Chicken Ghee Roast

Ghee Roast is a dish that you can find in almost every restaurant at Mangalore, Udupi, Manipal and surrounding towns. Hotel Anupam [which I heard is now renamed to a name that I can't recall :( ], at Mangalore was our favorite restaurant for Ghee roast. I remember the pipping hot dish wrapped in banana leaf and then re-wrapped in newspaper. Most of the time, the newspaper would have blotches of ghee. I'm sure it was cooked with considerable amount of ghee. But it was heavenly!

Ingredients:

3 lbs chicken legs, skinned
15-20 Bydagi chilies, roasted
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 tsp cumin seeds
1 whole pod garlic, peeled
10-12 whole black pepper corns
1/2 tsp turmeric
3 tsp vinegar
salt to taste
2 tbsp ghee (clarified butter) or more

How it's made:

Soak, whole chilies in buttermilk for 2-3 hours. (You can remove the seeds to reduce spice level). Grind to a fine paste with cumin seeds, garlic, pepper corns, turmeric, vinegar and salt. Marinate chicken with ground masala and set aside for 5-6 hours or overnight.
In a iron skillet or deep frying wok, heat ghee and fry marinated chicken pieces on high heat for 5 mins until light brown. Then lower heat, cover and cook until chicken is well done. This is a dry dish.

If you have gravy left behind, remove lid once chicken is cooked and crank up the heat until masala is well coated to the chicken. Garnish with curry leaves (optional). Serve hot. This dish makes a great appetizer and pairs well with chilled beer :)

Note: 
*For this dish, I prefer cooking with chicken legs or thighs. Chicken breast can be substituted but tends to be a little dry. 
*The same rub can be used for fish and shrimp.