At this very moment, in some part of the internet, a debate may be raging on which version of the biriyani, should be crowned as the (all-hail) Queen of Indian cuisine. Pick up a plate and choose your side from an exhaustive list of Lucknowi, Hyderabadi, Ambur, Dindigul, Thalassery and more, but add this one to your list, too.
Chennai based cloud kitchen (restaurants built around food delivery services) Karigar Biryani has made available a new (actually, very old) version of the biriyani straight from the Sangam era, in an eco-friendly packaging. Its name is perunchoru, which means the 'big feast' *drumroll*.
The perunchoru is referenced in Sangam-era Tamil texts and is attributed to Chera King Uthiyan. It is considered to be very different from the biriyani that was introduced to the Indians by the Mughals. It is also said that the Chera king had this feast cooked for soldiers with wild boar meat that is rich in fat.
“The idea of the perunchoru,” says Girish Subash, one of the founders of Karigar Biryani, “is that it is not a Mughal recipe. It is a very south Indian recipe, made using spices that are locally found here.”
“In fact, some of the spices,” he continues, “can only be sourced from the naatu marundhu kadai (country medicine shops) we’ve got here.” And he cuts it short there. The recipe, a result of a three-month long research and development, is a secret, Girish adds. The idea, though, was suggested by a culinary arts professor who prefers to remain anonymous. “She was the one who introduced us to the idea of its existence and then we went about roping in some people we know, including my dear friend Chef Harish Rao, to try it out. The recipe worked and it has come out exceptionally well,” he says.
Before we get into describing the definitely drool-worthy perunchoru, here’s a little more on Karigar Biryani.
Girish, along with his friend Kannan Velayutham, who is from the service sector, were mulling over the idea of venturing into the biriyani business around August last year. “Kannan had started a biriyani outlet in Thiruvannamalai but had to shut it down shortly afterwards because of the coronavirus pandemic. He then moved back to Chennai with his family. That was when he came to me with this idea of building a biriyani brand,” Girish explains.
Kannan and Girish
While Girish had his reservations about the proposition at first — a heavily competitive market, he calls it — he decided to draw some lines to make their brand stand out from the rest. “First we only wanted to make an eco-friendly brand. That was our top priority,” Girish says.
So, they spent many months scouring for the right materials that could be used in packing their food. From biodegradable plastics, to other alternatives, Girish and Kannan exhausted their list before they were reminded of one of their earlier trips to a few villages in Thoothukudi where palm leaf boxes were made. “These boxes were made specifically for packing palm jaggery by a few villages in the district. We found that the ones that were available in Chennai were extremely expensive, so we decided to visit the cottage industries directly," he says.
But upon reaching their destination, they were disappointed to find that only a fraction of the palm leaf box makers were functioning today. “We could only find about 5% of what was originally present. The industry was almost wiped out because of many reasons, COVID-19 being the main factor. Industrialisation and poor revenue were the other reasons,” he explains.
But the duo roped in a family to make these boxes and that has turned out to be Karigar’s biggest USP. “That is also why we decided to name it Karigar. Karigar means artisan. It resonates perfectly with our brand,” he adds. Now, Karigar has seven families making the packaging boxes, ordering as many as 1,000 pieces a week.
The cloud kitchen that went live on December 10, 2020, the co-founder says, has grown tremendously in just two months, with patrons hailing it for its unique taste and packaging. What’s available at Karigar might be limited — the perunchoru made using mutton, the chicken biriyani cooked in traditional Dindigul style, chicken 65 and mutton chukka as sides or for starters and a very special sweet called the paan laddu — but they make up for this it with the whole experience. Their cloud kitchen currently functions out of Girish’s restaurant Fromage in Egmore.
Now for a little more on all that we could gather on the mysterious perunchoru. As an alternative to the original dish made using wild boar, Karigar has gone with mutton, which is another choice for red meat. It is also why the chicken perunchoru is not available. “It’s important for the meat to be fatty and juicy so it balances the flavours from becoming too strong. Also, we use seeraga samba and mappilai samba rice and not the basmati rice used in the Mughal version of the biriyani,” Girish explains. The rest of it goes by the typical biriyani handbook.
They’ve also found an interesting use for the spice mix, which is watered down, condensed and added to a typical tomato-small onion gravy base to make the thokku. This is offered instead of the usual brinjal gravy that often comes with biriyani. “In fact the thokku has now got its own following, so much so that people are asking for an exclusive pack of it. It goes tremendously well with plain rice and curd rice we’re told,” he chuckles.
While the brand surely has grown by leaps and bounds within a short span of time, selling 10 kilos on an average daily now, Girish is confident of sticking to the model of it being a cloud kitchen. “We’ve now got plans of setting up a pick-up kiosk in Perungudi so we can cover that part of the city. But our aim is to remain true to the idea of a cloud kitchen and work on a made-to-order basis. We also do not want to partner with aggregator services because we don’t want to lose out on our edge,” he adds.
You can place your order for Karigar Biryani dishes here.