Photo: stu_spivack · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Westbengal · Dinner

Chicken Kabiraji

🍗 Non-veg📊 Hard

A whole chicken breast enclosed in a delicate, lacy beaten-egg net and deep-fried — Kolkata's most unique street-restaurant invention, unknown outside the city.

⏱️20 minPrep
🔥20 minCook
🕒40 minTotal
🍽️4Serves

🧺 Ingredients

👩‍🍳 How to make Chicken Kabiraji

  1. Mix chicken with ginger-garlic-chilli pastes, lemon, salt, pepper.
  2. Rest 30 min.
  3. Dredge each breast in flour → beaten egg → breadcrumbs.
  4. Heat oil to 170°C.
  5. Lower crumbed cutlet into oil.
  6. Immediately pour 2–3 tbsp beaten egg around and over it in a slow stream — the egg sets instantly in a lacy, ethereal web encasing the cutlet.
  7. This is the kabiraji moment — do it quickly and confidently.
  8. Fry until the egg web is golden and crisp and chicken is cooked through.
  9. Drain.
  10. Plate immediately with kasundi, sliced cucumber, onion and a lemon wedge.
  11. With rice or as a standalone dinner.

📖 Cultural notes

|---|---|---|---|---| | 480 kcal | 42g | 22g | 24g | 1g | Kabiraji cutlet was invented in Kolkata's colonial-era restaurants, most likely an adaptation of the British "coverage" (egg-encased) frying technique by Bengali cooks who misheard "coverage" as "kabiraji." It became a signature of Kolkata's old-school restaurants like Mitra Café, Anadi Cabin and India Coffee House. Today it is experiencing a culinary revival as chefs rediscover its theatrical technique. ---

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