Chicken Bharta Kolkata Style
Now coming to the recipe. Kolkata loves all kind of Mughlai food. There is a plethora of Mughlai dishes tailored to the palate of Bengali food connoisseurs which you can find in all small and big restaurants across the city. Chicken Bharta is a one such Mughlai delicacy prepared with shredded chicken and hard boiled eggs cooked in selected aromatics. Usually it is considered as a dhaba style dish which pairs perfectly with roomali rotis or naans. If you are in Kolkata just step out in your neighborhood in the late evenings and you will see a beeline of people waiting outside on the road in front of small food shacks for getting the chicken bharta, chowmein or biryani packed for dinnertime. Especially if its around the weekend the crowd is more. It has almost become part of the culture there to get these delicacies packed for home on the way back to office to start off the weekend food frenzy. And when you get it so cheap in the local restaurant why would anyone slog at home to make it.
But people like us who are miles away form the city, if we want to enjoy these we have to slog in the kitchen - there is hardly any choice there. What I have understood is that everyone has their own little formula of success for a good chicken bharta. And there are mild variations of the recipe you will find all over the net. Most of the time you will see cashew paste or poppy seed paste being added to the dish to up the creamy quotient, but since I am making this on a hot summer afternoon, I skipped it to make it a little lighter for the tummy. Taste wise it didn't compromise anything I can say. Also at time I have seen restaurants adding Kewra scent to this dish just to make it more 'Mughlai' but I really don't like it at all. The natural aroma of the spices with the chicken feels much more authentic to me rather than loading it up with unnecessary things. I hope you like this recipe. Do comment if you have nay suggestions to make it better. I had it with homemade naan which my mother made. Maybe i will also talk about the naan recipe sometime, its an absolute hit.
- Egg - 2
- Onion - 2 large
- Tomato - 1
- Ginger - 1 inch
- Clove - 1
- Cardamom - 2
- Cinnamon - 1/2 inch
- Nutmeg powder - 1/4 tsp
- Turmeric - 1/2 tsp
- Kashmiri red chili powder - 1 tsp
- Cumin Powder - 1 tsp
- Coriander Powder - 1 tsp
- Tandoori Chicken Masala - 1/2 tsp
- Refined Oil + Butter- as needed
- Cream - 2 tbsp
- Curd - 2 tbsp
- Salt - as per taste
- Sugar - as per taste
- Chicken Stock - 1.5 cups
- Warm water - as needed
- Chicken - 400-500 gm
- Black peppercorn (crushed) - 5
- Ginger (roughly sliced) - 1 inch piece
- Garlic cloves - 5-6
- Onion (roughly sliced) - 1/2
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