Kundapur Ghee Roast and Announcing The Kitchen Divas

First up let me wish you all a very Happy 2015, May you all have peace, happiness, travel, good food and whatever else you wish for in the coming year. Also with a brand new year, I have some brand new news for you readers.

So some time ago, Archana invited Neha, Nandita and Hina over for lunch at her house. Over yummy tamil sapad and some good white wine we started discussing how blogging used to be before (surprise). The events and cooking of similar stuff and linking each other. We all agreed that there was a certain charm to those events and they kept the motivation to blog recipes going. Quickly over lunch plans were made that we must do something similar in the coming year. That 2015 must be an year of reviving blog events. While we all decided the same, we came back home and life took over till about a week ago when Neha reminded us, I suggested doing a state a month and everyone was excited about it. The regional recipes are a favorite with all of us. Suddenly everything was moving at lightning speed and we had a plan for the year sorted in a google doc. So us “The Kitchen Divas” from this month on, will bring to you one state a month and one recipe a week. So every month about 4-5 traditional recipes (we might divert here and there once, keep following us and you will know what I mean) from each one of us. In total you will have about 20-25 recipes from one state every month. We hope that brings in light the traditional food of India. Do follow the pinterest board where all the recipes will be shared at one place. Link here 

This month we chose our home state, like they say what better than start closer to where you are and I have picked up one of my favorite chicken recipes from Karnataka – The Kundapur Ghee Roast.

Recipe Kundapur Ghee Roast

Source – Adapted from various mangalore cook books I have

Serves – 2-3

What I used

• 500gms  Chicken ( I used curry cut)
• 1/4 cup Curd
• 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsbp Lemon juice
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 tsp Jaggery
• handful of Curry leaves
• 3 tbsps Ghee
• 5 to 6, large (spicy variety) Dry red chilies
• 5-6 Black peppercorns
• 2 Cloves
• 1/4 tsp Fenugreek seeds
• 1 tbsp Coriander seeds
• 1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
• 4-5 Garlic pods
• 1 tbsp Tamarind paste

How I made it

• Clean and wash the chicken well. Whisk together curd, turmeric, lemon juice and salt. Now use this as a marinate for the chicken. Rub the chicken well and leave in the refrigerator overnight but a minimum of 4 hours if you don’t have time
• Dry roast the chillies at a medium flame for about 2-3 minutes till they start turning brown and leave a strong aroma. Keep aside
• Now heat 1/2 tbsp of ghee and add the coriander, fengureek, cumin to it and roast for about 5-6 minutes till the masalas start turning brown
• Let it cool down a bit and then ground it along with garlic and roasted chillies. This is your ground masala to be used later
• In a heavy bottom pan, add 1 tbsp of ghee and the marinated chicken to it. Cook for about 10-15 minutes till the chicken is just about done. Remove from the pan and keep aside
• In the same pan add the left over 1 1/2 tbsp ghee and add the ground masala to it. Roast for about 5-6 minutes constantly stirring so that it doesn’t get burn. The aroma at this point will be amazing, all I wanted to do was eat the masala itself
• At this stage add the curry leaves and the partly cooked chicken along with any liquid. If the chicken feels very dry add some water to it, cook on high for about 3 minutes and then reduce the flame, add the tamarind paste and jaggery to this and cook for another 5 minutes till you have a thick masala coating the chicken
• Serve hot with neer dosa or as a starter, in my opinion this is a perfect combination to some chilled beer

The “Kundapur Ghee Roast” is part of the endeavor to create a collection of recipes of Traditional Indian Cuisines in collaboration with a few bloggers who share the same passion of cooking. Find more Traditional Recipes from Karnataka by #TheKichenDivas

1. Pineapple Gojju by Saffron Trail (http://saffrontrail.blogspot.in/)

2. Madur Vada by FunFoodFrolic (http://www.funfoodfrolic.com/)

3. Bisebele Bath Masala by WhiskAffair (http://www.whiskaffair.com/)

4. Pan Fried Mysore Bonda by Archana’s Kitchen (http://www.archanaskitchen.com)