Recipe - Chettinad Pepper Chicken

Say the words 'Chettinad Cuisine' and instantly the mind conjures up images of spicy food. But the truth is that Chettinad food is so much more than just chillies, of course.

Know Your Cuisine: Chettinad.

• Originating from the Chettinad region in Tamil Nadu, the unique feature of this cuisine is the freshly ground, fragrant blend of spices used in the masalas. 
• It is considered to be one of the spiciest flavour profiles in Indian cuisine.
• While the presentation may often appear simple, the compexity of flavours arises from the perfect mixture of various spices including not just pepper and turmeric but also star anise, cloves, bay leaves, fennel, fenugreek et al.
• Adapting to the dry and humid Chettinad region resulted in another unique characteristic of their cooking - the use of sun dried vegetables & meats, a technique perfected to preserve food for the off-seasons.
• The long coastline does mean that they are masters of seafood too though, excelling in fish, prawn and crab dishes. And yes, they too are very much on the spicier side.

This version of Chettinad Pepper Chicken does away with the usual vegetables like onions and tomatoes and aims to allow the flavourful spices to be the star of the show.

The final product is an absolutely gorgeous chicken dish that any Chettinad cuisine aficionado will tell you goes brilliantly with rice or rice based preparations like appams, idlis and idiappams, with a nice chilled buttermilk to calm your palate.

INGREDIENTS:

Chicken pieces... 1/2 kg,
Ginger... a small piece
Garlic... 8 cloves
Pepper... 4 teaspoons
Coconut...1/2
Oil/ghee... 50 gms
Turmeric powder... 1/4 teaspoon
Cinnamon... 1/4 inch piece
Cloves... 4
Water... 1 cup
Salt... as required
Ghee... 3 tablespoons

RECIPE:

• Prepare a paste by grinding garlic, ginger, pepper and coconut.
• Heat ghee in a vessel & add cinnamon, cloves and turmeric. Fry till you get a nice aroma.
• Now add the chicken pieces and the ground masala.
• Saute well. Add 1 cup water and cook the chicken.
• When the chicken is almost done, keep a pan on flame and add 3 teaspoons of ghee. 
• Fry the cooked chicken in a low flame till it turns crispy.
• Serve hot with rice or appams.

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Expect to see the odd food recipe like this at Godyears too - all prepared by my mother - from recipes she has collected as far back as the 1980's - with some unique to Kerala cuisine and some variations of international dishes. 

Since the goal is to share, I will be looking to make all the recipes into easy downloadable single images as well so that you can save them on to your mobile/device and use them offline. Of course, if you do try them out, it would be awesome if you gave me (and her) feedback here on what you thought of the dish.

For the list of all the recipes so far (including seafood, egg dishes, sweets, twists on traditional dishes et al), click here:

For more food posts,  you can just check out the Category on Godyears labeled "Foodgasm" here.

Author's Update (4.3.16): 

Less than 24 hours after the recipe was posted and lots of lovely cooks around the world have already messaged in with their impressions of the recipe. Thank you all for the love.

It means a lot, especially to my Mom. 

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