The most interesting thing about this piece is the butter/saffron/milk mixture, pictured below. This turns out delicately spiced and exotic, with a kind of floral note from the cardamom. I don't know how you're supposed to eat it: for me, I may have failed immediately by not using sufficient rice.

I don't really buy the pastry rim, as pictured here. This is supposed to create a more tight seal on the dish while it's in the oven. But it seems like a bit of a waste; the visual presentation is wonderful, though.

I found it interesting to read, in the history of the biryani, that beef biryani is a favourite in Kerala. This would be a nice next try.

I deviated from the recipe by not including cauliflower, this was unintentional. I'd say the overall result is dominated by the chana dal. It has that kind of 'grainy' taste associated with a dal.

In a way, I can't agree that this is 'perfect': in a way, it's too subtle for me. The flavours don't quite punch through enough. I think an addition of deep-fried onions, another addition from Cloake that I couldn't add, would improve it. Ironically this is kind of the opposite of Cloake's chilli, that I made previously, which was if anything too pungent.

Actually I'd say the flavour issue with this is the sour balance. It's just a touch too sour in a way that's not mitigated by the other flavours. I suppose you have to remember that yoghurt is sour. I think that I may have overdone the amount of yoghurt in this recipe. It was supposed to be 200ml of yoghurt for ~700g of main ingredient, but I have probably done about 500ml for 500g instead. And then also added lime juice on top of this. Cloake actually anticipates that the yoghurt will be insufficient and recommends diluting it. So the lesson here is to go for the balance of 1/4 yoghurt to main ingredient ratio.

This means that you'd normally want to buy smaller portions of yoghurt, about 250ml containers, and thin them with water or milk when you want to marinate. And perhaps leave the addition of other souring agents to later, when you already use yoghurt in a curry.