Chicken Xacuti

While tracing the history of Goa, an indispensable part of its culture would be the culinary artworks that it has given to the World. With a cross-pollination of its Hindu roots with Portuguese influences and an amalgamation of palates of recent tourists across the world, Goan cuisine holds the crown for being incredibly flavourful, rich, and spicy.

Adhering to this authenticity of Goan cuisine, Chicken Xacuti is a traditional dish that uses a wide variety of the region's spices to create a mouth-watering delicacy with intricate flavours. To begin with, local fishermen made a gravy with black pepper (meerya), chillies, turmeric, onions, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves, and added roasted white poppy seeds and coconut to it. This sauce would then be poured over chicken or fish. Later beef and lamb too became an alternative. This coastal curry is best served with freshly baked Indian flatbread or a steaming plate of basmati or jasmine rice.

The origins of this dish can be found in Harmal (now Arambol), a village in Goa's Pernem Taluka, which is also known as Xacuti or Shagoti. Given Xacuti's longstanding reputation in indigenous culinary expertise, it is highly probable that the dish not only became a local favourite but also garnered royal patronage. Yusuf Adil Shah, the first Bijapuri Sultan, fond of getaways at his riverfront castle on the banks of the Mandovi at Ella, Old Goa, made the dish a compulsory inclusion in his menu when in Goa.

Although some people mistake it for a Portuguese dish chacuti, this unique local dish captivated the hearts of the Portuguese, who in turn included it into their own cosmopolitan culinary history. This modified version is known as the chacuti de galinha or chicken chacuti. The Portuguese would introduce additional items from the Columbian Exchange, including tomatoes, potatoes, and chillies, as well as their own native customs for preparing bread and vinegar.