Chicken Chilli Roast – Kerala Style

Alright, so this was not exactly the intended post for this week. The most fabulous (all over now ) cookies that I baked over the weekend were supposed to be the star of this week. But I guess that will have to wait now. I had all the pictures and everything ready on my home laptop and was drafting a post but couldn’t complete it over the weekend. It took me two more days to move the draft to my blog, so I can sneak in some time during my lunch break at work, only to realize that I did not have the original recipe with me. It is in a cookbook at home. So, like I said, that will just have to wait for a couple more days.

Now about this recipe, I have made it a couple of times now in the last month or so and it is already a favorite at home and among friends. It is a pretty simple adaptation of a recipe from a popular TV show in Kerala – Magic Oven. The ingredients are fairly simple, most of which you can find in a regular grocery store, except for the Turmeric Powder which obviously you cannot not have to make Indian food! I have also managed to eliminate all that deep frying from the original recipe and still keep it

tasting great! Warning : This dish is a spicy hot one! Feel free to reduce the amount of black pepper, cayenne and Thai green chillies at any stage of the process, if you are not up for the heat!

Chicken Chilli Roast – The Recipe

Ingredients:

• Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts – 4 , chopped into cubes
• Canola Oil – 4 tbsp
• Red Onion – 1, thinly sliced
• Tomatoes – 2, sliced into long pieces
• Soy Sauce – 1 tbsp
• Curry leaves – a sprig
• Dried Red Chillies – 2
• Chopped Cilantro – 1/4 cup
• Scallions – 3, chopped
• Salt, if needed

To Marinate-

• Crushed Black Pepper – 2 tsp
• Turmeric Powder – 1/2 tsp
• Red Chilli Powder / Cayenne Powder – 1 tsp
• Salt, to taste

To grind together to a coarse paste:

• Red Pearl Onions – 10, peeled
• Garlic cloves – 8-10
• Ginger – two 1 inch pieces
• Thai Green Chillies – 4-5 ( do remember that there is already black pepper and cayenne in the marination mix, so reduce this, if you are not a big fan of all that heat)

Marinate the chicken with the spice powders and keep aside for 20 minutes or so. Grind together the ingredients for the paste to a coarse paste (see pic above) and keep aside.

Heat oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the onions, dried red chillies and curry leaves to it. Saute till the onions almost caramelize and then add the ground paste to it. Saute for a few more minutes till the raw smell of garlic in the paste disappears. Now add the tomatoes and cook till they are soft. Once soft, add the marinated chicken pieces and cook covered till the chicken is done, stirring occasionally. Now add the soy sauce to the pan and mix well.

Check for salt, add more if you want. Add a little more ground black pepper if you want more heat. If not, remove from heat, garnish with the scallions and cilantro and serve hot with rotis, parathas or even rice! AJ took it for lunch the next day and mixed it with some baby spinach and other salad greens and said it was yumm!

Try it and let me know what you think of it!