Kolhapuri Chicken Recipe — Straight from Kolhapur
Often the word “Kolhapuri” is used interchangeably for spicy. Today we’re going to change that. This cuisine is much more than just spicy. Also, being from the same place, I am exercising some of my self-proclaimed authority on this subject to impart some gyaan 😎. Let me break it down for you. This how the article is divided —
- Fundamental Ingredients
- Two ways to cook the meat
- Recipe
Fundamental Ingredients
There are two key ingredients that you need to get right in Kolhapuri cuisine — the Kolhapuri Chutney and the Hirva Masala. If you get this right, you can make the most authentic tasting food at home.
Kolhapuri Chutney
First off, it’s a dry powder. It’s not a wet “chutney” like how you get with say a paneer tikka or a dosa. There are a lot of such chutneys in Maharashtrian cuisine — most of them can also be directly consumed. Even this chutney can be had directly with a bit of oil or curd with rice/roti. This spice mix is the essence of Kolhapuri cuisine. Any dish that has “Kolhapuri” prefixed to it, must have this chutney as an ingredient. It is a magical spice and you can skip almost every masala in your cooking if you get your hands on it (except salt, turmeric and red chilly powder for color). A mix of Laungi Mirchi found in the region and Byadgi Mirchi found in Karnataka is the base ingredient of this masala. I will be covering the preparation of this chutney in another post. Most homes in Kolhapur prepare the chutney themselves and store it for the whole year. You can, however, get good chutney in packed form also. However, I have not seen this spice being available anywhere outside of Maharashtra.
Hirva Masala
This masala, which forms the base of the gravy, is used in many Maharashtrian dishes— be it Kolhapuri Mutton, Masale bhaat (fried rice), Misal or Bharli Wangi (stuffed aubergines).
I will not be measuring ingredients to a gram here. The basic ingredients of this masala are fresh coconut, coriander leaves, ginger, garlic, and green chili optionally. You have some leeway here to adjust the proportions as per your taste. For me, the proportions would be a cup of coconut, a cup of coriander, an inch of ginger, 7–8 cloves of garlic and a couple of chillis.
In Kolhapur, some people use dry coconut, some use fresh and some use a mix of the two. Dry coconut gives you a very rich taste and a stronger flavor of coconut but can make your dish heavier. I recommend you use a mix of two. If you don’t have access to dry coconut, skip it. You can make this masala in bulk and deep freeze it for the future.
Wanna kick it up a notch? Add some “Pandhra” Masala as well for extra richness.
Pandhra Masala (Optional)
To make this, dry roast some sesame and poppy seeds (til and khus khus) in equal amounts. Throw it in the grinder with a bit of water to make a wet paste. Simple. This paste can be added at the start of the cooking to add more nuttiness and richness to our dish. These two seeds are high in oils (cholesterol) and they get released into the gravy as you cook it. What makes the flavors even richer is when you let it sit for some hours or perhaps a day. This is because of the presence of coconut and seeds that release oil. If you are using fresh coconut for Hirwa masala, then you can add a bit of dry coconut to this masala as well. Skip this if you want to keep the cholesterol profile of your food low.
Note: Hirva means green and Pandhra means white in Marathi
Two ways to cook the meat
There is a lot of “Nazakat”, in the way people of Kolhapur handle their meat in the kitchen. They are not big on marination of the meat as the final product is usually a gravy and not a kebab. The bigger reason, however, is the kind of meat you get in the region. Bijapur is the supplier of mutton for the most part of Maharashtra and southern states. As far as my experience goes, this variety of meat is optimized for gravies and usually cooks faster than what you get in the north.
Method 1 — Prepare the meat stock (Rassa) and take out the meat separately for gravy (Sukka)
This is the default method. We start with oil, some whole spices and a lot of onions. Sauté the meat and prepare stock with lots of water. The meat is then taken out after it gets cooked, to be used for a thicker gravy called Sukka made with Kolhapuri masala and Hirva Masala. The stock also gets spiced with Kolhapuri masala to become Rassa. In local lingo, this dish is referred to as “Sukka-Rassa”.
Method 2 — Prepare a single gravy
This is what I usually do, and what we will be doing in the recipe as well. This is a no-fuss, effective and quicker method. You start pretty much the same, except, we don’t make any stock here. We cook the Kolhapuri chutney, Hirva Masala, and the meat together.
Now, Let’s see the recipe.
Recipe
This recipe works for both curry cut chicken and chicken kheema.
Ingredients
For Hirva Masala
1 cup fresh coconut or a mix of fresh and dry.
1 cup fresh coriander leaves
1-inch ginger
7–8 cloves of garlic
1 cup of water
1 green chili
For gravy:
500g sliced onions
4–5 cloves
4–5 black peppercorn
1 tsp cumin seeds
3–4 cardamom pods
1 black cardamom
1 bay leaf
1-inch cinnamon stick
1 tsp sugar
3 tbsp Kolhapuri Chutney
500g chicken kheema or 1 kg curry cut chicken
4 tbsp refined oil
1 tbsp Pandhra Masala (optional)
Method
- Combine all the ingredients of the Hirva Masala and blend into a wet paste by adding water. Be careful to not add too much water. The final result should be as thick as dosa batter, nothing less than that. Set aside.
- Heat the oil in a pan. Make sure you are not using any strong oil here like mustard, olive or peanut. Use a neutral refined/vegetable oil. Add the whole spices — cloves, pepper, cinnamon, and bay leaf and saute till they start to crackle.
- Add the sliced onions along with a bit of sugar for richer color and saute for about 5 min till they turn brown. Be careful not to do this on a very high flame. We want to achieve a nice caramelized look on the onions.
- Add the Hirva Masala and saute for a couple of minutes. At this point, you can also add the optional Pandhra masala mentioned above. Now add the Kolhapuri chutney. Saute this mixture on a medium flame till the raw smell of coconut vanishes and the oil starts to separate from the masala. If your mixture goes too dry, you can add splashes of water to get things going again.
- Now add the chicken and roast it with the masala. Keep cooking till the chicken is almost about done. After this, add water to the mixture to make a thick gravy. With these measurements, 1–1.5 cups of water should get you a gravy with a nice consistency, however, you can vary it as per your liking.
To accompany this dish, you can prepare “Dahi Kanda”. This balances the spice well. It's a simple mix of sliced onions (washed), coriander leaves, salt, and curd. This curry goes well with Chappati and plain rice. Some even prefer “Masale bhaath” with it, which we will cover soon.
Pro Tips:
- Let your gravy sit in the kitchen or the fridge for at least half a day for the flavors to develop even more.
- Try not to make very small quantities with this recipe. You will get better results with quantities of at least 1kg of meat. This is because, chicken in comparison to Mutton, does not release many juices in the gravy. We, in fact, cook 1.5–2 kgs at a time so that we get to enjoy for the next 2–3 days. The taste just improves with time.
- Please refrain from using boneless chicken. Best would be to get leg and thigh cuts combined or else the standard full chicken curry cut.
- If you ended up cooking a lot of gravy and your chicken is over, you can recycle this gravy. It is highly reusable! (a) Throw in some boiled eggs, to turn it into Egg Curry! (b) Add sprouted Moth or Matki, parboiled potato, and water — Voila! You have created the tastiest version of Misal. Pair it up with some Pav and chopped onions.
Here are some more images of the Kheema version of this recipe. Enjoy!
