Mix all the ingredients shown for marinade and keep in refrigerator for 2-3 hrs or overnight.

Put enough oil in the pressure cooker for deep frying of onion.

Drain out the onion from oil. Divide into 2 parts.

Heat the oil in pressure cooker, put jeera, tejpatta, and dried red chilly in it.

When jeera begins to splutter, add the marinated mutton in the pressure cooker.

Crumble one part of fried onion and add to the mutton in pressure cooker.

Put 1 cup water and close pressure cooker.

Cook on high till the first whistle and then reduce flame to slow and cook further for 18 minutes.

Let the pressure cooker cool on its own, then open it.

Evaporate the excess water from mutton.

Cook basmati rice with daalchini (1 inch), and chhoti elaichi (2).

When the rice is almost done, then put off the flame. Rice should not be cooked fully at this stage.

Drain off water from rice by putting in a colander.

In a big degchi, put half of the cooked mutton.

Over it put half of the rice, another layer of mutton and then the leftover rice.

Garnish: spread lemon juice, add chopped ginger, garlic, green chilly, leftover fried onion, and make 3 -4 lines of kesar over the rice.

Put a tight fitting lid to the degchi, seal the lid with aata dough and cook on very slow flame for 5 minutes.

On the serving table, open the lid of degchi.

Turn over rice and mutton to mix well. This must be done before the people who are to consume the biryaani !