Chicken Chaap

Chaap along with Biriyani easily finds it’s place in the top 5 favorite foods of a lot of bongs. My husband counts it in his top 3, though he is more favorable to mutton chaap.

When we were dating in college, he first introduced me to chaap. Before that I’d only stare with mild horror at the sight of road side stalls with chickens simmering on hot tawas the whole day exposed to all the dirt. However, once I tasted it, there was no turning back. It became our favorite food when we went out. Our place of choice was Gariahat Bedwin. We used to go there so often they all knew us. Many years later when we were living in Bangalore my husband found another local bong restaurant, Lazeez in commercial street serving the same delicious chaap. Suddenly the waiter there recognized us, he was the waiter from Bedwin. He was happy to see us married and as expected Lazeez became our favorite joint.

Ingredients

1. 1 kg chicken cut into four pieces. (you can cut into regular  big pieces)
2. 1 cup hung curd or yogurt
3. Juice of one lime
4. 50 mg. ginger paste
5. 50 mg. garlic paste
6. 1 tbsp. mace/jawitri powder
7. 2 tbsp black pepper powder
8. 1 tbsp Kashmiri red chili powder/ Paprika powder
9. Turmeric
10. Salt
11. Sugar
12. 2-3 tbsp of poppy seed paste (posto bata)

Procedure

Wash the chicken pieces and pat dry. Now with a sharp knife score the chicken on both the sides. In a mixing bowl mix all ingredients other than oil and poppy seed paste to make the marinade. Mix them well with your hand and rub on both the sides of the chicken pieces.  Let it rest for overnight in the refrigerator. Take out the marinated chicken at least an hour before you start cooking to bring them to room temperature.

In a frying pan heat oil. Now take out each chicken pieces shaking off its marinade and shallow fry till both the sides turn golden brown.

When you are done with frying add the marinade to the oil and allow the chicken pieces to get cooked inside it. Once the oil starts separating out from the spice mixture, add poppy seed paste and mix well.

Fry chicken pieces along with the poppy seed paste on medium low heat till the oil completely gets separated from the chicken. By this time the chicken pieces should be well coated with poppy seed paste.

Serve with hot biriyani or laccha parantha.