Chettinad

Thanks to the globalisation; the world has become well familiar with many cuisine. Japanese, Thai, Korean, Indian,Tapas (spanish), Italian are few to name.

When people outside India talk about Indian cuisine they talk about Naan, Kebabs, Tandoori dishes, Pilaf rice,Mango chutney , chicken tikka masala only.Sadly, the diversity in Indian cuisine was not much famous outside India.
Recently, people are becoming more experimental & ready to try new cuisine. Many hotels & restaurants import the right ingredient to get the authentic taste of the dish.
I personally know Chefs in UK who imports Red chillies, Black pepper, cardamom,etc... from India. I import few ingredients from Maharashtra, Tamilnadu for my food festivals in Spain.

Even in India many Chefs thinks that Chicken Chettinad is the only dish from Chettinad Cuisine.
Normally when it comes to Tamilnadu cuisine; it’s very well known for ‘Chettinad food’.
Chettinad is located in southern district of Tamilnadu & is known as homeland for ‘Chettiars’; normally a banking & business community.
Their food can be anything from chicken – mutton – fish – prawns & vegetarian delicacies. They don’t eat Pork or Meat.
The famous dishes from this region are ‘Chicken Pepper fry’ & ‘Chicken Chettinad’
In Chettinad food, the most important spices are marathi mokku (dried flower pods), anasipoo (star aniseed) and kalpasi (dried bark). In addition, tamarind, whole red chillies and saunf (Fennel seeds) are also used along with Cinnamon stick, cloves, bayleaf, Peppercorn, Cumin seeds and Fenugreek.

CHICKEN CHETTINAD
Chicken - 1Kg
Shallots- 25 gms
Tomatoes- 3 No's
Ginger - 2No'
Garlic - 1 pod
Turmeric - 1 tspn
Red chilli powder - 1 tspn
Cumin Powder - - 1/2 tblspn
Coriander Powder- 1tblspn

Salt - To Taste

Cardamom - 3 No's

Cinnamon - a small piece

Bay leaf - 2 No's

Kalpaasi - a small amount

Curry Leaves - A sprig
TO GRIND

Dry Red Chillies - 6(or)7 No's

Coriander Seeds - 1 tblspn

Fennel Seeds - 1 tspn

Cumin Seeds - 1 tspn

Ginger - 1 small piece

Garlic - Few No's

Black Pepper corns- 1 tspn

Grated Coconut - 1/2 No'

Poppy seeds (khus khus)-2 tspns

Oil - To fry these masala.

Cut the chicken in to small pieces by removing the skin. Wash it; add little amount of salt & turmeric. Keep it aside

Heat oil in a pan. Add the above given ingredients for grinding & stir carefully. Once you start getting the aroma of all the spices. Transfer this in a blender & grind it to a paste by adding little amount of water.

Heat oil in a vessel. Add the whole spices; saute it for a minute then add curry leaves. Add shallots & cook the onions till turns nice brown in colour. Add tomatoes followed by ginger garlic paste. Add all the dry powders. Cook till the masala leaves oil on the side. Add the ground masala paste & cook well.

Now the gravy is ready.
In a seperate pan; fry the chicken with very little amount of oil & add it to the above finished gravy. Cook well. Check for seasoning.

CHEF'S TIP Any curry /stew items tastes much better with bones. Poppy seeds in this recipe can be optional. The same gravy can be used for Lamb aswell. Alternatively, the chicken can be added directly to the gravy rather than pan

frying it seperately. The amount of chillies can be altered depending on your spice level. At any stage if you find the gravy too spicy; add more tomato paste or coconut milk.