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Bahot Diya Kukura (Bamboo Chicken)

Chicken with ginger, garlic, chilli and a little mustard oil, sealed in a green bamboo tube and cooked in the fire. It steams in its own juices with a sweet bamboo aroma.

Ingredients

• 750 g country chicken or broiler, small pieces with bone
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1½ tbsp ginger, crushed
• 1 tbsp garlic, crushed
• 4 green chillies, slit, or 1 bhut jolokia
• ½ tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tbsp mustard oil
• salt to taste
• 2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped
• 1 green bamboo tube, 2 to 3 inches wide, one end closed at the node
• 1 banana leaf piece, to seal

Method

1. Mix the chicken with onion, ginger, garlic, chillies, turmeric, mustard oil and salt. Rest 1 hour. Do not add water.
2. Wash the bamboo tube inside. Pack the chicken in tightly, pressing it down, leaving 2 inches empty at the top. Tuck in the coriander.
3. Plug the open end tightly with a folded banana leaf.
4. Fire: lean the tube at an angle over a wood or charcoal fire, open end up. Cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour, turning every 10 minutes, till the outside is charred black all round.
5. Pull it out with thick cloth, carefully unplug (steam escapes) and slide the chicken out onto a plate, or split the tube with a dao.
6. Without bamboo, oven: wrap the marinated chicken in 2 layers of wilted banana leaf, then foil, and bake at 180°C for 45 minutes.
7. Without bamboo, tawa: put the banana-leaf parcel on a heavy tawa, cover with a pot and cook on low for 40 minutes, turning once.
8. Serve hot with rice and its juices poured over.

Tip: Use freshly cut green bamboo. Dry bamboo can crack or catch fire, and only green bamboo gives the sweet aroma.