Chicken Rezala (Bengali Style) (2024)

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Table of Contents

• About Chicken Rezala
• Ingredients
• How To Make Bengali Style Chicken Rezala
• Pro Tips By Neha
• You Might Also Like
• Chicken Rezala Recipe (Bengali Style) Recipe

About Chicken Rezala

Rezala is a Mughlai-style curry made using yogurt, cashew nuts, poppy seeds, and whole spices.

There are several different versions of this curry: a Bhopali, a Bengali, and a Bangladeshi.

Rezala curry is traditionally made using mutton (goat meat), but in this post, I am sharing a Bengali-Style Chicken Rezala Recipe.

This creamy and rich chicken curry is packed with subtle and royal flavors. It has sourness from the yogurt, sweetness from cashews, and spiciness from pepper and dry red chilies.

Serve it with rumali roti, tandoori roti, tawa paratha, lachha paratha, naan, or luchi for an indulgent meal.

Ingredients

Chicken – Use skinless bone-in chicken pieces for the best taste.

If you are not a bone-in chicken person, then you can use chicken breast cut into bite-sized pieces.

Yogurt (Curd, Dahi) – Plain yogurt makes the base of this curry. If using homemade dahi, then make sure it’s not sour.

Whole Spices – This recipe uses basic whole spices such as cloves (laung), black peppercorns (kali mirch), cinnamon (dalchini), black cardamoms (badi elaichi), dry red chilies, and green cardamoms (hari elaichi).

Spice Powders – To flavor the curry further, spice it up with everyday spice powders such as white pepper powder and garam masala powder.

Oil + Ghee – I prefer to combine both, but you can use either to make the curry.

Cashew Nuts and White Poppy Seeds – These two ingredients add that perfect creamy texture to the rezala curry.

If poppy seeds are unavailable, skip using them in the recipe or replace them with melon seeds.

Others – You will also need ginger garlic paste, salt, onion paste, kewra essence, and saffron strands.

To make onion paste, blend a medium peeled onion in a blender along with 3-4 tablespoon of water to make a fine paste.

How To Make Bengali Style Chicken Rezala

Marinate The Chicken

Mix the following ingredients in a bowl and marinate for an hour.

• 1 kg skinless bone-in chicken (cut into 1 and ½ inch pieces)
• 1 tablespoon ginger garlic paste
• 1 cup plain yogurt

Make Poppy Seed Paste

Soak 10-12 cashew nuts and 2 tablespoon white poppy seeds in 2 tablespoon warm water each for 10 minutes.

Transfer the soaked cashew nuts and poppy seeds to a blender along with the water they were soaked in.

Add 4-5 green chilies to the blender and blend to make a smooth paste.

Make The Chicken Rezala Curry

Heat 3 tablespoon ghee and 2 tablespoon oil in a pan over medium-high heat.

When the ghee is hot, add the following ingredients to the pan and saute for 10-15 seconds.

• 3-4 cloves
• 6-8 whole black peppercorns
• 2-inch pieces of cinnamon stick
• 2 green cardamoms
• 2 black cardamoms
• 4-5 dry red chilies

Pick chicken pieces from the marinade and add them to the pan. Fry for 4-5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the following ingredients to the pan and mix well.

• remaining marinade
• cashew nut and poppy seeds paste
• 1 teaspoon white pepper powder
• 2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon garam masala powder

Add ½ cup of onion paste and 1 cup of water to the pan and mix well.

Reduce the heat to low.

Cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid and cook for 40-50 minutes until the chicken is cooked well.

Stir a few times while cooking.

Finally, add 1 tablespoon ghee and 2-3 drops of kewra essence and mix well.

Check for salt and add more if required.

Garnish with saffron soaked in milk and serve!

Pro Tips By Neha

Do not replace white pepper powder with black pepper powder, as this will darken the curry’s color.

Kewra essence has a very strong flavor. Do not use more than 2-3 drops; otherwise, it may make the curry bitter.

Saffron is optional, but it adds a very rich and delicious aroma and taste to the curry, so I highly recommend it.

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