Natukodi Kura

The most celebrated dish of Rayalaseema — free-range country chicken (natu kodi) slow-cooked in a masala of enormous quantities of dried red Guntur chillies, freshly ground coconut, poppy seeds, onion, and ginger-garlic, fried in oil until the masala is deeply caramelised before the chicken pieces are added and cooked dry, the fat rendering from the bird into the spice paste. Country chicken has a firmer, more flavourful flesh than commercial broiler and can withstand the long, aggressive cooking; the finished dish is nearly dry with a deeply concentrated, incendiary red masala clinging to each piece. The pride of Rayalaseema cooking and the single dish visitors must eat before anything else.