Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani

The undisputed centrepiece of the Hyderabadi table — raw mutton pieces marinated overnight in yoghurt, whole spices, and fried onions layered beneath half-cooked aged basmati in a sealed deg and slow-cooked dum-style on live coal until the meat and rice finish cooking simultaneously, exchanging fragrances in a sealed aromatic cloud. The kacchi (raw-marinated) dum method is the Hyderabadi invention — no other biryani tradition uses this technique at scale.