For marination wash the chicken pieces thoroughly and take them in a big bowl. Add unsour curd, chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt. Lemon juice can be used instead of curd.
Keep aside for atleast 15 mins. Curd or lemon juice gives tenderness to the meat. Since my chicken was very soft and tender, I did not use marination. You can skip marination in busy mornings if packing for lunch.
Wash and soak rice with enough water.
Chop onions, green chillies and tomatoes.
Wash and chop mint, coriander leaves.
Recipe to make easy cooker chicken biryani with jeera rice:
Heat a correct size pressure cooker (I used 4lts cooker) with oil and ghee. You can use fully oil instead of ghee. Ghee gives nice aroma to the biryani.
Add all the whole spices mentioned in the list.
Once the spices are sautéed add onions chopped and slit green chillies. Fry them nicely till onions turn to golden brown color. This step is important to fry onions properly.
Add ginger garlic paste and fry them till the raw flavor goes off.
Now add chopped tomatoes. In authentic dindigul thalapakatti style biryani, tomatoes are not added.
Add some salt to cook the tomatoes fast. Now add turmeric powder, chilli powder. Add readymade biryani masala powder very little at this stage if you are using. I did not use masala powder as I felt whole spices will give the required biryani flavor.
Add chicken pieces in the cooker and mix. Now add chopped mint leaves and coriander leaves and leave for two mins for the chicken to get all the flavors.
After five mins the chicken will be quarter cooked by its own water and now add water exactly 3 cups. The ratio of rice to water is 1(rice):1.5(water) always for biryanis. For chicken biryani when cooked in pressure cooker, chicken releases water when cooked. So please be careful with the ratio.
Add enough salt. Check salt and spice level before adding rice. Salt level should be slightly high so that when rice is added it will be perfect.
When water is boiling add soaked and drained jeeraga rice. Give a gentle mix and close the lid of the cooker with weight on it. Keep in medium flame.
Give one full whistle and 3-4 mins simmer or ten mins in simmer mode.
Switch off the stove and let the steam come down on its own.
Open and fluff the biryani. You can transfer the biryani from cooker to other pot if storing for later use.
Serve with onion raita or chicken thin gravy.