Chicken Red

A speciality of Hyderabad, the Chicken Red is essentially chicken cooked in a range of spices, giving it a bright, shimmering red colour, and can be served with roti or rice. To make it, one needs chicken, salt and ginger garlic paste. For the masala paste which is ground and put on the chicken, bring together almonds, pistachios, chironji, green chillies, cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, black pepper, and water. And for the fiery red curry, one will need oil, ghee, curd, onions, tomato paste, tomato ketchup, red chilli sauce, green chilli sauce, jeera, coriander powder, Kashmiri red chilli powder, red chilli powder, coriander, vinegar, red food colour, and cream..

The Chicken Red is just one iteration of the chicken curry, which can be cooked in a variety of ways, given the versatility of curry as a dish. Residues of cooking pots and teeth in Farmana confirm that between 2500 and 2000 BCE, during the Indus Valley Civilisation, cooks were using turmeric, ginger, and garlic. These are the basis for the curry, and have remained largely unaltered over the last 4000 years. Curry was continuously made and change came as recently as the arrival of the Portuguese in Goa, who introduced chilli to the subcontinent, which is now also a staple ingredient in the dish. During the 18th and 19th centuries, with the British East India Company, curry acquired global status.

Curries, or an amalgamation of spices, continue to be staples in Indian cooking and into it go vegetables, paneer, and all sorts of meats, with the Chicken Red being one such example of the curry’s evolution.