Chicken chaap is Kolkata’s Mughlai restaurant style, one of the most popular old chicken curry recipes loved by the Bengali crowd. Kolkata restaurant style chicken chaap is prepared with chicken, ghee, dalda, boiled onion, ginger, garlic paste, yoghurt, lemon, poppy seeds, charmagaj, special chaap masala powder, gram flour, kewra & milk. Kolkata chicken chaap indicates a long-hour marinated chicken, basically slow-cooked in ghee & dalda until it fetches a thick, flavourful gravy. Easy to make, however, it requires a good amount of time. Hope my step by step detail will help you perfectly make this recipe in your kitchen.
Chicken chaap is an authentic and traditional dish of only Kolkata’s Mughlai restaurants, not the entire India. Bengal, especially Kolkata, is renowned for its expertise in making this recipe throughout India. Besides, Arsalan, Aminia, Shiraz, and Royal (famous Mughlai style restaurants in Kolkata) are so popular for making the best chicken chaap recipe.
This is exactly the reason, still date, whenever we go to Kolkata, we never miss having our favourite restaurant Arsalan’s chicken chaap, loved by my entire family.
For making chicken chaap at home, especially to bring kolkata’s restaurant style taste, a few things are always most important, i.e, full chicken legs (including thighs) or boneless breast pieces(weighing at least 200g), special homemade garam masala, the exact amount of essence (food flavor), lots of ghee (including Dalda), long time of marination, and a slow cooking process. Without any one of these (especially Dalda and special garam masala or chaap masala), the taste and aroma of this Bengali chicken chaap recipe would be almost different, and you may completely lose that authentic Kolkata restaurant style taste.
Any Bengali chaap lovers can easily and perfectly make this recipe in their kitchen by first marinating the chicken for 3-4 hours in curd, a smooth masala paste of boiled onion, ginger, garlic, green chilies, poppy seeds, melon seeds, and cashew nuts, then homemade powdered chicken chaap masala (a special garam masala), Kashmiri Mirch powder, lemon juice, essence(kewra and mitha attar) and roasted gram flour. After 3-4 hours of marination, fry the marinated chicken in ghee, oil, and dalda mixture by adding saffron-soaked milk to make it ready.
In Kolkata, almost all popular Bengali Mughlai style restaurants always serve chicken chaap on an oval-shaped plate with less gravy and lots of oil. And this mostly happens just by frying rather slow-cooked marinated chicken in ghee for a long time, and as a result, every time the gravy gets reduced, by releasing more oil.
Maximum Bengalis prefer to eat chicken chaap with biryani; however, there is no such hard rule; even naan, mughlai paratha, rumali roti, and tandoori roti are not bad combinations. Though Kolkata’s all old popular, and classic restaurants like arsalan, aminia, shiraz, Royal Indian Hotel are always the most Bengalis’ final destinations for having their chicken chaap with their Bengali biryani.
If you follow all my instructions for this recipe, you can easily prepare Bengali’s most like Kolkata’s mughlai restaurant style chicken chaap, at home without fail. However, you need more patience as dish takes a little more time for preparation, marination, and cooking than regular dishes.
You may also try other popular non-veg recipes from my website
Kolkata Chicken Biryani recipe
Kolkata-Arsalan style mutton chaap recipe
Shahi chicken korma curry recipe
Try this Kolkata’s style delicious chicken chaap at home and let me know if this recipe almost tastes like Bengali mughlai restaurants or not. Let me know everything about this recipe throughyour valuable comments. Just write down your comment in the comment section below.
Kolkata restaurant style chicken chaap recipe
Prep time: 25-30 mins
Cook time: 50 mins
Served in: 1 hr 20 mins
Course: Main course
Cuisine: Mughlai/ Bengali
Served for: 3-4 people
Author: Moumita Paul
Ingredients of chicken chaap
- 700 g (3 pieces) Full Chicken Legs with Thighs/Boneless Breast Pieces
- 2 tablespoons of Lemon Juice
- 3/4 cup of Curd/Unflavoured Yogurt
- 2 Medium-Sized Boiled Onions
- 2 pieces Green Chillies
- 12-13 Garlic Cloves
- 1-inch Ginger
- 1+1/2 tablespoons Poppy Seeds
- 1+1/2 teaspoon Melon Seeds(Charmagaj)
- 8 Cashew Nuts
- 2 teaspoons Homemade Chaap Masala Powder( Described Later)
- 1+1/2 teaspoons Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder
- 1 tablespoon Sattu or Roasted Gram Flour(Besan)
- 1 teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- 3/4 teaspoon of Kewra Water
- 3-4 drops Rose Essence/ 1+1/4 teaspoon Rose Water
- 2-3 drops of Mitha Attar
- 3 tablespoons of Dalda
- 3 tablespoons of Ghee
- 3 tablespoons of Vegetable Oil
- 4 tablespoons of Lukewarm Milk
- 1 pinch of Saffron Strands
- Salt to tastegra
How to make Kolkata restaurant style chicken chaap recipe
Step by step Instructions
Ingredients of chicken chaap masala(powder)
- Dry roast 4 green cardamoms, 5 cloves, 1/2 teaspoon whole white peppercorn, 1-inch cinnamon stick, 3/4 teaspoon shahi jeera (or shah jeere in Bengali language), 1/2 teaspoon whole black pepper, and 1+1/2 teaspoon dry rose petals, 1/2 of a mace, and 1/4 of nutmeg(as shown in the pic).
- Dry roast spices on low heat until the aroma comes. Then grind all the roasted spices and turn them into a fine powder. Chaap Masala is ready.
Prepare chicken chaap
- Again, heat the same pan, add 1+1/2 tablespoons of poppy seeds, 1+1/2 teaspoons of melon seeds(charmagaj in Bengali), and 8 cashew nuts.
- Dry roast the spices for 6-7 minutes on low heat.
- Take the spices out of the pan and then keep them in water to soak for 15-20 minutes.
- Then take 2 medium-sized onions, peel their skin, and make a deep slit from their top and boil them well.
- After boiling, cool them down and keep them for later use.
- Boiled onion is the topmost secret ingredient used in all renowned Kolkata restaurants popular for making such Mughlai recipes.
- Take a small blender jar, add boiled onion, 1-inch ginger, 12-13 garlic cloves, and 2 pcs green chilies, as shown in the pic.
- Then add soaked poppy seeds, melon seeds, and cashew nuts to the blender jar and make a smooth paste out of it.
- You can add a little water to make the paste smooth. This is the secret masala of this Kolkata style chaap recipe used in all popular Kolkata restaurants (Arsalan, Aminia, Shiraz, or Royal).
- Take 700 g to 1 kg large pieces of chicken( mostly full chicken legs with thighs or boneless chicken breast pieces) as shown below pic.
- Thoroughly wash the chicken, and make 4-5 slits on each pieces with a knife till bones.
- First, marinate the chicken with curd( 3/4 cup(≈ 180 ml) of well-beaten curd, unflavoured yoghurt/Greek yoghurt). Mix them well.
- Then, marinate the chicken with the masala paste(kept in a blender jar), add 2 teaspoons of homemade chaap masala powder(prepared at the beginning)
- And nicely rub the masalas on the chicken pieces.
- Add 2 teaspoons of Kashmiri red chilli powder and 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder.
- And lastly, squeeze the 1/2 lemon(from a bigger size lemon) or add 2 tablespoons lemon juice to it.
- Then add 3/4 teaspoon of kewra water, 3-4 drops rose essence or 1+1/4 teaspoon rose water, 2-3 drops of mitha attar to the marination, and nicely mix them with chicken.
- Lastly, add 1 tablespoon of sattu(chhatu in Bengali) or roasted gram flour(besan) with the marinated chicken and mix altogether. As shown in the pic below.
- Then keep the marinated chicken in the refrigerator for 3-4 hrs.
Making of chicken chaap
- After 3-4 hrs, take out the marinated chicken from the refrigerator, and keep it aside.
- Place a flat and wide-bottomed pan on low heat, add ghee, Dalda, and refined oil/vegetable oil(with 3 tablespoons each) in the hot pan.
- When the oil, ghee, Dalda mixture gets hot, then add the marinated chicken to the pan and cover the pan with a tight lid. After every 5 minutes, check it.
- After slow cooked for the first 10 minutes, slowly turn the chicken pieces, then again cover the pan.
- When the chicken pieces are almost cooked and the raw smell of masala completely goes off, add salt(as per taste) to it.
- For the first time, I am adding salt(1+1/2 teaspoons of salt) to the gravy, however, you can use less or much salt as required.
- In the meantime, take 4 tablespoons of lukewarm milk in a bowl and add 1 pinch of saffron strands to the milk(shown in the pic).
- Once saffron is soaked in milk, later crush the saffron strands pressing with your fingertips.
- Then add this crushed saffron-soaked milk to the pan and stir it well.
- Slowly, the gravy will change its colour due to adding the saffron.
- When the chicken is completely cooked and the gravy is fully covered by oil, as shown in the pics that indicates this dish is ready, then turn off the flame.
- Now kolkata restaurant style chicken chaap is ready to serve, just have it with paratha, naan, or rumali roti, or even only with bengali biryani.
Tips
- Store the rest of the chaap masala in an airtight container for further use.
- Whenever you are using large chicken legs, you must slit the pieces before cooking. Slits should be deep like reach till the bones. So the chicken pieces will be cooked fast, and the masala will easily get into the pieces.
- If you are using frozen chicken, before cooking, keep the chicken at normal room temperature until the ice melts and the chicken gets soft. For quick defrosting, you can use the defrost mode of the microwave oven or put the chicken in a bowl of normal water, adding salt, also get a quick result.
- Never use desi chicken in this recipe; no doubt the taste will be great, but that will take a long cooking time to soften the chicken.
- I never use the salt until the chicken is almost cooked. You can even add salt at the beginning of cooking, too. However, do not add salt during or before the marination.
- If you do not want to add dalda to this dish, then always replace dalda with the same amount of ghee or oil or both in a half-and-half amount.
Based on 42 Review(s)
Hello Moumita,
Thanks for the recipe it is great and so easy. I tried the chicken chaap and I think I was around 70% successful.
I am facing one problem if you can help. During the making of the chicken chaap, we are seeing the gravy getting very thick and sticking into the no stick pan. What can be the reason for this. It will be great if you can guide me.
Hi Malabika,
Really glad to know you loved my chicken chaap recipe, and thank you so much for the feedback you shared with me. Actually mainly because of using cashew nuts and melon seeds paste make chaap’s gravy quite thick and sticky even roasted gram flour or sattu is also one more reason for that. Nut’s paste is mandatory for making any chaap recipe as it makes creamy consistency of the gravy and even enhances its taste as well. On the other hand, roasted gram flour is used to make the same texture and taste found in the restaurant’s chaap recipe. So as both ingredients are mandatory for making any authentic Mughlai style chicken chaap, we can not skip any step described in this recipe. Then I must suggest you, while you’re cooking must check the gravy after every 5 mins instead of 10 mins described in my recipe, even whenever you feel the gravy gets too thick and stick to the pan then you may add 4-5 tbsp of hot water to this gravy. But must use the hot water only, otherwise, its taste can be spoiled, even never add the water when cooking is done, as after adding water, proper boiling is required to get the perfect taste. Even after cooling down if you notice the chaap’s gravy gets too thick then you may add about 1/4 cup of hot water for heating it in the gas stove and make it ready by boiling. However, for heating this chaap in a microwave oven no need to add water.
Hope it will solve your problem. Try this recipe in this way and let me know how it worked.
Wonderful recipe! Thanks for this… Since we moved out of Kolkata, we have been missing the ‘typical’ Chicken Chaap flavour of Shiraz and Arasalan. Found your blog and this recipe and our taste buds were relieved! Thank you once again! Would like to get a recipe of the authentic Mutton Chaap or Mutton Pasinda. Do share it if possible!
Thank you so much for such a wonderful review…And yes I will surely share the authentic Mutton chaap and Mutton pasanda recipe soon.
This recipe is amazing, we have done this many times and everytime it has been perfect. Just wanted to say Thank you. 😊
Welcome, Mr. Suvadip, really happy to read your comment… Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words.