NEW DELHI, INDIA: Sixty Indian chefs cooked a rice dish weighing 13-tonnes on Saturday (March 1st) in a bid to enter the Guinness Book of World Records, organisers said.

Three cranes dumped 3,000 kilos of Basmati rice, 85 kilos of chilli peppers, 1,200 litres of oil and 3,650 kilos of vegetables into a giant vat at a New Delhi sports stadium in the presence of a Guinness observer.

The steel vat was mounted on a three-foot high furnace while the chefs clad in fire-resistant outfits perched on a platform to stir the biryani - one of South Asia's most popular dishes - with oar-like ladles.

The cooks threw "a pinch of salt" weighing 86 kilos into the 16-foot (4.87-metre) deep steel vat, organiser Gurnam Arora said.
The sponsors used a hose to pour 6,000 litres of water into the vat and sprinkled 10 kilos of exotic spices and aromatic condiments to prepare the tangy biryani, Arora said.

"This is a great activity to revive the feasting and celebration tradition associated with biryani in India," New Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit said.

Kaoru Ishikawa, a records manager from the British-based Guinness Book of World Records who was on hand for the 10-hour cooking
session, said: "I'm here to certify them for preparing the world's largest biryani weighing around 13,000 kilograms," Ishikawa told AFP. Official recognition of the record is expected later in the year.

The dish would be divided and trucked to city orphanages once Ishikawa certified the weighing of the cooked biryani, garnished with carrots and 750 kilos of creamy yogurt, Arora said.

"This event is a one-of-a-kind endeavour unmatched by any other past culinary activity," Arora said to the cheers of hundreds of spectators.

Currently, there is no listing for the largest biriyani in the Guinness Book of World Records, Arora said.