Festive Rice · Spice Island Biryani
Biryani ya Zanzibar
Photo: Kerigo / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Unlike pilau, which is cooked in one pot with its spices, Swahili biryani is usually made with the meat masala and the rice cooked separately and then layered, often with fried potatoes.
Layers of fragrant rice and spiced meat, perfumed with cloves, cinnamon and cardamom, are cooked together until the flavors meld, then served with kachumbari and a wedge of lime. On Zanzibar it's centerpiece food for weddings and Eid celebrations, and it also turns up at Forodhani Gardens' night food market.
Why it's made this way: Brought by nineteenth-century Indian merchants who settled under the Sultanate of Zanzibar, biryani was adapted with local spices and became a symbol of celebration and hospitality across the island.
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