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6 Min
13/03/2026
India has no shortage of celebrated biryanis, and if you talk to anyone, they will start spouting sonnets about that one biryani recipe from their hometown. Hyderabadi biryani grabs the headlines, Lucknowi biryani gives you history lessons, while Kolkata gets the egg and potato. But Malabar biryani, which sits quietly on the North Kerala coast, has somehow stayed off the national radar.
Everything today has a ranking – it’s in the annual food trends, what to watch out for, which celebrity is endorsing what, to which influencer said which biryani is the best and which sucks. Social media and food delivery apps have algorithms designed to push it, with chefs and food influencers benefiting and some having built careers on it.
And somehow, in every single biryani debate that has ever happened on the internet, Malabar biryani is either mentioned last or not at all. A dish that has been perfecting itself on the Kerala coast since Arab traders first docked there centuries ago, reduced to a footnote in a Twitter poll dominated by Hyderabadi loyalists. The disrespect is historic.
The Mappila community of North Kerala traces its origins to Arab traders who arrived on the Malabar Coast as early as the 7th century CE. Many settled, married local women, and gave rise to a distinct hybrid community whose food became one of the most layered culinary traditions in South India.
Biryani arrived through Mughal and Arab influence, but the distinct Thalassery style was refined over time by the local Mappila Muslim community, who blended native spices and culinary techniques with those they encountered from abroad. What emerged was not a copy of northern biryani. It was something the coast built on its own terms.
This is the first thing that separates Malabar biryani from every other version you have tried. The heart of Thalassery biryani is the short-grain fragrant rice known as Jeerakasala, also called Khaima. This rice is smaller and rounder than basmati, and it absorbs the flavours of the masala without becoming mushy.
The name Jeerakasala comes from the Malayalam words for cumin and house, a reference to its cumin-like scent. Khaima rice does not require pre-soaking or post-draining like usual rice varieties, and it is toasted in ghee before cooking, which deepens the flavour before a single spice is added. The result is rice that is soft, aromatic, and built to hold masala in a way long-grain rice cannot.
Thalassery chicken dum biryani does not need the usual ground spice powders but relies heavily on the taste of fried onions, jeerakasala rice, and fried dried fruits. The spice blend is built from whole spices – cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, star anise, nutmeg – rather than heavy masala powders.
The spiciness comes from green chillies, not red chilli powder, which means Malabar biryani sits in that rare category of being deeply aromatic without being too hot. Most people encountering it for the first time are surprised by how much flavour exists without any aggression on the palate.
The pot is covered, a heavy object is placed on top, and the biryani is cooked on a medium-low flame for 15 to 20 minutes, then left undisturbed for another 5 to 10 minutes. Traditionally, the lid was sealed with a dough made from flour and water to trap every bit of steam.
The rice finishes cooking inside that sealed environment while picking up the aroma from the spiced meat below, and the meat in turn becomes more tender from the trapped moisture above. This dum technique allows the flavours of the rice and the masala to meld together perfectly. The two components are prepared separately and layered, but by the time the pot opens, they taste inseparable.
Each layer of malabar biryani is finished with fried cashews, raisins, fried onions, saffron milk, and rose essence, all prepared separately in ghee before being scattered over the rice. The cashews are fried until golden. The raisins are fried until they plump up. The onions, called birista, are fried until deep brown and crispy. This combination of sweet dried fruit and savoury spiced rice is a direct line back to the Arab and Persian culinary influence that shaped Mappila cooking for centuries. It is not a garnish added for appearance. It runs through every layer and every spoonful of the finished dish.
There are two famous biryanis in Malabar: the Kozhikode biryani and the Thalassery biryani. Both are almost the same but slightly different in layering and in the way caramelised onions are used. Both use Khaima rice. Both follow the ‘dum’ method. Both belong to the Mappila tradition.
The Thalassery version tends to be slightly more documented, partly because of the famous Paris Restaurant in Thalassery, which played a landmark role in popularising dum-style biryani cooked with a unique masala blend and local rice. If you visit North Kerala, trying both is not excessive. It is the sensible thing to do.
This is not everyday food in North Kerala. Thalassery on the north Kerala coast was one of the centres of spice export, where a convergence of European, Arab and Malabar cultures occurred, and the biryani that came out of that convergence became food for significant occasions.
It is the centrepiece of Mappila Muslim weddings, Eid celebrations, and family gatherings. The recipes stay within families, passed down through practice rather than written instructions. This is part of why Malabar biryani never got the commercial rollout that Hyderabadi biryani did. It was kept close.
Malabar biryani is a product of centuries of trade, cultural exchange, and a community that took influences from across the Arab world and built something entirely its own. The Khaima rice, the no-red-chilli spice profile, the dum sealing, the ghee-fried cashews and raisins, all have been perfect for the dish because they make the biryani recipe better. If your biryani experience has been built around the louder, heavier northern styles, Malabar biryani deserves a taste. genuine recalibration.
