Kerala Style Chicken Roast
Having appam and mutta (egg) roast is like the ultimate indulgence. The fact that you took the time in sauteing onions till this nice brown caramelised stage and have enough to say feed a family just shows the luxury of time, I guess, and thus nothing short of a rarity in our homes. Maya. a dear friend and ex- roomie used to ask me to make mutta roast to just have and dream about :)
And in Kerala, majorly you have parotta with either chilli chicken or beef (water buffalo) roast. I didn't have the beef and wanted the roast, so exchanged last names to serve Chicken roast :P Ofcourse not to say Chicken roast did not exist before, but I don't think it rates very high in my list of things to cook normally. I am totally the coconut milk based chicken curry gal! 👧
Oh, and I love parotta, like looooooveee. Mumbai, where I grew up did not have proper Malayalee restaurants and so parotta was only something you got in Kerala. And so no visit to Kerala is ever complete without eating parotta. One of my uncles ensured that I got parotta before I left Kerala no matter what and on the rare times when he thought I was sad, he would bring some parotta for me to eat ( and then also tell me, you need to lose weight :P)
Going back to the point, how to make chicken roast and parotta. Let me share my way, and I hope you like it.
Chicken Roast:
Ingredients:
Chicken:1/2 kg (bone in, boneless chicken won't ooze the flavour)
Onions - 4 large onions, thinly sliced ( 5 if you wish to some more gravy)
Tomato - 1 medium sized ( so some leave tomatoes out, especially if you wish to serve a dry chicken roast, especially as a starter instead of a maincourse side)
Chili Powder: 4 tablespoons, you can mix half Kashmiri chili and half normal if you wish to increase spice quotient
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander Powder - 1 1/2 tablespoon
Garam Masala - 1 teaspoon
Cumin Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Fennel Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Ginger Garlic paste : 2 tablespoon
Green chillies: 2 - 4 depending on spice level
Curry Leaves - 2 sprigs
Salt - to taste
Coconut oil - 4 tablespoons ( choose ghee if you don't like coconut oil)s
Potatoes - 1 large or medium, chopped into cubes ( optional)
Marinate your chicken with turmeric powder, half the chilli powder, and salt. Leave it overnight if you can, if not atleast for like an hour.
Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan and once it is hot, add your onions and saute till translucent. Your onions need to have been sliced thinly and equally. Onions are the star of this dish, not the chicken, make no mistake!
When it is translucent, add in your chillies, 1 sprig of curry leaves, the ginger garlic paste and continue cooking.
Continue cooking the onions till it is nice and brown like below. Taste a bit, it should feel a little sweet.
Once nice and brown is the time to add your powders, add chili, corriander, fennel, cumin and garam masala to your onions and cook it well till the oil starts leaving the sides as they say. Now if you like me, don't use much oil, this never happen, cos there is not much oil to leave you know. So the test is this, you can start seeing a nice glaze over your onions and curry leaves. Also your mixture, starts coming together as you stir it than breaking apart. You can see my chilles are nice and shiny.
Now if you are planning to skip tomatoes, you need to ensure there a decent amount of oil and onions to give you that sense of gravy and also taste you onions, it should feel sweet at this stage with some masalas. The masala should not over power. But if you are using onions, you want the masala to mask a bit of the sweetness of the onions at this stage. I added tomatoes once I felt the masala and onions were well cooked
Cover and cook till the tomatoes are mushy and incorporated.
When it is like above, add in your marinated chicken and potatoes add about 1/2 cup water and cover and cook your chicken. Water quantity may need to be increased if your chicken is less fatty, or not having enough water while cooking. I would check on it after about 5 - 8 mins of cooking it covered, by which time your chicken should have released the juices. So use your judgement.
I also add my additional sprig of curry leaves about now, I feel new curry leaves add some nice fragrance when it is cooking ( it could be my imagination, so skip it if you think so). Cover your chicken and cook, I checked on my chicken about 5 mins in and saw it needed more water, so in total I added 3/4th cup of water
After about 10 - 15 mins of cooking, I took off the lid and waited for the water to evaporate while cooking the chicken and potatoes. How dry you want your gravy is what you need to decide now. I wanted a semi gravy, which is why I did not completely wait for the water to dry, but if you wish to serve as starter, I would suggest cooking it further and adding more oil if you need to keep it nice and moist.
There is a slight gravy there, which will also reduce as the dish cools, so when you are ready to serve it will be more dense. But this is all that takes and you can now serve this with parotta, ghee rice, appam or just about anything.
And in Kerala, majorly you have parotta with either chilli chicken or beef (water buffalo) roast. I didn't have the beef and wanted the roast, so exchanged last names to serve Chicken roast :P Ofcourse not to say Chicken roast did not exist before, but I don't think it rates very high in my list of things to cook normally. I am totally the coconut milk based chicken curry gal! 👧
Oh, and I love parotta, like looooooveee. Mumbai, where I grew up did not have proper Malayalee restaurants and so parotta was only something you got in Kerala. And so no visit to Kerala is ever complete without eating parotta. One of my uncles ensured that I got parotta before I left Kerala no matter what and on the rare times when he thought I was sad, he would bring some parotta for me to eat ( and then also tell me, you need to lose weight :P)
Going back to the point, how to make chicken roast and parotta. Let me share my way, and I hope you like it.
Chicken Roast:
Ingredients:
Chicken:1/2 kg (bone in, boneless chicken won't ooze the flavour)
Onions - 4 large onions, thinly sliced ( 5 if you wish to some more gravy)
Tomato - 1 medium sized ( so some leave tomatoes out, especially if you wish to serve a dry chicken roast, especially as a starter instead of a maincourse side)
Chili Powder: 4 tablespoons, you can mix half Kashmiri chili and half normal if you wish to increase spice quotient
Turmeric Powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander Powder - 1 1/2 tablespoon
Garam Masala - 1 teaspoon
Cumin Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Fennel Powder - 1/4 teaspoon
Ginger Garlic paste : 2 tablespoon
Green chillies: 2 - 4 depending on spice level
Curry Leaves - 2 sprigs
Salt - to taste
Coconut oil - 4 tablespoons ( choose ghee if you don't like coconut oil)s
Potatoes - 1 large or medium, chopped into cubes ( optional)
Marinate your chicken with turmeric powder, half the chilli powder, and salt. Leave it overnight if you can, if not atleast for like an hour.
Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan and once it is hot, add your onions and saute till translucent. Your onions need to have been sliced thinly and equally. Onions are the star of this dish, not the chicken, make no mistake!
When it is translucent, add in your chillies, 1 sprig of curry leaves, the ginger garlic paste and continue cooking.
Continue cooking the onions till it is nice and brown like below. Taste a bit, it should feel a little sweet.
Once nice and brown is the time to add your powders, add chili, corriander, fennel, cumin and garam masala to your onions and cook it well till the oil starts leaving the sides as they say. Now if you like me, don't use much oil, this never happen, cos there is not much oil to leave you know. So the test is this, you can start seeing a nice glaze over your onions and curry leaves. Also your mixture, starts coming together as you stir it than breaking apart. You can see my chilles are nice and shiny.
Now if you are planning to skip tomatoes, you need to ensure there a decent amount of oil and onions to give you that sense of gravy and also taste you onions, it should feel sweet at this stage with some masalas. The masala should not over power. But if you are using onions, you want the masala to mask a bit of the sweetness of the onions at this stage. I added tomatoes once I felt the masala and onions were well cooked
Cover and cook till the tomatoes are mushy and incorporated.
When it is like above, add in your marinated chicken and potatoes add about 1/2 cup water and cover and cook your chicken. Water quantity may need to be increased if your chicken is less fatty, or not having enough water while cooking. I would check on it after about 5 - 8 mins of cooking it covered, by which time your chicken should have released the juices. So use your judgement.
I also add my additional sprig of curry leaves about now, I feel new curry leaves add some nice fragrance when it is cooking ( it could be my imagination, so skip it if you think so). Cover your chicken and cook, I checked on my chicken about 5 mins in and saw it needed more water, so in total I added 3/4th cup of water
After about 10 - 15 mins of cooking, I took off the lid and waited for the water to evaporate while cooking the chicken and potatoes. How dry you want your gravy is what you need to decide now. I wanted a semi gravy, which is why I did not completely wait for the water to dry, but if you wish to serve as starter, I would suggest cooking it further and adding more oil if you need to keep it nice and moist.
There is a slight gravy there, which will also reduce as the dish cools, so when you are ready to serve it will be more dense. But this is all that takes and you can now serve this with parotta, ghee rice, appam or just about anything.
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