Today, I decided to give a new attempt by changing the flavor of my chicken biriyani. While searching, I found lot of oranges in my refrigerate, I suddenly took out, peeled, de seeded, extracted the juice & substitute it with water. But I bet you, this orange flavored biriyani was exquisite taste. Make-sure, while adding the spices, sometimes it may dominate the flavor of orange. Instead of chili powder, I used green chilies. Finally I used saffron to get nice colour, flavor & taste to dish.

Preparation Time : 15 minutes
Marination Time : 30 minutes
Soaking Time time : 30 minutes
Cooking Time : 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Basmathi Rice – 1 1/2 cups ( 360 gms)
Oil – 2 tbsp
Ginger – garlic paste – 1tbsp
Bay leaves – 2
Cinnamon – 2 small sticks
Shahi jeera – 1 tsp
Fennel seeds – 1 tsp
Onion – 1 medium
Green chili – 6 (small)
Cilantro & mint leaves – handful
Fresh / bottled Orange juice – 500 ml (unsweetened)
saffron – pinch (soaked in warm milk)
Salt to taste

Marination:
Chicken – 500 gms
Orange juice – ½ cup
Orange Zest – 1 tbsp
Curd – ¼ cup
Salt – ¼ tsp

Method:

• First clean the chicken & marinate with the ingredients given above and rest it for atleast half an hour.
• Soak the basmathi rice for 30 minutes and keep aside.
• Now keep the pan or pressure cooker, add 2 tbsp of oil to it & heat it on low flame, now add the bay leaves, cinnamon, shahi jeera, fennel seeds and saute for a minute.
• After that add thinly sliced onion & cook until its turns into golden brown, now add the ginger garlic paste and saute it until the raw flavor goes off.
• Once the raw flavor goes away, add the marinated chicken and saute it for 5 minutes. 
• Now add orange juice (500 ml) + water (200 ml) to the mixture.
• Once it gets boiled, add basmathi rice to it.
• Mix it slowly with the ladle and cook it for 5 minutes on medium flame.
• Once the three fourth of water gets evaporated, now keep it on very low flame and cover it with the tight lid for 15 more minutes.
• Before closing the lid, add the finely chopped cilantro & mint layer by layer.
• Remove the lid and slowly mix the rice with flat ladle, once the rice get cooked nicely.
• Finally garnished with saffron soaked in warm milk.
• Serve it hot and enjoy it with onion raita.

I served with spiced Indian deviled egg, onion raitha & chicken lollipop.

Hints:

• Adding water is an important step in biriyani, because most of the people over cook their rice. To avoid this, consider the liquid amount adding to biriyani like curd, tomatoes & moisture from the chicken.
• Choose good quality of basmathi / seeraga samba rice.