This is the first time I’ve seen a chicken dish like this. This was the first time I’d ever had anything like that.
When I first tasted chicken chitannee, I didn’t think about Aurangzeb, the British, or Dawud Pasha, Baghdad’s final Mamluk ruler. The thick gravy, combined with the fluffy white gobindobhog rice, would not allow for any deliberation. Why would anyone care to contemplate or halt while that delicious yet somewhat chewy chicken with such acidic sweetness in every thread was still on the plate?
The chicken chitannee had been prepared by a lady who enjoyed both cooking and feeding others; she was ecstatic. She had visited that afternoon in 1984 with the sole intention of treating my family and myself to a dish she greatly enjoyed preparing. Her son was a good friend of mine, and she’d decided to cook one of her specialties for us. The lady with the wonderful sense of taste, texture, and exactly how much to hammis would become my mother-in-law in a few years. But how does this relate to Dawud Pasha or the others?
Source: https://www.ijao.ca/the-baghdadi-jewish-dish-that-was-created-in-mumbai-and-kolkata/
