Dum
Slow cooking in a sealed pot over low heat, so spices and steam perfume the food.
Also: dum pukht, slow steam cooking, dum biryani, sealed pot
Dum means breath, and dum cooking is a technique of the Awadhi and Hyderabadi kitchens. Food and spices are sealed in a heavy pot with a dough band, and cooked over very low heat, often with coals on the lid. Nothing escapes, so the spices, saffron, fried onions, kewra and herbs infuse the rice and meat together. In a dum biryani, partly cooked rice and marinated meat are layered, sealed and left to finish. The method is linked to Nawabi cuisine of Lucknow. It rewards whole spices and gentle aromatics, whose perfumes are retained in the sealed steam instead of lost through the lid.