Preparation:

How to marinate the chicken:

• Clean chicken pieces with bones and do marination.
• To marinate add a tsp of ginger garlic paste and 3/4th tsp of salt.
• Also, add 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder and 1/2 tsp of chilli powder.
• Next, add a tablespoon of lemon juice and mix everything.
• Keep this marination aside for a minimum 15mins to 30mins.

Recipe:

How to make the vepudu masala:

• Heat a tbsp of oil in a frying pan and add the whole spices cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and star anise.
• Let them fry for 30 seconds to get a nice aroma.
• Add 2 tsp coriander seeds and 1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns.
• Saute till the peppercorns pop one by one and add 6 red chillies.
• Roast chillies for few seconds and add few cashews. Cashews are optional ingredients for extra delicious taste. I added around ten broken cashew nuts.
• Fry them until they get light brown and finally add dry coconut (grated or pieces).
• Roast all these for one more minute and switch off. If you don't have dry coconut use one tsp of freshly grated coconut in place of dry coconut and roast until coconut gets browned effect.
• Switch off and let the mixture cool down for a few minutes. Grind into a coarse paste by adding little water. Set aside this vepudu masala.
• You can store this in fridge and use up to two weeks in Kodi Kura, Brinjal vepudu and potato curry recipes.

How to make the Kodi vepudu:

• In another flat pan, heat oil and ghee together.
• Add a cup of onions and curry leaves and saute well.
• Fry onions until they get the nice translucent stage and add the needed salt & marinated chicken. Please keep in mind that we added salt in the marination as well.
• Let the chicken pieces cook on the bottom sides for four to six minutes. Be watchful not to burn the sides of the chicken pieces in contact with the pan.
• Flip or stir the pieces and cook all the sides of the chicken by covering the pan with a lid. Chicken with bone pieces takes altogether ten to twelve minutes to cook well. Incase of boneless chicken we can reduce the cooking time to just six to eight minutes.
• No need to add water, the chicken gets cooked on its own water and the hot steam produced by covering the pan.
• Now add the ground vepudu masala paste and mix well.
• Let the masala coat properly on the chicken and cover with the lid again.
• Reduce the heat to simmer and cook for five more minutes to let the Kodi absorb the spices.
• Since we add cashews and dry coconut in the ground masala, the masala tends to stick to the pan. Hence reduce the heat well to the lower side and stir once or twice as needed.
• Switch off and serve this chicken vepudu with hot steamed rice and ghee.