Kolhapuri Chicken...

Another weekend gone and no change in status quo.. Another whole week and weekend spent on cleaning and showing the house...A spate of incidents where we had to spent our time outside the house while the realtor and their clients were seeing the house. Our house is so small that my little one keeps asking.,. what are they looking at so much...but still no response so keeping the fingers, toes and arms and legs crossed.

The only highlight of last week was a package from Nupur of "One Hot Stove" which arrived with aromatic messages. She sent me a sampler of the famous Kolhapuri masala, that too a homemade version. She was having a contest for it on her blog and she sweetly offered me a sample even though I didn't win the contest.

Searching for a chicken Kolhapuri recipe, I saw this interesting writeup on the Ten most popular Maharashtrian dishes and Kolhapuri curries was one of them.

The word "Kolhapuri" brings to mind the weirdest combination of items.. Padmini Kolhapuri of the 80s movies( brought back to mind by B4U music), Kolhapuri chappals of which I always had a pair of thru my college days and the stomach unsettling super spiced dhabha Kolhapuri food eaten on college tours.
My better experience with Kolhapuri cooking is limited to eating K. Chicken and veg Kolhapuri in Mumbai and once in Matheran and that too a long time ago. I remember its spine tingling spiciness after a long day walking and documenting Matheran, its spice just highlighting the heat around.( Some people like to eat spicy food and then drink hot tea, but that is a sure fire way of setting my head ablaze in the summer.) Now I just used to associate it with spice, the way Thai food is associated with spice now.

I deliberated over mutton or chicken Kolhapuri and settled on making Chicken Kolhapuri with it. The misal was also very tempting but I had no sprouted beans so went for the chicken. That's next on the agenda.

It turned out to be a very well spiced, ferociously red and fiery looking curry.... took the blandness out of the usual chicken curry. But it was not all heat.. there was a myriad other flavors in it now which I probably was unaware of years back. I didn't even know at that time it had coconut in it.

The combination of the dried coconut, fresh coconut and all the different spices gives it a taste very slightly similar to the varutha aracha chicken curry. I had run out of dried coconut, so I added only fresh coconut.. I am sure its tastes even better with dried coconut.

So I got one more chicken curry to my list of curries. Thanks a lot Nupur, we enjoyed the masala. Now I just need to learn to make it. :) For the Chicken Kolhapuri, I just followed Meera's recipe fully. So here is the recipe for those who want to try it out.