Preparation:

• Wash and soak jeera(seeraga samba) rice for 20mins.
• Clean mutton pieces and keep aside.
• Soak 7 red chillies and 3 kashmiri chillies in warm water. For half kg mutton and 2 cups of rice I used these many. But you can alter the quantity based on your liking. Kashmiri chillies gives a nice natural red color to the ambur Mutton biryani. You can skip these if you don't have and just proceed with normal red chillies. After 15 minutes, grind into a smooth paste using little water.
• Grind garlic and ginger pastes separately with little quantity of water and keep aside.
• Slice onion and chop tomato.
• Rinse and chop mint, coriander leaves.

Recipe to make Ambur star Mutton briyani:

How to cook biryani base mutton masala:

• Heat oil in a pressure cooker, saute bayleaf, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves.
• Put half of the curd into the oil and stir very quickly before curd burns. You may see light brown gravy of curd, but do not worry.
• Proceed with adding the garlic paste first and continue stirring.
• Once when the raw smell of garlic is completely gone, add ginger paste.
• Saute nicely and cook ginger paste well in oil.
• Now add sliced onions and cook until they become brown in color.
• Add chopped tomato and cook until soft and pour the remaining curd.
• Also, mix mint leaves and coriander leaves.
• This is the time to add the red chilli paste and mix well.
• Wash mutton pieces well and add into the masala.
• You can add the required salt for the biryani.
• Mix everything and pour two cups of water.
• Cover with cooker lid with weight on it and pressure cook for five whistles.

How to cook jeera rice:

• In the meantime while cooking mutton, in another stove boil approximately 6cups of water.
• When water starts boiling, add soaked and drained seeraga samba rice.
• Let the rice cook for just 5mins until the grains are half-cooked.
• Please note that the jeera rice is very delicate and small and takes very less time to get cooked.
• Cook the rice only 3/4th. Means the rice should be softer outside but still firm inside.
• Check often and once half or 3/4thcooked switch off and drain the water immediately and keep aside.

How to give dum for the biryani:

• Keep an old Tawa on a stove.
• Let the pressure of the cooker drop naturally and open the lid.
• Add the half cooked and drained jeera rice into the mutton curry.
• Mix gently along with a tsp of lemon juice.
• Close with a plate without leaving any gap.
• Keep a heavy weight on top of the plate - I used another cooker full of water.
• Now place this entire set up on the tawa as shown here.
• Switch on the stove, keep in low flame for 20 min undisturbed.
• After 20mins of dum, switch off and the delicious and fabulous Ambur mutton biryani is ready to serve.
• You can transfer the biryani from the cooker to another without breaking the delicate rice grains.
• Tips:
• 1) You can follow the same recipe to make the Ambur chicken biryani also. But the only modification would be for chicken, no need to give 5 whistles. Just pressure cook up to two whistles and proceed with other steps.
• 2) Follow the order of the steps exactly to get the original taste of authentic Ambur style mutton briyani.
• 3) Multiple the quantity respectively for large batches.