Erode Nallampatti Chicken Roast Recipe | Chicken Roast Made with Shallots, Garlic and Spices

Heat sesame oil in a pan. Be generous with the amount of oil for this recipe. Add in some cloves to the oil. Add in a couple of pieces of cinnamon too. Add in the fennel seeds and the dry red chillies. The dry red chillies are deseeded, roughly chopped and added to the hot oil. The red chilli flavours the oil when roasted and adds a nice aroma and taste to the dish. In most kongunadu style preparation, deseeded red chillies are roasted in oil for that extra punch. Add in the curry leaves.

Saute for a few seconds for the spices to get roasted in the hot oil. It will turn very aromatic.

Add in the sliced garlic. The small sized country garlic is preferred for this recipe. Slice the garlic into slivers and add to the recipe. Slicing it will make sure that every bite of the chicken will have a little garlic along.

Add in the roughly chopped shallots. Roughly chop the shallots and add to the pan.
Here is a quick tip : When you have to peel a lot of shallots like this one, soaking them for 10-15 minutes in water will help the skin of the shallots peel easily.
Shallots are preferred for this recipe. They are sweeter and more flavourful than regular onions. Saute for about 5 minutes for the shallots to become soft.

The shallots should turn soft and translucent after five minutes. They should also start turning slightly brown in colour.

At this stage, add in the salt. Add in all the spice powders – the turmeric powder, red chilli powder, cumin powder and the coriander powder. Saute for a few seconds in the oil for the spice powders to get nicely roasted.

Now, add in the ginger that has been crushed in a mortar and pestle. Add in the chopped tomatoes. Country tomatoes work well in this recipe. Couple of ripe tomatoes will be enough. Do not add more. Mix well to combine.

Add in the chicken. Bone-in chicken is preferred for this recipe. The bone adds a lot of flavour to the masala while cooking. Traditionally, country chicken is used for this preparation. But regular broiler chicken works fine too. I used broiler chicken today. After adding the chicken, add about half a cup of water and mix well to combine. If using country chicken, you may want to add more water as the country chicken takes longer time to cook.

Cover the pan with a lid and cook on a low flame for 20 minutes.

Mix once in a while to avoid the chicken from scorching at the bottom. The moisture from the chicken and the little water we added will be more than enough for the chicken to cook.

After about 20 minutes, the chicken should be completely cooked and the mixture should be almost dry, resembling a thick masala. At this stage add in the black pepper powder that’s been finely ground and some chopped curry leaves. Mix well to combine and cook for a minute more.

Finally add in the chopped coriander leaves and mix well. Our Erode special Nallampatti style chicken roast is ready. This dish tastes really good with rice.

Enjoy!