of chopped coriander, curds, lemon juice and stir well.
  ¼ cup pudina leaves, ¼ cup coriander leaves, ½ cup curds, 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Cook covered for 5 minutes till the mutton absorbs all the masala & ghee/oil leaves the sides of the pot.
• Add rice, mutton stock, ¾ + ¼ cup water, remaining 1 tablespoon of mint leaves, 1 tablespoon of coriander leaves & cook till it boils.
  ¾ + ⅓ cup water
• Reduce the heat to very low & cook covered for 10 minutes. Biryani will be semi-cooked at this stage.
• While the biryani is cooking, heat a tawa till its hot.
• Keep the semi-cooked biryani on the tawa & cook on low heat for 7 minutes. (See note 5)
• Let it rest for 30 minutes before serving.