I will start with a confession – I did not know until a month back that this even exists. I always thought biriyanis are meant to be yellow in color. So, I came across a post that talked about some famous white biriyani from Coimbatore and I was shocked as I had never heard of it before. I immediately asked Sandy about it as she is from Coimbatore, she said it is called Khuska and that is what it is. Now I know khuska and that is what biriyani rice without a piece of meat is called in the Southern part of India. In fact when I used to be big time broke during my college days, this was something I ate a lot just to be happy and get the feel of some meat … pheew weren’t those some days… imagine biriyani without meat !!! She also told me it is made of coconut milk so I realized how I can replicate it in my kitchen. But then I wanted to understand the history behind it, so I dug a bit more. This is when I found that white chicken biriyani is also a part of the royal Awadhi cuisine and was relished by the royals and the courtiers back then. This one is made of nuts and cream and all those expensive ingredients which were not readily available for the poorer strata of the society back then and may be this is why it never became that popular to be featured in the menus of restaurants.
Now I pride myself as an avid Meat eater, but I felt bad that I never knew about this. Anyways so I knew what I had to do next, combine the flavors from both South and North India and create a “White biriyani” that is loaded of all those Awadhi and South Indian ingredients.

I was skeptical about this dish but I kept cooking and this is what I achieved in the first go. The first bite just had me on the moon. Wow..!! I said as I could taste and feel the sweetness from the Anjeer (fig) , the smell of the spices, the aroma from the kewra water, the creaminess from the coconut and cream and the nutty texture from the almonds. It was all there in the bite, and I was sold. This is definitely going to be a regular from now on and well if you are in the guest list, you can ask me to make this. This is a request, make this once, you won’t regret if you like good aromatic food.

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