Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry

Chicken Kosha is an age-old Bengali way of cooking Chicken. Like Kosha Mangsho this one is also high on spice level and not for faint-hearted. 😉 The word Kosha (a Bengali word) means dryish or a gravy which is quite dry in consistency. It’s a popular dish; every Bengali family cooks it in their own way, so, the recipe may vary a little bit from home to home. I’m sharing my version here. Hope you’ll enjoy cooking it and don’t forget to share your experience with me. 🙂

It is recommended to cook this Chicken dish in an Iron Wok, cooking in an iron vessel helps to bring out the rich, dark colour of Chicken Kosha.

Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry
Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry
Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry
5 from 7 votes
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Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry

Chicken Kosha is an age-old Bengali way of cooking Chicken Curry. Like Kosha Mangsho this one is also high on spice level and not for faint-hearted.

Course Main Course
Cuisine Indian
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 1 hour
Servings 4
Author Chandrima

Ingredients

  • 1 kg- Chicken (medium sized pieces, with bone)
  • 4- Potato medium sized
  • 3/4 tsp- Garlic paste
  • 6-7- Garlic cloves (peel and keep the cloves whole)
  • 4- Onion (thinly sliced)
  • 1- Tomato (roughly chopped)
  • 1- Bay leaf
  • 1-2- Whole dry red chilli
  • ¾ tsp- Black peppercorn powder
  • Salt to taste
  • 1/2 tsp- Sugar
  • Mustard oil
  • 6-7- Green chillies (adjust as per your tolerance)
  • 1 tsp- Kashmiri Mirch Powder
  • 1/2 tsp- Turmeric powder
  • 1/4 tsp- Garam masala powder
  • 1 tsp- Ginger paste
  • 1 tsp- Cumin powder
  • 1 tbsp- Coriander powder
  • 4-5- Green cardamoms (roughly crushed)
  • 1/2 tsp- Lemon juice

Instructions

  1. Wash chicken pieces, keep them in a plastic colander. This straining process removes the excess water from chicken.

  2. Peel the potatoes. Cut them horizontally into equal halves, wash and keep aside.

  3. Heat 4 tbsp oil in a deep frying pan/kadai. Add half amount of thinly sliced onions with a pinch of salt (adding a pinch of salt speeds up the browning process). Using a spatula, fry the onions continuously over medium heat. Add the whole garlic cloves in between. Mix and keep frying until all the onion slices have reached a dark, rich brown colour. Remove from the pan and keep aside to cool. 

  4. In a large bowl marinate the chicken pieces with fried onion-garlic, kashmiri mirch powder, lemon juice, and garam masala powder. Keep aside for 1 hour.

  5. Now heat 8-9 tbsp oil in the same deep frying pan. Fry the potatoes, let them turn golden brown, remove and keep aside.

  6. In the remaining oil add bay leaf, dry red chilli, and green cardamoms. Stir for a few seconds, add rest of the sliced onions, fry until light brown in colour. 

  7. Add the ginger-garlic paste, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, and chopped tomatoes. Mix well and mash the tomatoes with the help of the spatula. Cook the masala over medium heat until it starts leaving the oil (1-2 minutes approximately).

  8. Add marinated chicken pieces and green chillies, mix well, cover, and cook over low heat. Uncover and keep stirring in between. 

  9. When the chicken is half cooked add salt, black peppercorn powder, potatoes, and sugar. Mix, cover and cook until the chicken is fully done.

  10. Serve hot Chicken Kosha with roti, luchi, parota, puri, kochuri, pulao or fried rice whatever you like. This Chicken Curry goes well with almost every Indian style rice dishes.

Recipe Notes

This Chicken Curry needs to be cooked on the thicker side. I cook my Chicken Kosha without water. If you feel that the curry is drying up too much at the time of cooking, add ½ cup of hot water into this, and cook further until done.

Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry
Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry
Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry
Chicken Kosha/Bengali style Spicy Chicken Curry

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28 Comments

  1. Made this and it was really yum. It was all gobbled up before I could take a fancy picture for instagram. Thanks for the recipe 🙂

     
  2. Hey… So I took a shot at this recipe coz of my new found love for Bengali cuisine. While it tasted yumm, I didn’t get the kind of colour like your pic. Any reason you think why that could be the case?
    Thanks 🙂

     
    • Hi Priyanka, I’m happy to know that you’re loving Bengali food. :)’Koshano'(slow cooking with the spices only) is an important part of this recipe, the longer you’ll do the koshano the colour will come out. The colour would be more intense if you cook in an iron wok. Better luck next time. Happy Cooking!

       
  3. Do i need to add the entire marinade along with the chicken pieces? In particular I add the onion and garlic pieces when making the curry?
    Thanks!

     
  4. 5 stars
    Hello Chandrima! I am a Greek who loves Indian cooking but I have some difficulty in understanding the differences between your regions as more or less the ingredients and cookingmethods I find the same! Anyway, this is an excellent recipe, I guess the marinating process makes all the difference (fits time ever I marinated with cooked onions!) otherwise there is no real difference from a Punjabi recipe…or is there? Help!

     
    • Hi Vassilis, Thank you for visiting. I hail from the eastern part of India. There are significant differences between Punjabi and Bengali recipes but as everything falls under ‘Indian food’ so, there might be some dishes which appear similar due to the usage of the ingredients in them. But the end result of the cooked dish is different in taste.

       
  5. When you say 4 onions, what sized onions do you mean? Where I stay (Seattle) I mostly get these big huge sized onions and 4 of them seems a lot to me.

     
  6. 5 stars
    This is an awesome recipe. Being Bengali myself, I know that this is just one of the many ways in which কষা মুরগি or chicken kosha is prepared in our households, but it’s definitely the one I find to be the most lip-smackingly delicious! I have been following this recipe for quite a few years now, and my wife loves it when I cook this, too! Hats off to you!

     
  7. Tried your recipe just this evening for Dinner. Was apprecoated by the guests, Thanks are due to you also.

     
  8. 5 stars
    Amazing recipe. Turned out very nice. Whole family loved it. Followed recipe step by step. Used little less green chilli, but more black pepper and ginger garlic paste, but the end result was amazing.

     
  9. 5 stars
    As a dad, I was over the moon when the first reaction from my teenage son was actually OMG (in delight), after tasting this recipe, cooked by me with chicken thighs 🙂
    No surprise your recipe came on the top on my Google search! Many thanks for posting this… It was worth spending my Sunday evening on this culinary experiment! Our Bengali palettes were authentically rewarded on a cold UK night.
    Can you share something with eggs that I may try?

     
    • Hi,

      I’m glad to hear that you liked the recipe. Thank you for sharing your experience with me, much appreciated. I shall share egg recipes soon, Happy Cooking! 🙂

       

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