This beautiful layered biryani uses a homemade spice mix made from fifteen different spices. It’s cooked with coconut milk, saffron and – the star of the show – confit rabbit. Save a little bit of leftover cooked rice for making a Discarded Pomegranate and Coconut Rice Cocktail.
Add all the rabbit confit ingredients to a pot
Cook the rabbit legs very slowly in the ghee over a low heat, until the meat is soft and yielding, about 1 hour
Once cooked, remove the legs and pick the meat from the bones. Keep to one side. Reserve the ghee
Dry roast all the Andhra spice mix ingredients over a medium heat in a dry pan, until the spices are fragrant and the rice is golden
Allow to cool before blitzing to a fine powder
For the Andhra masala, temper the black mustard seeds, cumin seeds, dried chillies and curry leaves in ghee until they are fragrant, then add the onions and brown over a medium heat for 15–20 minutes
Add the ginger-garlic paste and cook out for a further 5 minutes
Add the tomatoes, chilli and turmeric powder, then cook out until the tomatoes break down and all the water from them has been cooked off
Finally, mix in the coconut milk, 20g Andhra spice mix and salt
Preheat the oven to 180°C fan. Warm the milk slightly, then add in the saffron and ghee. Set aside to infuse
To make the biryani, place a bottom layer of rice in an ovenproof clay pot or ovenproof pan
Add a layer of rabbit meat, Andhra masala, fried onions, herbs and ghee/milk mixture. Repeat this process until you have filled the pot, finishing with a final, extra-thick layer of fried onions and herbs and a liberal drizzle of the ghee/milk mixture
Cover the pot tightly and bake in an oven at 180°C for 15 minutes. Remove and serve the biryani with pickles and raita
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