Awandru Chicken

Chicken cooked inside bamboo tube — chicken pieces marinated in shallots, green chilli, ginger, turmeric, salt, and wild Tripuri herbs, packed into a section of freshly cut green bamboo tube, sealed, and roasted over a wood fire for forty to fifty minutes, turning regularly. The bamboo's sap and moisture create steam inside the sealed tube; the chicken cooks in this steam environment infused with green bamboo flavour and the rendered fat from the skin. The resulting chicken is extraordinarily moist — the sealed tube prevents any moisture loss — and carries a subtly smoky, green, woodsy quality from the bamboo wall. The awandru technique produces fundamentally different textures than any pan-cooking method; the chicken essentially poaches in its own juices inside the bamboo. A preparation made for outdoor festival celebrations and forest gatherings.