Posto Chicken recipe under 30 mins | Posto Murgi | Foodies Terminal

Posto Chicken recipe is a Chicken dish that's so subtle & filled with typical flavors of white poppy seeds paste! It's an easy recipe, very delicious & goes extremely well with boiled rice or Chapatis.

 Posto Chicken is an ultimate Bengali dish that's alien to perhaps the rest of India. Yes, it's Chicken cooked with nothing else but just white poppy seeds paste which is the star ingredient for this Posto Chicken recipe.

Bengalis are Connoisseur Of Posto or Poppy seeds! 

Ask any Bong about their regular homely meal & I guarantee the instant answer would be atleast an "Alu-Posto" (potatoes cooked with poppy seeds paste) , "Dal" ( lentil soup), "Bhaat" (plain white rice), & "maach" (fish curry).

Posto & Maach dominates Bengali cuisine & forms the staple favorites of our everyday cooking! 

Today's recipe of Posto Chicken is not any different. Though Chicken happily does not make it to our lunch table that often!

If a bong is given a choice he or she will always choose fish first, then mutton & unfortunately chicken will be a third priority! I am talking here about the Bengalis in general, there are always an exception though 🙂

What is Posto Chicken or Posto Murgi

As the name suggests Posto Chicken or Posto Murgi is Chicken ( Murgi in the Bengali Language) slow cooked with a thick paste of Posto ( poppy seeds or khas khas). 

A generous amount of extra virgin mustrad oil & a lots of fresh green chilies goes in the dish of Posto Chicken.

A robust dose of panchforon (a mixture of five whole spices) & dried red chili is what makes this dish much more fragrant & interesting.

Splashed with a handful of soft sauted onions & drizzled with a generous dose of mustard oil this Posto Chicken dish is quite something.

The pungency of the mustard oil, the creamy, nutty flavor of posto dominates this recipe of Posto Murgi.

Its simple yet its authentic flavors is enough to make you cook it more often.

Posto or poppy seed paste is variedly and abundantly used in Bengali cooking & proudly tops the chart of our comfort food category!

This Posto Chicken or Posto Murgi is so easy to make that it will engross you with it's simplistic steps of cooking.

What is Posto - a short history

Did you know that this esteemed spice (Posto or poppy ) is a residual product extracted from the opium plant?

Posto crept into the Bengali cuisine along with an unpleasant history that's so worth knowing.

Posto - an extraction from the medicinal plant Opium poppy which had the power to cure countless illnesses and heal people from within.

The medicinal properties of Posto or poppy find a mention in the Dhanwantari Nighantu , an ancient Ayurvedic chronicle written around 13th-century C.E.

 Later during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Akbar, poppy slowly gained popularity as a recreational drug. 

Also, the mysterious popularity of poppy did not just end as a recreational drug ! These tiny white seeds infact had so much more to offer!

Posto slowly paved it's way to the royal kitchens & influenced Mughal cuisine as a remarkable thickener & taste enhancer for gravies! 

How did Poppy take birth in the Bengali kitchen 

The flourishing opium trade in China no longer remained a secret & was soon discovered by the British.

Soon after the battle of Plassey in 1757, the British settled in Bengal and made it as their primary base. Overnight they transformed the vast stretches of rural agricultural land in Bengal into Opium fields.

The regular crops feeding hundreds of families were stripped off and opium saplings took over.

The alarming opium agriculture forced by the British took over the then West Bengal. This, in turn, brought in Poverty & misery amidst the farmer families!

While the opium hiatus in Bengal continued stripping the western part of Bengal & the whole Chotanagpur plateau from it's regular agricultural produce. And transposing it into rolling fields of Poppy! 

The wailing souls of the poor farmers' wives began their search to feed their starving family members!

There were no crops, hence, no food. The forced cultivation of "Aphim" or opium completely ruined their lives.

The lamenting wives rummaged forests, scoured ponds & ransacked groves in order to find food & feed their children!

The desperate housewives struggling everyday to help ends meet found respite in the oipum plant waste - Poppy!

The desperate poor wives began experimenting with the waste product (poppy seeds) of course after taking permission from the British -  this is how the so-called, Posto took birth inside the poor farmers' kitchen. 

It's worth mentioning that the wives of the farmers transformed the poppy seeds into a paste & made their frugal meals complete!

Their meals mostly comprised of "Paanta Bhaat" (slight fermented rice), alu bhaate (boiled potatoes mashed into a fine paste).

With a generous dose of mustard oil, the posto was enough to feed an exploited poor farmers family during the British Raj in Bengal!

Posto, always a cherished & prized dish in Bengali cuisine, unfortunately, has an unpleasant history, it's an accidental invention of exploited farmers wives in Bengal during the British Raj.

Posto & it's culinary influence in the Bengali cuisine

From the exploited farmers kitchen Posto spread far and wide all over West Bengal & even crossed the Padma river & entered East Bengal.

It transformed the facet of Bengali cuisine altogether & became an integral part in the regular menus.

People began experimenting & started preparing simple meals with "Posto banta" (ground poppy seeds paste). The simple ambrosial rich paste or Posto banta garnished with mustard oil & crushed green chilies became an evergreen favorite. 

Posto influenced the cuisine of Bankura, Birbhum, Burdwan & Midnapore and a huge part of the Chotanagpur plateau.

It even made a significant presence in the vegetarian platter of the Vaishanava sect of Nadia!

This tiny seeds of poppy play a pivotal role in our cooking. And we are just a little too scared to imagine even a single day without posto!

Whatever may be the ingredients a dish with posto is always a winner! It's tasty & pleases the palate with so much comfort & exuberance.

Bengali cuisine has a plethora of recipes starring posto as a star ingredient. We love to cook vegetables such as ridge gourd, pointed gourd, bottle gourd, cauliflower, potato with exclusively posto & nothing else.

Posto even crept into the much ornate recipes of fish, meat & even egg! We relish every kind of recipes cooked with posto.  The experiments with "posto banta" still continue & new recipes evolve with intricate tastes!

Ingredients for Posto Chicken or Posto Murgi

• Chicken
• Poppy seeds paste or posto
• Onion
• Mustard oil
• Panchforon

Tips & Tricks for making a perfect Posto Chicken every single time

• Do not brown the onions. They should just be golden & golden from the edges.
• Fry the chicken well, until a light golden color.
• Always use freshly ground Poppy seeds paste or posto.
• Fry the poppy seeds paste along with the chicken for quite some time before adding the water.
• Garnish with a generous amount of mustard oil & green chilies.
• Always use mustard oil to cook Posto Chicken.

Health benefits of Posto

Posto boasts quite a bit of health benefits & here's the list:

• Contains antioxidants
• A rich source of oleic & linoleic acid. The Oleic acid reduces the bad choleterol & increases the good chlesterol in our body.
• Good source of riboflavin, niacin & folic acid
• Contains minerals like iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc.
• The zinc in the seed helps boost immunity.
• Helps in balancing digestive functions.
• Helps in producing healthy red blood cells.
• It helps to cool down the body.
• Its easier on the stomach.

How to Serve Posto Chicken or Posto Murgi

Posto Chicken tastes fantastic when served with piping hot white rice. It also tastes awesome when eaten with Chapatis or rotis!

Just don't forget that extra drizzle of pungent extra virgin mustard oil before serving it & throw in a handful of chopped green chilies, enjoy that extra kick from the green chilies.

How long can you store Posto Chicken

I won't go beyond 2 days in the refrigerator! The taste of the Posto or poppy seeds paste in the gravy gradually fades with time.

Posto Chicken tastes the best the day it's prepared. Just don't be tempted to cook a huge batch & plan to eat the whole week. Some foods are not meant to be stored long.

How to Cook Posto Chicken

Method

• Heat mustard oil in your favorite skillet or Kadhai. When the oil becomes hot add Panchforon. Allow them to sizzle for a few seconds.

• Next, add the roughly chopped onions & saute until they change color.

• Add the Chicken pieces and saute until the chicken becomes light golden.

• Add the white poppy seeds paste. Saute until oil starts too ooze out and you get a nice nutty aroma.

• Add very little water (refer the picture). Mix everything well.

• Cover & simmer until the chicken is fully cooked.

• Serve hot. Enjoy!

Love quick Chicken recipes? Try out these awesome recipes from this blog

• Chicken 65 restaurant style
• Butter Chicken Masala
• Chicken Kathi Roll
• Chicken Malai Kebab
• Tandoori Chicken
• Afghani Chicken Roast

Measuring cup used, 1 cup = 240 ml & 1 teaspoon = 5 ml.

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Recipe card for Posto Chicken

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