#cafreal

Truth be told, one cant do justice to all of the Indian cuisines through one three-course meal. There's an incredible amount of variety and flavours within mere states! Knowing this, I chose to focus on Goan cuisine. I picked this because my family is actually of Goan origin. I recognise my hypocrisy here, having said in my last post that I wanted to expand my culinary horizons, but truth be told I know little of Goan cuisine, and it made sense to me to start with my own heritage. Goa is a small state along the west coast of India. It was a Portuguese colony from the 1600s to the mid-1900s. A lot of Goan cuisines takes inspiration from Portuguese dishes, but they still usually add their own Indian twist to it.

Cutlets (on the upper right of the plate)

Cutlets are, in a sense, Goan chicken nuggets. They are made of minced meat, some vinegar, salt and some vegetables (my family uses onion, chilli, tomato and coriander, but it can vary from household to household). this mix is then rolled into sausages, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. It's a very popular household snack since it's so easy to make. Cutlets are a very good finger food for little children too. I usually eat mine with ketchup, but it's very versatile and can be eaten with most sauces.

Chicken Cafreal (on the lower portion of the plate)

Cafreal was introduced to the Goans by the Portuguese. It's basically just spicy chicken and can be eaten with potato wedges, bread (such as the Goan bread poi), and rive. It was probably the easiest to make since I could just use the premade masala mix (you can make it from scratch, but I didn't have some of the ingredients). I just had to mix it, let it marinate, and then bake it for half an hour or so. To make it from scratch, you'd need ginger, garlic, vinegar, coriander, lime juice and a few other ingredients, so it's still very straightforward. It's very, very rich in flavour and definitely one of the most iconic Goan dishes.

Serradura (also called Portuguese sawdust pudding)

Goan chicken cafreal with cucumber rolls, baby corn shoots, tomato dust coral and chickpea chutney. Amazing.