There’s nothing as addictive as a good pickle and summers are a great time of the year to be pickle-hungry….Right?? Every region has its unique pickles and most families seem to have their own precious recipes. Every grandma has had her own recipe that she passed down the generations like a family heirloom. I know my grandma did. But, non-veg pickles were somehow never a thing in our family in spite of being hardcore non-veg fans….no clue why? But, my daughter and me love chicken and prawn pickle so much that I had to try out various ways to get it right. Keeping the basic pickle recipe, I played around few ingredients and finally this has become my signature recipe for almost 12 years now. This Chicken Pickle Andhra Style is an addictive tongue-blistering concoction of various spices mixed with deep-fried chicken pieces, a perfect combo with hot steamed rice.
It’s difficult to trace the exact origins of Indian pickle, but it is connected to the ancient art of preserving food by curing it with salt or sugar. With hot summers and a lack of water during that time, food production decreased during the summer. Long before refrigeration and canning made it possible to preserve foods for a long time, ancient civilisations had discovered that the secret to increasing the longevity of perishable foods was to dry them in the sun with salt or brine. Thus, there was a need to preserve excess food produced during winters and hence, the process of pickling was invented to overcome this problem. But, I stock up my refrigerator with these non vegetarian pickles and dig in once in a while to feed the carnivore within……????
Off to Chicken Pickle Andhra Style ????
Steps to make Chicken Pickle Andhra Style:
Quick Video: How to make Chicken Pickle
Marination: Step1
- For today’s recipe, I’m using 1/2 Kg chicken with bones. You can also use boneless chicken (tried & tested), but, I find the pickle with bones tastier.
- Clean chicken well, wash and cut into bite-sized pieces. Remove the water completely, pat dry with a tissue or a cloth to remove any left out moisture.
- Transfer the chicken to a bowl and marinate with 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 1 teaspoon red chilli powder and 1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste.
- Mix well and set aside for at least 30 minutes.
Cooking Chicken: Step2
- Transfer marinated chicken to a pan and cook over medium high heat without adding any water.
- Chicken releases some water, so cook until all the water evaporates.
- Turn off the heat and let it cool down completely.
Frying Chicken: Step3
- It’s time to deep fry cooked chicken. Heat a deep pan with 3/4 Cup Oil. If frying in 2 batches, you reduce the oil quantity a bit. Basically the chicken pieces should immerse in the oil.
- Deep fry cooked chicken over medium high heat till it crisps out on the top and there is hardly any water content. The chicken pieces get a nice golden brown colour. Don’t over-fry. This step is crucial to chicken pickle making.
- Remove fried chicken to a bowl and keep aside to cool down to room temperature.
NOTE:
????You can use Peanut oil or Sunflower oil. They have a high smoke point and neutral taste which makes it perfect for deep frying foods.
????We will be using the remaining oil for the rest of the recipe, so not to worry. Since this is a pickle to last long, it does require generous amounts of oil.
- In the remaining oil (whatever quantity of oil is left after frying chicken), add in 3-4 tablespoons ginger garlic paste and sauté for a while until the raw smell goes away and also the paste turn slightly brown as seen below in the pic. But, don’t burn it!!
- At this stage, turn off the heat.
NOTE:
????Please do not use store bought ginger garlic paste to prepare this pickle…Use only homemade paste!! You can follow this recipe to prepare Ginger Garlic paste, as it also has other spices required. Just make sure not to add any water while grinding. If needed, you can add a little oil to aid grinding.
Mixing Ingredients: Step 4
- To the fried ginger garlic paste, add in the following ingredients:
- 1/2 teaspoon roasted Fenugreek Powder (Dry roast fenugreek seeds in a pan and grind to a fine powder)
- 2 teaspoons Mustard Powder (Sun dry Mustard seeds and grind to a fine powder)
- 1/2 Cup Red Chilli Powder (Pachi Karam) used for pickling (Dry red chillies are sun-dried and ground to a fine powder). Reduce the quantity if you don’t want the pickle to be too spicy.
- Mix well and add sea salt to taste. Always start off with adding less salt, you can still add later if needed.
- Add in fried chicken pieces and mix well.
- Completely cool down and add lemon juice. Depending on the size, you might require 3 to 4 lemons.
- Mix well and adjust salt if needed.
NOTE:
????If you add lemon juice while the pickle is still hot, it will give a bitter taste to the pickle.
????Increase the quantity of lemon juice if you want it a little sour and this will also reduce the spice level. Balance the flavours with salt.
Tempering: Step 5
- Heat 1/4 Cup Oil in a pan over medium heat. Add 1/2 teaspoon Fenugreek seeds and let them slightly brown.
- Now, add in 10-15 peeled garlic pods and sauté for a minute.
- Add 4-5 dry red chillies and once the garlic turns light brown, add in some curry leaves.
- Turn off the heat once the curry leaves splutter and become crisp.
- Cool down and transfer the seasoning to the chicken pickle and give it a nice stir to mix well.
- Let the pickle sit for few hours to taste and see if you need to adjust salt or the tang. If you find it too spicy, add some more lemon juice and adjust salt accordingly.
- Store chicken pickle in an airtight container. Refrigerate to increase its shelf life and this keeps good for about 6-8 weeks.
- After 24 hours, oil will ooze out from the pickle. If you find it too dry, you can heat up some oil, cool it down and pour it over the pickle.
- Delicious pickle is ready!! Enjoy with some hot steamed Rice ????
A Quick Summary:
Chicken Pickle Andhra Style | Chicken Avakaya
Ingredients
Marination:
- 1/2 Kg Chicken with bones clean, wash & cut into bite sized pieces
- 1/2 teaspoon Turmeric Powder
- 3/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon Ginger-Garlic paste
Frying Ingredients:
- 3/4 Cup Oil
- 50 gm Ginger Garlic paste
Mixing Ingredients:
- 1/2 teaspoon Roasted fenugreek seeds powder
- 2 teaspoons Mustard Powder
- 1/2 Cup Red Chilli Powder
- Salt to taste
- 3-4 Lemons squeeze out juice
Tempering Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
- 15 Garlic pods peeled
- 5 dry red chillis
- Few Curry Leaves
Instructions
Marination:
- Marinate chicken for 30 minutes with ingredients under “Marination”.
Cooking Chicken:
- In a pan, cook marinated chicken over medium high heat until all the water evaporates.
- Turn off the heat and cool down.
Frying Chicken:
- Heat oil in a pan. Deep fry cooked chicken over medium high heat till golden brown. Remove to a bowl and cool.
- In the remaining oil, add in ginger garlic paste and sauté until it turns slightly brown and the raw smell goes away. Turn off the heat.
Mixing Ingredients:
- To the fried paste, add roasted Fenugreek Powder, Mustard Powder, Red Chilli Powder and salt to taste. Add fried chicken pieces and mix well.
- Cool down and add lemon juice, mix and adjust salt.
Tempering:
- Heat Oil in a pan over medium heat. Add Fenugreek seeds and let them slightly brown.
- Now, add peeled garlic pods and dry red chillies.
- And curry leaves once the garlic turns light brown.
- Turn off the heat. Cool and transfer seasoning to the pickle. Mix well.
My Notes:
- I have shared few tips concerned to each step above in the detailed recipe…so, don’t miss that out.
- The most important part is to get the moisture completely out of the meat.
- Don’t use iodised salt for pickles. Use only Sea Salt as it improves shelf life and the taste.
- The quantity of ginger garlic paste will decide how much gravy the pickle will have. You can increase or decrease the quantity. But, proportionately, you will have to balance out the rest of the ingredients.
- Store in an airtight container & refrigerate…Keeps good for about 6 to 8 weeks.
- The jar used to store pickle should be washed thoroughly and dried in the sun to ensure the pickle doesn’t get spoilt.
- The pickle should not come in contact with water to ensure long shelf life. Always use a clean dry spoon to remove pickle.
- To increase the shelf life of Chicken Pickle, heat oil separately, cool down and add to pickle so that it covers the top.
Do check out other Pickles & Karam Recipes and Non-Vegetarian Recipes from blog!!
Other popular Pickle Recipes on blog:
Many more to come!!…..STAY TUNED!!
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Happy Cooking 
Cheers!!
Padma.
