Chicken ghee roast is a famous Mangalorean cuisine dish made by cooking chicken in spicy ghee roasted masala. This is a traditional Mangalorean dish with a tangy and spicy flavor from the roasted ghee.
Ghee roast chicken has its origins in Kundapur, a small town in Mangalore. Mangalorean cuisine is well-known because of its spicy foods, with some specialty ingredients being dried red chilies, coconuts, freshly ground spices and curry leaves.
The cuisine has become more popular these days, and you can find chicken ghee roast in many restaurants. However, this easy chicken ghee roast recipe will help you achieve restaurant-quality food that you can enjoy without leaving the house.
How to Make Chicken Ghee Roast Recipe
This ghee roast chicken recipe retains all the authentic flavors of the ghee roast. The main thing you should keep in mind is using enough roast ghee, which gives the dish its unique flavors.
Ingredients
- 2.5 pounds of boneless chicken cut into bite sizes
For the ghee roast masala
- One tablespoon of ghee
- 1/3 cup of curd or yogurt
- 16 byadagi chilies
- Two tablespoons of coriander/ dhania seeds
- Two teaspoons of fennel seeds
- One tablespoon of cumin seeds
- Two tablespoons of black peppercorn
- Two tablespoons of finely chopped ginger
- Two tablespoons of finely chopped garlic
- Two tablespoons of salt
- One tablespoon of lemon juice
- ½ teaspoon of turmeric powder
For the ghee roast curry
- 20 curry leaves
- ½ cup of ghee
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- One cup of chopped onions
- Two tablespoons of jaggery powder
Directions
The secret to making the perfect ghee roast chicken is performing this recipe in steps and taking your time.
Roasting the spices
- Start by adding your dry byadagi chilies to a wide-bottomed pan and fry them for three to five minutes on medium to low heat, turning consistently until they are fully roasted.
- Remove them, set them aside, and add cumin, fennel, coriander seeds, and peppercorns to the same pan. Roast them on medium to low heat for three to five minutes until fully roasted or until you start hearing a cracking sound. Do not overcook these spices; otherwise, they will become bitter.
Marinating the chicken
- Add your roasted chilies in a mixie, then crush them until fine.
- Add the other roasted spices, chopped garlic, ginger, and a little water, then grind until you get a smooth and evenly consistent paste.
- Add your chicken pieces into a large bowl, and add the masala paste, curd or yogurt, salt, ghee, and lemon juice.
- Mix chicken well until all pieces are coated in the masala paste, then let it marinate for four to six hours in the refrigerator.
Making the ghee roast
- Heat the remaining ghee in a wide-bottomed pan, add your curry leaves, and slightly roast them for two to three minutes.
- Add the chopped onions and some salt, then let them roast for eight to ten minutes on medium heat till the onions become translucent. You don’t have to wait until the onions brown in this step.
- Add your marinated chicken, mix it properly with the ghee, and leave it on medium heat for approximately 30 minutes.
- Add your jaggery powder when the chicken is halfway cooked, mix properly, and let your chicken continue cooking. Ensure you keep turning your chicken to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
- The chicken will release water during the first minutes of cooking, but at the end, the result will be a dry-ish curry with thick ghee on the sides.
Recipe Tips
While this is an easy chicken ghee roast recipe, these tips will help make it perfect:
- While this dish looks very spicy, it is usually mildly spicy, making it impossible to use regular red chilies. Byadagi chilies are the perfect choice because of their mildness and red color. However, if you want more spiciness, you can add ground garam masala.
- If byadagi chilies are still hot for you, replace them with Kashmiri red chilies, which are less spicy and still have the red color. You can also deseed your chilies before cooking and reduce the black peppercorns.
- For the best flavor and aroma, use pure homemade ghee. If you can’t make it, store-bought is okay, but ensure you look at the manufacturer date and ensure it is fresh. Old ghee could ruin your meal because of a bad smell. Using fresh whole spices also enriches the flavor and aroma.
- Slow-roasting your spices and chicken in the ghee enhances your food’s flavor. Adding the heat to make it cook faster will burn the spices and masala, which will ruin the results.
- Keep an eye on your chicken, stir continuously, and ensure not to overcook it, lest it becomes hard and dry.
- After removing your chicken from the refrigerator, let it sit and acquire room temperature before cooking it.
- While you can choose whatever pan you want to use, a wide-bottomed one is the best. It makes it easier to turn and stir your chicken, and it also gives you the best dry-ish chicken consistency.
FAQs
If you have leftover chicken, transfer it to a clean, dry, airtight container, preferably glass, and store it in the deepest part of your refrigerator. It stays good for up to two days, after which you only need to serve and reheat the portion you are eating because reheating it too much makes it lose its flavor and aroma.
Ensure you use a clean spoon when serving the chicken to avoid cross-contamination that makes it go bad faster.
Yes, for the best flavors. However, you can change the marinating time depending on how fast you want to cook the chicken. Also, instead of marinating it with the ghee and spice marinade, you can marinate it using salt, turmeric powder, and curd, then cook the spices after.
Neer dosa is the most common food people serve this chicken with. Other good alternatives include appams, chapatti/ roti, dal, steamed rice, palak dal, palak tovve, Malabar paratha, pheni paratha, and jeera rice.
This dish takes approximately an hour to make. However, it can take longer if you marinate your chicken, and the additional time depends on how long you marinate your chicken.
For the best results, cook this dish on a day when you are not in a hurry. Take your time gathering and preparing all the ingredients, and dedicate your time observing the chicken as it cooks to avoid overcooking it.
