Friday, August 17, 2012

Chettinad Chicken from Kaipunyam



Kaipunyam is a well organized, to-the-point cooking blog with incredible food pictures and a good sprinkle of love. Something about this blog begs you to go back there all the time. It is a single point stop  for any Kerala recipes you might be thinking of. I had bought some chicken this week and wanted to try something different. Went to kaipunyam and with close to 40 recipes just for chicken it was easy to pick one right away! The recipe there is mostly as shown in the post. I made it with small changes for convenience and quantity and less salt and chili as we do now and it turned out well. Thanks 'kaipunyam' for the recipe and the easy to follow format!

In The Mix
chicken - 1 lbs
fennel seeds (perum jeerakam) - 1 tsp ( i am not a fan of this..)
turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
shallots - 6 to 8 sliced (add more if u like it, i do!)
dry red chili - 10 to 15 split into halves
coriander(cilantro) leaves - few sprigs
curry leaves - few sprigs
tomatoes - 4-5 diced
water
oil - 1/2 tbsp
salt to taste

How To Do
Cut chicken into pieces, wash, drain and marinate with salt and turmeric.
I always do this part overnight but this time could only do about an hour and it still tuned out good!
Heat oil in a pan and saute fennel seeds, dry red chilies and curry leaves. Add shallots to
it and saute till golden brown. Add tomatoes, stir and cook for a while. Now add the chicken, salt and enough water to keep things moving around. Saute the chicken for a few minutes, cover and cook. Remove from fire and add chopped cilantro before serving. I think plenty of curry leaves, dry red chili and shallots are the secrets of this recipe. Very tasty results with a small effort!