Pan Roasted Chicken Legs

Pan Roasted Chicken Legs 

Inspired by Urmi's Roasted Chicken drumsticks 

This week Kolkata Food Blogger's star is the quiet beauty, Urmi. I have met Urmi only once during Kolkata Food Bloggers' Bake Sale and the image I had of her before meeting her fitted her perfectly. A sweet gentle gracious person.

She was the first Kolkata Food Blogger to have guest starred in a cookery show which you may find on her blog and is ever so the humble person. Do check out her blog Ume's Kitchen. 

I particularly liked her Roasted Chicken Drumsticks and loved the story of how her mother would pan roast it and then use the traditional method of cooking the chicken on coal fire to give it the smoky affair. What I personally love about such family recipes is that yesterday's customs become today's and tomorrow's heritage. So instead of following Urmi's method of grilling or baking the chicken I pan roasted it. I do not own a traditional coal fire and had to sadly exclude it from my preparation.

I followed her recipe with a few tiny alterations and the result was juicy succulent delicious pan roasted chicken with Indian flavours. I used dark portions of chicken (thigh + leg without the skin) instead of the drumsticks alone.

As for the time for marination I used to think that the greater the number of hours the better the marination. Then someone told me that over marinatino can actually harm the flavour of fish. I immediately looked up the topic online and found this useful article : A Marinade Timing and realized that due to over marination my fish does actually turn mushy when over marinated.

Ever since that day other than some tough cuts of goat meat or pork I stick to round about 2 hours for chicken legs.

This time I put the theory to test by first having a chicken after 2 hours of marination and the other one was left to marinate overnight in the refrigerator. In the end what I personally found out was that while there isn't much difference in flavour with the extra marination the one which marinated overnight cooked faster and rendered softer meat. So for chicken legs (dark portions) I would suggest the long hours of marination when not using acidic agents.


Serves 3

3 Chicken (leg + thigh)

1st phase of marination :-

Salt as per taste
Juice from 1/2 a lemon

2nd Phase of marination :-

Wet ingredients :-

6 medium sized garlic cloves (if you are using the large cloves of garlic 2 would suffice)
1/2 an inch ginger
I usually have homemade red sauce ready at hands made with ripe red chilies, garlic and vinegar and I used 1 tsp of the very hot sauce but otherwise I suggest that you stick to the recipe and use 2 to 3 green chilies which give the chicken a lovely flavour which I know from previous usage
1 tbsp sour cream or heavy cream

Dry ingredients :-

You can check our Urmi's blog for her homemade recipe for tandoori masala . I stuck to the following ingredients :-

1 green cardamom
1/4th inch cinnamon
1/2 tsp whole black pepper
3 cloves
1 blade of mace
Pinch of nutmeg
1/4th black cardamom
1/4th tsp cumin seeds
1/4th tsp coriander seeds
1 whole dried  Kashmiri chili

1.5 tbsp mustard oil / ghee


Start by first cleaning the chicken well and then pat it dry  and using a fork to prick the chicken all over so that the chicken gets well marinated. Rub it with salt and then the lemon juice and leave it aside for 15 minutes. Strain the chicken and go on to dry roast and grind the ingredients for the 2nd phase of marination and grind them to a fine powder.

Make a paste of the wet ingredients and massage the chicken with the wet marination and freshly made spice powder and leave it in the kitchen for 6 hours to 7 hours or overnight.

Heat mustard oil or ghee and seal the juice of the chicken on high heat for 1 minute on each side and then lower the flame to the lowest and cover and cook the chicken for 4 minutes to 5 minutes per side and open the cover and brown it a bit and then let it rest for 5 minutes and then serve it with some raita made with yogurt , rock salt , cumin powder and roasted brinjal.

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