Zouk Biryani Masala 60g Refill Bag – Authentic Biryani Spice Blend

There's no real fixed "biryani masala" recipe. However as a general rule for an authentic biryani which would be slow cooked by steaming (as opposed to the British-Indian restaurant "reimagining" of the concept as a dog's dinner cooked leftovers chuck-everything-in-a-frying-pan dish), fragrant flavours would be what you would expect - cinnamon, cardamom & cloves.Whilst these are here, they're a bit dominated by the other flavours and rather drowned out. Like other blends I have tried from this brand, it's very salty, and also quite sour, not only from the mango powder but also from citric acid. It seems to be a "thing" with this brand - lots of salt plus citric acid in everything. The level of chilli also serves to take away the fragrant flavours too much.Weirdly there are whole seeds in here - I can see coriander seeds and also chilli seeds, and possibly more too. I really wouldn't expect to see that in a genuine biryani dish. The aromatics - cinnamon, cardamom & clove - you would find whole in an authentic biryani, but not others, i.e. it's an inversion of what you would see.I certainly wouldn't want to use this in an authentic biryani cooked the proper way where you want to taste aromatic flavours. If you are trying to reproduce the British-Indian restaurant "biryani", well it's OK, but shame that the salty, sour and hot flavours dominate the fragrant flavours so much.

This is a very tasty blend of spices for making a Biryani, which is a dry rice dish cooked with onions and chicken or lamb if you eat meat. It has a russet brown colour which adds a lovely golden colour to your rice with a spicey kick. Easy to prepare, just fry off your chicken and onions with a couple of tablespoons of the spice mix, and add cooked basmati rice to the pan. Garnish with crispy brown fried onions, for a quick and easy meal. Very Tasty!

This spice blend allowed me to make a very tasty biryani. I love spice blends as it’s easier than using individual spices. This spice blend is quite expensive but the flavour is worth it.

Having tried a few bits from Zouk they really have been delivering on flavour from piri piri to hot bbq so i had to snap this up and give it a try.Its a good mix of spices, the main flavours being the gentler side people enjoy with a hit of chilli and the stronger flavours adding a nice depth. In a slow style biriani we were...ok, happy enough with the outcome with a very fragrant mix to the rice. The flavours soaking into the mutton to help it both tenderise and give it a nice deep flavour. It wasnt bad but it wasnt any better than any other slow biriani we'd had.But making a base curry overnight and stir frying it with cooked rice for a resturant style biriani and its incredible. The chilli blends up and kicks up a notch, the cardamon, the aniseed flavours come through much stronger and there was more of a zest that really added more depth to the taste.At the price point, its well worth it but its definitely a restaurant fast style biriani over the usual traditional ones you'd expect.

This spice range is wonderful! Amazing quality and so so tasty! Did a beautiful meal using this mix and also used it to do awesome chicken wings!The website for the range is brilliant and I plan to purchase some of the gift sets for family.Great value for moneyDelicious!