Kerala chicken roast

Today, I was lucky enough to come across Varsha's blog with her mouthwatering recipes. I hadn't made desi-style food in a while and so I was craving some yummy kerala-style chicken. I tried this recipe for a kerala-style chicken roast, modifying it a tiny bit to incorporate the spices I had on hand and man, was it good! The taste of the curry was quite authentic and the sauce was finger-licking good!

The recipe did not use any chilio powder and while I was a little skeptical at first, I went ahead and obeyed the instructions. The spice in this dish comes from the liberal use of pepper powder and the whole spices take the dish to another level entirely. Try it and you will not be disappointed!

Here's my adaptation of the recipe:

Ingredients for curry:

2.5 lbs pieces of bone-in chicke
1" cinnamon stick
3 cardamoms
3 cloves
7-8 black pepper corns
5-6 curry leaves
3-4 thai green chiles, slit
1/2 tsp turmeric pdr
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp chopped ginger
2 large onions, sliced
1 tsp garam masala
salt to taste
oil
cilantro

Dry  roast and grind the following to a paste:

2 tsp pepper corns
1.5 tsp fennel seeds
4 cloves
5-6 curry leaves
1 small onion, sliced
3/4 tbsp coriander seeds
3 cardamoms
1" cinnamon stick
1/2 cup grated coconut

Keep aside the above paste.

Method:
Heat oil in a wide-bottomed pan. When oil gets hot, add cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and pepper. Fry for a few seconds and then add curry leaves and stir-fry a few seconds more until they get crisp. Add sliced onions and saute until the onions become translucent. Now add chopped ginger, garlic and green chiles and saute another 2 minutes. Add turmeric powder and pepper and saute 1 minute more or until the smell of the raw spices is gone. Increase heat, add chicken pieces and stir fry for about 5 minutes. The chicken will become white at this point. Add salt to taste, lower heat, cover and cook chicken about 10 minutes or until the chicken is 3/4 cooked.

Remove lid from pan. There should be some gravy in the pan from the chicken juices. Now add the ground mixture from above and only add a little water if you feel the mixture is too dry and may burn. Do not add moe than 1/4 cup water. Cover and cook another 5 minutes or until chicken is done.

After 5 minutes, remove cover and stir-fry mixture until the sauce liberally coats each piece of chicken. This is a dry-ish dish and should not have much sauce. Turn off heat, add garam masala powder and cilantro, stir and replace cover until ready to serve.