Kethel’s is a byword for spicy fried chicken

Reach the place by early noon to be assured of a table in the tiny eatery that can seat about 20 people on five long tables and benches. Within no time, a clean, eco-friendly tender green banana leaf is placed on the table. The menu is painted on the wall: the choice is limited to soft phulkas (called chappathis here), ghee rice, fried chicken and fresh lemonade.

A plate of curry and a fresh lemonade reach the table first. Then comes cut onion and green chilli in curd. A generous spoonful of lime pickle, made that morning, is put on the leaf followed by soft chappathis or steaming ghee rice spiced with cardamom, cloves and bay leaves. Savour the lime pickle bursting with the flavours of garlic, green chilli and lemon. Finally, from an aluminium container Siddique carefuly selects about seven to eight pieces of the freshly fried chicken and serves it with the reddish brown fried marinade. Spicy and piping hot it may be, but that will not deter you from biting into it.

The fried chicken, known as Kethel’s chicken, is the piece-de-resistance, which has brought the who-is-who of Kerala, to this place. Only spring chicken weighing about 450 gm, is used and almost 200 kg of chicken is sold on any day at the tiny restaurant.

Sourced from Namakkal in Tamil Nadu, the chicken is prepared and marinated at Rahamaniya. The legs, wings and the meaty pieces are used for the fry and the rest is turned into a curry that is served with the phulka and the rice.

M Maheen, who runs Kethel’s now, says it was his idea to stick to spring chicken. Recalls Maheen: “My father, Muhammed Abdul Khader , a resident of Poovar, used to come to Putharikandam Maidanam to sell tea to the huge crowds that used to throng the Maidanam to listen to leaders fighting for an independent India. It was the early forties and the heat was on the British to quit India. From morning to evening my father used to sell them tea he carried in a kettle.”

He became known as as ‘Kettle Sayipuu’ (sayippu was a colloquial word used to refer to Muslims, a corruption of the Hindi ‘Sahib’). Over the years, the ‘Kettle’ became colloquiliased to Kethel’s.

“In 1949, he started a restaurant in Chala that used to sell dosa, idiyappam, appam, puttu and so on with mutton curry. But by the eighties, we stopped the mutton. Even when the best of mutton was served, people would wonder if it was some other meat,” says Maheen.

Now only chicken is served at Rahamaniya. Initially, free-ranging country chicken was used. But that became difficult to source. Maheen felt that the texture of the meat changed and became fibrous once the chicken matured.

That is when he decided that they would serve spring chicken only and went to Namakkal to meet poultry farmers there. “I had to convince them to give us chicken that was not more than 400 to 450 gm. We made it with our marinade and it was an instant hit,” says Maheen with a faint smile. He has been running the place since 1993 after his father passed away.

“My father was not keen on my joining the restaurant. When I persisted, he insisted that I begin by washing the glasses and plates, serving clients and learning the basics of cooking in the kitchen. I taught the cooks, most of the whom come from Jharkand, West Bengal and Assam, how to make the marinade and fry the chicken,” explains Maheen.

Work begins by around 7.30am. Fresh spices such as fennel, red chilli, (Andhra Piriyan) coriander, are sourced from Chala itself and are hand-pounded and ground into the marinade. It is applied on the chicken and marinated till about 11.30am when the first batch goes into the sizzling oil in a wok on a wood fire, to be served piping hot to hungry customers who have come from far and wide just for this. The marinade is also deep fried and the chicken is served with the kootu or podi (marinade), flecks of fiery chilli that leave a punch on the tastebuds. At present, only the succulent, chicken fry and chicken liver are served.

The masala is made every day and the chicken is dressed only the day it is cooked. There are no cold storage facilites here.

“In the late eighties and early nineties, I remember actor-producer Maniyan Pillai Raju, film directror Priyadarsan and Sreenivasan sitting here for hours from 10.30 am onwards, deep in discussions. They were the ones who called the table and bench as soon as you enter ‘the Durbar’. We continue to call it like that. Even today, several film stars and celebrities order parcels from Kethel’s,” he says.

By 1.30pm., the place is packed and a small crowd waits outside impatiently to bag a table.

New branches have sprung up in Kollam, Kochi and Kozhikode, run by Maheen’s son and sons-in-law. “The ingredients and the recipe are the same that we have here. For many NRIs and those hailing from Thiruvananthapuram, no visit to the city is complete without a bite of Kethel’s fried chicken.