Eating Out
Best Chicken Cafreal in Goa: succulent chicken that just melts in your mouth
PANAJI: While the chicken cafreal dish that consists of succulent, tasty chicken pieces or chunks, that just melts in your mouth, cooked in spicy-thick greenish cafreal masala paste, which is traditional to Goa and normally not available in restaurants or outlets outside the coastal state, maybe available at various places and locations within Goa, one of the best and tastiest, authentic and traditional Goan chicken cafreal is served at the iconic Calangute beachfront restaurant Souza Lobo and we definitely recommend this place if you want to try out the original Goan dish.
Like chicken xacuti, the preparation of the original chicken cafreal masala paste is an elaborate and time-consuming exercise and while (unfortunately) most restaurants prefer the short-cut route of using readymade, mass-produced, packaged xacuti and cafreal masalas, Souza Lobo follows the age-old traditional way of doing things.
After all, the 90-year-young restaurant’s tag line is ‘traditional recipes live here‘ and the sea-facing, almost century-old place definitely lives up to this adage.
The cafreal masala is freshly prepared – the various ingredients and spices are ground together to form a thick paste and the semi-fried chicken is marinated for at least an hour or two in the paste for it to absorb and soak in the flavour.
The ingredients of the cafreal masala include, but are not only only restricted to garlic pods, cloves, ginger, peppercorns, cinnamon, cumin seeds, poppy seeds, turmeric, and a small ball of tamarind for seasoning.
It is said that for Goan weddings, traditional Goan cooks would marinate the pan-dried or lightly fried chicken in the cafreal paste overnight to allow the chicken to imbibe all the flavour, essence and aroma. While this is not practically possible in a commercial restaurant, at Souza Lobo the cafreal paste is freshly prepared twice a day and tender pieces of chicken are soaked in to marinate, to ensure that the meat soaks in all the cafreal flavour.
While chicken leg pieces are best for chicken cafreal, even breast pieces give a similar taste and flavour. As mentioned in another article (Read Here) on chicken xacuti, the source, age and breed of the bird used is very important and is responsible for almost 30 to 40 per cent of the final taste of the dish.
Mostly country or organically bred country, desi or gavthi chicken imparts the best taste for both chicken xacuti and chicken cafreal and most local cooks prefer this variety of chicken meat for its arguably much better taste, flavour, meat texture and softness.
At Souza Lobo, the chicken meat is tender and just falls apart as you bite a piece. There are options available while placing your order – you may opt for chicken cafreal with thick gravy, semi dry or the dry cafreal version depending on what you plan to have it with.
Chicken cafreal is best had with the local Goan bread called poie or pao, but tastes good with sliced bread as well. It is also used as a gravy for pulao or even plain rice. Cafreal gravy is sometimes served with the famous ros omlette in Goa
The gravy version can be had with rice, though we recommend the semi dry or dry chicken cafreal as it tastes best with pao, giving you the experience of a lifetime, as you slowly let the flavours circulate in your mouth, letting the chicken melt in naturally.
Editor’s picks: The Souza Lobo restaurant at Calangute is known across Goa (and India) for their fabulous flagship Recheado Pomfret, Recheado Prawns, Recheado King Prawns, Recheado Bangdo, Recheado Squids and the recently introduced experimental or fusion food – Recheado Prawn Parathas, Cafreal Kulchas, Sorpotel Naans and Crab Kulchas.
In addition to the Chicken Cafreal mentioned above, they also make the best (and authentic Goan) Chicken Xacuti (Read Here) as well as Crab Xacuti (Read Here) in all of Goa.
In our opinion, Souza Lobo restaurant is the best place for traditional and authentic Goan food and the dishes mentioned above are a must try, depending on your budget.
Eating Out
Best Recheado Stuffed Pomfret in Goa? Also try Recheado Prawns, Recheado Squids and Mackerel or Bangdo Recheado!
MAPUSA: If you are crazy about the red, spicy, tangy Goan masala known as recheado and used for various mouth-watering preparations including seafood, chicken, pork and even veggies, the best place to try it out (in its different avatars) is at the Souza Lobo restaurant at Calangute in North Goa.
The award-winning restaurant is located right on the Queen of Goan beaches – Calangute and is a culinary enigma in the coastal state. It has won several National and International awards including being featured among the 100 Best Restaurants of the World.
While this article is about Recheado Pomfret, the guys at Souza Lobo are famed across Goa for their fabulous Recheado prawns, Recheado King Prawns, Recheado Bangdo, Recheado Squids and the recently introduced experimental or fusion food – Recheado Prawn Parathas, Cafreal Kulchas and Crab Kulchas.
They also make possibly the best Chicken Xacuti (Read Here) as well as Crab Xacuti (Read Here) in all of Goa. The chicken cafreal at Souza Lobo is also the best in Goa and we highly recommend you try all the dishes.
Coming direct to the recheado masala, while most Goans use it for various preparations as mentioned above, the best results are apparently obtained with seafood, including pomfret, mackerel (bangdo), prawns, squids (calamari) and even lobster. While some gourmets and traditional Goan cooks or randpis claim that recheado goes well with crabs too, we feel we should drop out crabs from our list. Personal preference maybe!
We prefer the Crab Xacuti, Crab Xec Xec or the Bombay-style Crab Masala or Crab Tawa Fry. Recheado Crab somehow didn’t appeal to us and it had nothing to do either with the recheado masala or with the crabs!
Well, for those who want to try out either mackerel (bangdo) recheado, pomfret recheado, prawns and squids, the best place to do so is – like we said earlier, the Souza Lobo restaurant on Calangute beach.
As we had mentioned in another article and we would like to reiterate it once again, the seafood items served at Souza Lobo are freshly caught and direct from the ocean to your plate. They normally don’t serve or cook frozen seafood purchased from other Indian states like some of the other Goan restaurants.
Most of the seafood served at Souza Lobo is local Goan catch and the restaurant actually has a dedicated team of Goan fisherfolk who get their daily supply of seafood from the waters around the Goan coast. So when you dine at Souza Lobo, you know you are getting the freshest seafood on your plate!
Like the Cafreal and Xacuti masalas, making authentic Goan Recheado masala is a tough call. You can get cheap imitations and copies anywhere, but the original recheado masala involves several ingredients and a complicated, long process – which most restaurants try to avoid to save time and money.
But at Souza Lobo, the cooks and chefs go all the way to prepare the original, Goan traditional recheado masala using all the ingredients in the traditional recipe, for all their recheado preparations – be it seafood or poultry.
And the result is out there for all to see, when a steaming hot, golden-brown shallow fried recheado pomfret sits temptingly on your plate, on a beach-facing table at Souza Lobo, begging to be eaten.
What is Recheado Masala? Want to Know More – Read Here
Editor’s Note: We must add here that the quality of the fish (in this case pomfret), its freshness and sourcing or origin and method of frying including the coating (or no coating), will also ultimately decide the taste, aroma and flavour of the dish and not just the recheado masala and its quantity or quality used for stuffing.
Pomfrets used for the Recheado Pomfret dish (fried) are sourced or caught at different locations including the deep sea and several factors will decide on the ultimate flavour and taste of the dish, with the recheado masala playing about a 50 per cent role.
What we recommend: The Souza Lobo restaurant at Calangute is known across Goa (and India) for their fabulous flagship Recheado Pomfret, Recheado Prawns, Recheado King Prawns, Recheado Bangdo, Recheado Squids and the recently introduced experimental or fusion food – Recheado Prawn Parathas, Cafreal Kulchas, Sorpotel Naans and Crab Kulchas.
They also make the best (and authentic Goan) Chicken Xacuti (Read Here) as well as Crab Xacuti (Read Here) in all of Goa.
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