How to Make the Perfect Biryani

If there's one thing all of India can agree on, it's biryani. Across the world, everyone likes biryani. Whether it's with fish, lamb, egg, or cheese, it has become a staple of the Indian diaspora. It is a unique mix of spices, rice, meat/vegetables, and local flavors.

There are many types of biryanis, including Hyderabadi, Dum, Nizami, Thalassery and many more, each from a different part of India.

Cooking a perfect biryani takes a long time, as you have to learn how to correct your mistakes and shortcomings. Eventually, a great biryani will be made. In this article, we are looking at how making biryani is just like improving at chess. 

Step 1: The Rice

To be off to a good start, the rice needs to be cooked correctly. If the rice is not prepared correctly, the biryani will always be missing something, no matter how good everything else is. To cook rice, you need to put water, rice, and a little salt into a pot and boil it till the water is gone.In chess, the rice corresponds to the fundamental principles of the game. You should control the center, place your pieces actively, castle your king, and try not to blunder your pieces. These are the baby steps of chess. This is the basis of your entire game. At first, you follow all the rules, and then slowly break them. Due to this, the London System is a great opening for beginners as white.

Step 2: The Protein

Most biryanis have some sort of protein, be it fish, chicken, lamb, or egg. These have to be marinated correctly, and will be flavorless otherwise. However, this is not a required ingredient, and many people overfocus on the meat and neglect the other parts of the biryani. While this is an important part, it isn't the only thing that matters.

These correlate to your openings. Most people study their openings way too much. They know a bunch of useless theory that they will never use, and even when they do get a good position, they are unable to play it well enough to get a win. Rather than memorizing, understanding is key. 

Step 3: The Gravy/Sabzi

Every good biryani has a gravy, known as a sabzi. Why? It adds a nice flavor to the rice and a crunch to the food. Usually, it is composed of mainly onions, but it can be anything. These are very important, otherwise the rice will be mostly flavorless.

These correspond to your middlegames. Your middlegame skill will decide most of your games. Just as the rice will be flavorless without the sabzi, so will your overall play. No matter how good everything else is, the dish will be bad. You can get great positions out of the opening, be an engine at the endgame, and still lose.

The Spices

Spice gives biryani most of its flavor. There are many different ways of spicing it, from super spicy with red chilies to mild with just a little turmeric. Regardless, no matter what you choose you need the spices, otherwise there will be no flavor to your biryani. When you first make biryani, you should just go to youtube and find a spice mix that works well. However, as time goes on, you should start experimenting and find what works best for you.

These correspond to your endgames. For the most part, it doesn't matter too much what specifically you study. However, you definitely need them, just like the spices. In many cases, what separates us from grandmasters is our endgame skill (as does a home chef to a restaurant). Start off by learning basic checkmates, then progress to rook endgames, minor piece endgames, etc. 

That's A Great Analogy, But How Will This Help My Chess?

That's a great question. Obviously, I'm not that great of a player. However, I am better than most, according to chess.com statistics (I still hang my queen on the daily basis). The key thing I have noticed is the lack of balance people give to their training. Often, they will focus way too much on one area, and completely neglect another. For improvement, I introduce the idea of...balance!

The concept of balance is simple, yet highly profound. Too much and too little are simply two sides of the same coin. No matter how good you are at endgames or middlegames, if you keep getting scholar's mated, you won't go up the rating ladder. 

Likewise, if you simply only play, or in this case, cook, you will not learn as much about what works or what doesn't, leading to slow improvement and weird results. Why try to discover everything by yourself when there's so much knowledge readily available? 

Do What Works For You

You may notice that, throughout this whole article, I have never told you what specifically to do. Why? Because everybody is different, so what works for one person may not work for you. You may like spicier food, and I may not, it just varies from person to person. Another key to finding balance is finding what works for YOU, not what works for some random person.

What You Can Do

1. Do everything in Moderation: Find what you need to improve on, work on that mainly, but don't forget to work on everything. 

2. Analyze your games: After every game, try to make a few notes of what worked and what didn't this can also help prevent tilt, since you can think about what went wrong, and make a good decision on whether you are in a state to play another game. For more information, click here.

What Not To Do

1. Don't do anything in excess, as stated before.

2. Don't use traps. Obviously, some are good and successful, but you don't learn too much from them. This would be like using frozen biryani. Sure, it gets the job done, but is it really good for you?

3. Don't Give Up. Doing lots of studying and not improving can be demoralizing. However, it takes a minimum 3 months often for the information to fully sink in. If you're feeling this, take a break to avoid burnout.

Final Words

Maybe this was helpful to you. If anything, at least you learned a little about biryani. Keep playing chess, and maybe we will play each other someday!

“Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine.”
― R. Spielmann