Prepare the fried onions and set aside.

Mix the yogurt, chili powder, turmeric, garam masala, ginger/garlic paste, sliced green chili, cumin seeds, salt, cardamom pods, cloves, cinnamon stick, ½ cup mint and ½ cup cilantro, lemon juice and ⅓ the fried onions together, now add the chicken mix well and let marinate 4 hours.

Rinse/wash the rice twice with cold water to remove some of the starches. Then cover with cold water and let the rice soak for 30 minutes.

Warm up the milk and mix in the saffron threads and let sit, set aside.

In a large pot of boiling salted water, we're going to par cook our rice, first add the following seasoning to the salted water, 4 cardamom pods, a split green chili, a cinnamon stick, 2 cloves, 1 tsp cumin seeds. Drain the water from the rice and put the rice in the boiling seasoned water. Turn the burner to high if not already and add the rice and give it a stir. Once the rice comes back to a boil, it is almost done. Taste a grain after 1 minute, it should be par cooked to al dente, but no more then that, as it will finish on the stove. Drain the water retaining the rice and spices.

Time to layer it for the final cook. In a large heavy duty pot, start by cooking the chicken and yogurt spiced marinade for 4 minutes. Now remove ½ the chicken and a little of the yogurt and set aside. Add ½ the rice and spices on top of the portion of chicken, keeping the layers fairly even, then add the rest of the chicken on top of the first rice layer, sprinkle some of the browned onions on top, add ⅓ cup chopped cilantro and mint and then the rest of the rice, the rest of the browned onions, another ¼ cup of cilantro and mint and finish it off with placing spoonful's of the saffron milk across the top. Put a tight fitting lid on and cook at medium/high for 5 minutes and lower to low for another 30 minutes. Let sit for an additional 15 minutes with the lid on.

Serve with a side of Greek plain yogurt and lemon wedge. Enjoy!

After toasting the Biryani Masala spices, allow them to cool down and then grind them into a coarse or fine powder depending on your preference. This makes enough biryani masala for deveral batches of biryani, store in a jar or sealed baggie, out of the sunlight, for up to 3 months.

In the thick parts of the chicken make deep slashes into the thicker parts of the chicken to allow the masala spices to better penetrate the chicken. (If your using boneless thighs you can make slashes at a medium depth)
If you are smoking the chicken, you can do that now.
In a large bowl, add salt to the chicken, lemon juice, then all the rest of the chicken spices, mix well, cover and let marinate 24 hours.

The next day, rinse your Basmati rice three times (removing excess starch from the rice) and then cover with water and let soak for 1½ hours. After the rice has soaked long enough, put on a large pot of boiling water, once boiling, add the spice sachet with all the rice spices and the Basmati rice (or add the spices without the sachet, you may want to pick these out before adding to the main pot, or go Indian style as I am sure in Indian households they don't mind eating around the whole spices.

Par cook the rice for about 4 minutes, we want the rice 90% cooked, don't stir the rice too often as we don't want to break the individual rice grains. After the 4 minutes, strain the water from the rice (and if you want the whole spices if you didn't use a sachet), remove the sachet and discard if you used it. Set the rice aside

In the bowl with the chicken that was marinating over night, add the 1 cup of yogurt and add 80% (about 5 oz) of the fried onions and ⅓ of the chopped cilantro bunch and ⅓ the chopped mint leaves and if your using the optional ingredients, add in the prunes, potato, carrot and peas. Mix well.

In a heavy bottomed pot, add 2 tblsp of ghee over high heat, when melted, keep the heat up high until it is roaring hot and now add your chicken pieces with its marinade and the potato cubes. Stir often cook on high heat for 5-6 minutes, cooking the chicken 85-90%, taste the masala for salt content and adjust as needed.

Now turn the heat to low, make sure the chicken pieces are spread out in one layer and add ⅓ of the chopped cilantro bunch and ⅓ the chopped mint leaves add 15% of the fried onions (about 1½ oz)
Add all the rice on top of the chicken layer, smooth the rice into an even layer. Drizzle 3-4 tblsp of the ghee over the rice and then sprinkle/drizzle the saffron liquid over the rice.
Now add the remaining 5% fried onions (about ½ oz) add the remaining ⅓ bunch of chopped mint and cilantro (coriander leaves). Seal the lid with a rolled out piece of bread dough, or tinfoil (or cheesecloth). If you can weight the lid down with something heavy, that helps too!

Cook for 10-15 minutes on low heat. Then turn off heat and let rest for 10 minutes.

I believe traditionally the whole pot is turned upside down a into a platter and served, or just scoop it out with a serving spoon. You can sprinkle some garam masala over the top and serve with a side of Indian yogurt to cool down the spices.

Salt the eggplant and place in a colander to drain the juices we don't want.

In a large frying pan on high heat, add 2-3 tsp of vegetable oil. Carefully add the lamb and get a good sear on all sides. Do it in small batches if your using cubes of meat, do not add too many at once, otherwise you will be cooking the meat and not searing it. Set aside.

Add more vegetable oil to the pan and turn down the heat to medium. Fry the cauliflower florets until golden or softened through. Set aside.

Replenish the vegetable oil if needed. And fry the eggplant slices until golden and soft. *Make sure your heat gets back up to temperature if you are adding more oil, otherwise you will end up with oil soggy eggplant. Set Aside.

Mix the rice with the allspice, nutmeg, cumin, turmeric, salt, cinnamon sticks, cardamom seeds and peppercorns. Set aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large casserole pan, (one that makes it easy to turn upside down and retain the shape of the rounded pot and can also go in the oven!). So it should be just tall enough. Add 1/4 cup of vegetable oil and layer the ingredients as follows:
onion slices on bottom and around the sides, one onion high
cauliflower
eggplant
lamb
rice mix
I added potato slices that were also fried first after layering the cauliflower.

Add the stock until it just covers the rice. If you have leftover stock use it in another recipe. If you need more stock and don't have any more you can either mix warm water with a bullion cube or just use plain water until the liquid level is just over the rice.

Start the casserole on top of the stove on medium/high heat until boiling, then cover the pot and place in the oven for 1 hour.

To serve, remove the pots cover and place a large serving plate or platter on top and turn the pot upside down. Tap lightly on the pot bottom to make sure any sticky onions come off attached to the round casserole. Serve with plain yogurt. Greek yogurt is great with this.