Ingrained taste: biryani

Toss curry and rice together and you have biryani, right? Well, not exactly. This is what often passes for the beloved Indian rice dish at restaurants too pressed for time to make the real thing.

A sumptuous dish once feasted on by Mogul rulers, biryani consists of ornately seasoned meat (chicken, lamb or goat) or vegetables layered with rice. For a lamb or goat biryani, the meat is marinated for hours with spices, then cooked with still more seasonings, such as ground cumin and coriander and perhaps mint and cilantro. The rice, most often basmati, is as important as the meat; long, slender grains are prized, and broken grains indicate careless stirring. The final touch is a decorative sprinkle of saffron over the top.

The Indian city most known for biryani is Hyderabad, in the south. There, in the palace of the ruling elite, cooks perfected what is known as the “dum” style of cooking, steaming the layers of meat and rice in a pot sealed with dough so no vapors could escape. Northern India and Pakistan have their own styles of biryani. In Chennai in the south, meat and rice may be cooked separately, then combined. The favored rice is short-grain

jeera samba, named for its resemblance to cumin seeds (jeera). Genuine biryani may be rare in Los Angeles, but it does exist, mostly in Artesia’s Little India — where it’s fun to seek out the dish on the weekends, when large amounts are prepared for the crowds of shoppers who flock to the local markets, sweet shops and sari boutiques — but also at a few places on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley. Here are seven places to try it.