Thursday 15 May 2014

Kerala Chicken / Chicken Varattiyathu / Chicken Roast

This Chicken dish is from Kerala , a state in India. Chicken Varattiyathu / Kozy Varattiyathu is a chicken roasted in coconut oil with spices and plenty of curry leaves. This recipe is from a friend of mine who is from Calicut. She made this dish for the get together we had at my home. I was standing next to her and wrote the recipe for this chicken roast.



The day before the get together, she gave me the list of ingredients required of the chicken roast. One of the ingredient was curry leaves and next to that she wrote ( buy curry leaves for 5 rupees, free curry leaves that they give wont be sufficient) :) :)  We get curry leaves FREE in Chennai when we buy vegetables. But as per her request, I bought one bag full of curry leaves for her. And you wont believe she almost put 20 sprigs of curry leaves for grinding and for the 1 Kg of chicken. I was too much worried about the taste of the dish because I was assuming that too much curry leaves will make the dish bitter. But She proved me wrong. That chicken roast was finger licking good ! It is the curry leaves and green chillies paste that when fried with coconut oil gives an excellent aroma to this dish.

Ingredients

  • 500 Grams Chicken with bones (cleaned and cut into medium sized pieces, don't use chicken breasts. Chicken breasts turns very dry with this preparation )
  • 2 Tablespoon Coconut Oil
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Fennel Seeds
  • 2 Sprigs of curry leaves
  • 1 Medium Sized Onion Slices
  • 1 Tomato Chopped finely
  • 2 Tablespoon Coriander powder
  • 1 Teaspoon Red Chilli Powder
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Turmeric Powder
  • Chopped cilantro leaves for garnish

For Grinding

  • 1 Medium sized onion chopped roughly
  • 1 inch fresh ginger pieces chopped
  • 8 Garlic Cloves
  • 2 Green Chillies
  • 1/2 Teaspoon Black Pepper
  • 4 Sprigs of curry leaves

Directions

1. Add all the ingredients listed under 'For Grinding' in a food processor and grind it to fine paste without adding water. Set aside



2. In a pan, heat coconut oil. When the oil is hot, add fennel seeds and curry leaves. When the splutter, add sliced onions and fry until the onions are soft

3. Now add the paste we prepared at step number 1 and fry on lowest flame setting until the oil starts separating from the mixture. Don't increase the flame or hurry in this step. It is important to fry the paste well to get rid of the raw curry leave, raw garlic smell and for the roast to taste good

4. Then add tomatoes and fry until they are mushy

5. Add coriander powder, chilli powder, turmeric powder and mix well. Add 2 Tablespoons of water and let the masala get cooked nicely for 5 minutes

6. Add cleaned chicken pieces to the pan and combine well. Add salt to taste

7. Do not add water at this stage. Let the chicken get roasted with the spices on low flame for about 5 minutes

8. Now add 1 Cup water and cook the chicken on medium flame until the chicken is cooked well and the water evaporates completely and the chicken has nice coating of the masala

9. Please go ahead and add more water if your chicken is not cooked through at the end of 20 minutes cooking

10. Switch off the flame and sprinkle coriander leaves and garnish

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