Chicken Xacuti

Ingredients

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1 chicken breast	1 tspn fennel seeds
2 tbspn oil	2 tspn coriander seeds
20 gm dessicated coconut	150 gm onion (prepared weight)
¼ tspn cumin seeds	¼ tspn salt
4 black peppercorns	1 tspn lemon juice
	fresh coriander to garnish

Preparation

Mix the dessicated coconut with 50 ml of water and set aside for 15 min.
Finely chop the onion.
Cut the chicken breast into 2 or 3 pieces.
Chop the fresh coriander.
Roughly crush the coriander seeds and peppercorns in a pestle and mortar.
Add 1 tbspn of oil to a wok or heavy pan over a low heat.
Fry the cumin seeds, peppercorns, fennel and coriander seeds for 3 - 4 min until they begin to splutter.
Add the onion and fry, stirring occasionally, for 5 min.
Stir in the coconut with its soaking water, add the salt, and fry, stirring occasionally, for 5 min.
Blend the coconut mixture to a coarse paste and reserve.

Cooking

Heat the remaining 1 tbspn of oil and fry the chicken pieces for 3 min to seal.
Turn the heat to low and add the coconut paste and cook, covered, for about 15 min until the chicken is fully cooked.
Finally stir in 1 tspn of lemon juice.

Serving

Serve with rice and garnish with the chopped coriander.

Notes

The coconut mixture can be prepared beforehand and kept in a fridge until needed. Xacuti is pronounded sha-koo-tee. This is just one version of the Goan (West India) dish, other versions can contain red chillies and complex spicing.