Indian Regional Creamy Chicken Recipes Special:

Erode Japan Chicken

Creamy chicken recipes should be in your weekend indulgence menu or during a particularly taxing weekday dinner. To that menu, add this delicious Japan chicken, which has nothing to do with the island country, and instead is a special chicken dish from Tamil Nadu. This dish starts with fried chicken that is coated in a rich, garlicky cashew-milk sauce that first made its name at Erode's Amman Mess, before spreading to restaurant menus across the state once word got around about how good it was. It is a part of the creamy chicken recipes, but a stretch to call it a creamy chicken recipe from Japan, as it's really a South Indian invention that just happened to pick up an evocative name along the way. There are two stages to this dish – the first is the frying, where the chicken pieces are seasoned, coated in a mix of plain flour and cornstarch, then deep-fried, and the second stage is the sauce, which is buttery, garlicky and has slit green chillies, sautéed just until fragrant, then milk goes in along with ground cashews (or almonds), white pepper and some sugar, then it simmers. As is the norm with any creamy chicken recipes, this Japan chicken is best eaten hot, straight off the stove, while the fried coating is still at its crispest. It's flexible about what it's served alongside: from plain steamed rice, which lets the chicken dish be the star, or, going fancy, you can eat it with fried rice or noodles, or serve it on its own as a starter with the sauce doing double duty as a dip.