Nepali Food: Chicken Choila (Spicy Chicken)

I have been craving some spicy Nepali food for past couple of days but been a little too lazy to cook. It's College Football Saturday (Oklahoma State is playing) and spicy chicken choila sounded yum! A very close nerve-wracking game... Okstate won at overtime.... whewww!!! Go Cowboys!! :D Anyways moving on to the topic of cooking...

Choila is a Newari dish typically made with grilled buffalo meat. (Newar is one of the ethnic cultures of Nepal, inhabitants of Kathmandu historically) In Nepal, my mom and grandmas used to make choila often as it was everyone's favorite food. Everyone had their own style of making choila but I'll be sharing how I have made it since I moved to US.

Here in US, when you buy packaged chicken in grocery store it tastes bland (I'm sorry but that is how I feel). I normally buy meat in the local meat store. Meat from meat store tastes way better. If I am lazy to drive to the meat store I buy it in produce section in grocery instead of the packaged meat.

In Nepal, whenever we buy any produce we have to clean it for hygienic reasons. Here it's pretty clean but habit doesn't change. I thoroughly clean meat and veggies before cooking. After you clean chicken, pat it dry with paper towel. Pour some oil, salt, cumin, and coriander powder and rub it well. Grill the chicken for about 25-30 minutes at 300F.

Chicken ready to Grill

While the chicken is grilling, slice onion, chop ginger, garlic, peppers, and cilantro. You can use elephant garlic if you don't like harsher smell of garlic. It much sweeter than regular garlic and has subtle flavor. I normally add a variety of peppers whenever I cook but you can just pick one type. Mix slightly in a big bowl. If you don't have a grill, you can cook chicken directly on electric stove top but it'll be a little dry. Or you can fry chicken in a pan. After the chicken is cooked, take it out of the grill and put it in foil to soak up all the flavors!

Grilled Chicken

After it is cooled enough to touch, pull chicken apart. It doesn't need to be super shredded, chunky should be okay but it is up to your preference. Add chicken in pepper-onion mix. In a small pan fry the dried red chili (you can buy in Indian store for spicy ones or in any grocery store). When the pepper turn blackish, take it out of heat and add the peppers on chicken.

Fried Dry Red Chili/Pepper

Add lemon juice, spices (cumin, coriander, salt, red chili powder if you want to make it more spicy). Mix it well with hands. I say hands because choila will taste much more better when you mix it with hands rather than fork. Also, when you mix food with hands, the spices mix well and tastes better. In a small pan, heat mustard oil (for flavor) and add fenugreek. After the fenugreek blackens, add both fenugreek and oil in chicken choila. Add chopped cilantro and mix it with fork now as you don't want to mush fenugreek and cilantro. And spicy chicken choila is ready to serve!!

Yummy Chicken Choila

You can serve it as an appetizer in your party or as a side for rice. Try it and let me know your thoughts!!!! :)


Recipe: 40 minutes, serves 6 (depending on how much one eats!)

• 1/2 medium Onion
• 2 Garlic cloves
• 1 inch long Ginger
• 1 lb Chicken
• 1 Jalapeño (more if you want spicy)
• 2 dried red pepper
• Cilantro
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1 tsp Coriander
• 1 tsp fenugreek
• Mustard or canola oil
• 1/2 Lemon

1. Set the grill to 300F. 
2. Wash the chicken and pat it dry. Add some oil, salt, 1/2 tsp cumin and 1/2 tsp coriander and rub it well in chicken.
3. Put chicken in the grill and check periodically until it is thoroughly cooked for about 25 minutes. Turn the chicken in around 12 minutes.
4. Chop ginger and garlic and put in a big bowl.
5. Add sliced onion and chopped peppers to it.
6. After the chicken is cooked, take it out from the grill. Wrap it in the foil and let it sit for a while. Take chicken out from the foil and after it is cooled enough, pull the chicken. It doesn't have to be shredded chicken, just pull chicken meat from the bone in big enough chunk to eat.
7. Add the pulled chicken to ginger, garlic, onion, and pepper mixture.
8. In a small pan, heat mustard oil and add dried red pepper. After the pepper is crispy, take it out from the pan and add in the chicken bowl.
9. Add salt, cumin, coriander, lemon juice and mix it well, preferably with hand so as to break the fired dry red peppers to pieces and so the spices penetrate chicken.
10. In a small pan (same or different one), heat some mustard oil and add fenugreek. When the fenugreek is black, pour fenugreek and oil in the chicken mixture and mix it with spoon/fork.
11. Add chopped fresh cilantro and chicken choila is ready to serve warm or cold.