Chicken(Mutton) Pepper Roast

My in-laws are from a small town near Madurai, in Tamil Nadu, in South India. This small town is situated in the foothills of a mountain range with lush vegetation around. It is only 3 hours drive from Munnar, a popular tourist spot. The people of this small town are mostly from an agricultural background. This town is famous for its elaichi(cardamom) cultivation, processing and all activities related to cardomom growing and selling. The food in this area is rich in flavor with lot of spices used and all the people I have come across are excellent cooks. That said, my mother in law is a great cook herself and I have tons of her recipes all written in tamil in pieces of paper. I decided that it is high time that I translate all these recipes and store it indefinitely through my blog. The next series of posts are translations of these recipes. As and when I try these recipes, I will update the blog posts with pictures as well.

To start off with, today I made Chicken Pepper Roast. An easy recipe in terms of number of steps.

[The same recipe can be used to make mutton pepper roast as well. The only change would be to cook the ]mutton in a pressure cooker in a little salted water prior to following the below steps.]

Ingredients:

To grind:

Chicken - 1/2 lb

Pepper corn - 1tsp(can increase to make it more spicy)

Jeera - 1 tsp

Fennel seeds(Sombu) - 1 tsp

Poppy seeds(Casacasa) - 1 tsp

Scraped coconut - less than a handful

Garlic pods - 4

Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 1 tbsp

Method:

1. Grind all the above ingredients without water. (It is not a problem if the paste is coarse)

2. In a pan, add oil.

3. Once the oil heats up, add the ground paste and saute for a few minutes

4. Add the washed chicken to the pan and sprinkle a little water. 

5. Add required amount of salt.

6. Let the chicken cook in its juices until all the water has disappeared.

7. At this point, you can remove from the flame or let it roast a little further until it obtains a slightly brownish hue.

Enjoy as a side to any other dish!