Chicken cafreal is a flavorful dish from Goa, India. As we all know, Goan cuisine has been largely influenced by Portuguese way of preparing food. Today I shall be sharing the Chicken cafreal recipe but with a little twist. So you can call it ‘Chicken cafreal recipe in some other way’ 🙂 . But trust me, the twist has brought a new dimension to the traditional chicken cafreal recipe which is usually prepared with rum. Here goes my Chicken cafreal recipe.
Total cooking time for Chicken cafreal recipe: 45 minutes
Ingredients of Chicken cafreal recipe cooked for 3 – 4 people:
1. Chicken pieces – curry cut of around 600 gms to 700 gms
2. 6 – 7 twigs of fresh coriander leaves or dhone pata
3. 1 tsp of poppy seeds or posto or khus khus
4. 1 tsp of sesame seeds or til seeds (my addition)
5. 1 tsp coriander seeds or dhaniya or gota dhone
6. 1/2 tsp white cumin seed or caraway seeds or shah jeera
7. 8 peppercorns
8. 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
9. 2 green cardamoms
10. 2 cinnamon sticks
11. 7 cloves
12. 14 – 15 garlic cloves
13. 1 inch ginger
14. 3 onions – thin slices
15. 1/2 lemon juice
16. 1 tsp turmeric powder
17. 1 tsp salt
18. 2.5 cups of coconut water + normal water (if you do not have coconut water, just replace with normal water. I generally use coconut water in my curries whenever I have it)
19. 2 green chilly
20. 2 tbsp of refined oil
21. 1/2 tsp fennel seeds or mouri or saunf
Chicken cafreal recipe in my style – The method:
- Marinate chicken pieces with lemon juice, salt and turmeric powder for 2 hours
- Dry roast the whole spices, like white and black cumin, peppercorns, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, fennel seeds, coriander seeds and keep aside
- Heat oil in a wok and fry the onion slices till golden brown. Take out the onion slices and keep aside
- In a grinder, make a paste of the coriander leaves, green chillies, ginger, garlic, roasted spices, fried onions
- Now, in the left over oil in the wok (or you may add more oil), add the marinated chicken pieces and cover cook for 2 – 3 minutes
- Add the paste made and stir well with the chicken pieces and cover cook in medium flame for 5 minutes approximately till oil separates and masala starts to stick to the bottom of the wok
- Add 2.5 cups of water / coconut water and cover cook in high flame for 10 minutes, when the gravy thickens a bit
- Now, turn the chicken pieces and cover cook and simmer for 10 minutes more
- Open the lid, toss the chicken pieces and let the chicken dish rest for sometime. DO NOT TOUCH. Only enjoy the aroma that has spread around the house!!!!
After sometime, do serve the chicken cafreal with parantha or roti to your family and friends!!
SHARE IF YOU LIKE AND SPREAD THE JOY OF COOKING 🙂
