Chettinad Chicken Curry Recipe

Chettinad Chicken Curry Recipe

Chettinad Chicken Curry Recipe is one of the best chicken recipes in South India. It is very aromatic and spicy belonging to the Chettinad cuisine; a regional cuisine of Tamil Nadu. This cuisine has grown popular even outside Tamil Nadu. Chettinad cuisine is particularly aromatic, spicy, and fiery. It has a lot of flavours blending to perfection. This is a restaurant-style recipe made with freshly ground spice mixture.

Chettinad Chicken Curry Recipe

Cooking this Chettinad chicken curry involves marinating and then dry roasting the spices and grinding them. Further on, cooking the chicken with the freshly ground spices leads to the culmination of a delectable journey. It is served with rice or Parota made with maida like the north Indian wheat flour Paratha.

Most Chettinad curries have freshly ground spices with coconut, chillies, ginger, garlic, and coconut. I bring you this easy step by step pictorial recipe which is easy to follow.

Chettinad Chicken Curry Recipe

Ingredients

500 gms chicken

2 tablespoon oil

1 large onion chopped finely

3 medium tomatoes, blanched and chopped

2 Bay leaves

For the Marinade

½ tsp turmeric

¼ tsp red chilli powder

2 tbsp yoghurt

1 tbsp Ginger-garlic paste

Salt to taste

For Chettinad Spice Mix

1 1/2 tablespoon coriander seeds

4 dry red chillies

4 cardamom

1 tsp whole black pepper

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 teaspoon fennel seeds

1-star anise

1-inch cinnamon

4 cloves

A cup grated coconut

Method

Chettinad Chicken Marinade

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade. Take the washed and dried chicken and marinate in the marinade ingredients. Keep aside for 15 minutes.

Chettinad Paste

Meanwhile, heat a pan to dry roast the spices. On medium flame roast the coriander seeds and dry red chillies. Once the aroma wafts add the cardamom, cumin, saunf, jeera and cloves. Roast till done and then add the poppy seeds.  Add the coconut at the ending and roast carefully so that it does not burn. Transfer to a blender and make a paste adding a little water.

For the Chicken Chettinad

In a pan, heat some oil and add the bay leaves. Fry the onions till they turn slightly golden.

Add the curry leaves and once they are nice and crisp add the blanched and chopped tomatoes. Once the tomatoes are mushy and cooked, add the marinated chicken.

Fry the chicken for five minutes and add the salt, turmeric and chilli powder. Cook till the oil separates.

Now add the Chettinad Masala paste and sauté nicely. Add lukewarm water and cook the chicken until done.

Check for the consistency of the gravy. It should be thick. Once your Chicken Chettinad is done, garnish with some fried curry leaves.

Serve this spicy chicken with steamed rice or parathas.