Frango à Cafreal is a

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

preparation consumed widely in the

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n state of

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

, formerly part of

Portuguese India The State of India, also known as the Portuguese State of India or Portuguese India, was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded seven years after the discovery of the sea route to the Indian subcontinent by Vasco da Gama, a subject of the ...

. The preparation originated from the Portuguese colonies in the

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

n continent. It was introduced into the Goan cuisine by the Portuguese and the African soldiers serving under the Portuguese. The generic preparation involves green chillies, fresh coriander leaves,

onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus '' Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classifie ...

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

cinnamon Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus ''Cinnamomum''. Cinnamon is used mainly as an aromatic condiment and flavouring additive in a wide variety of cuisines, sweet and savoury dishes, biscuits, b ...

, pepper, chilli, mace, clove powder and

lime juice A lime is a citrus fruit, which is typically round, lime green in colour, in diameter, and contains acidic juice vesicles. There are several species of citrus trees whose fruits are called limes, including the Key lime (''Citrus aurantiifoli ...

or vinegar. Chicken cafreal is always made from whole chicken legs, flavoured with the spices and herbs mentioned and then shallow fried.Essential Goa Cookbook. Maria Teresa Menezes (2000) 385 pag ASIN : B06XYPHR9T Chicken cafreal is usually accompanied by potato wedges and lime wedges. It is a popular dish in the bars and

tavern A tavern is a type of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that ...

s of the state. It is suspected that the dish originated in the Portuguese colonies in Africa, most likely in Mozambique. "À Cafreal" means "in the way of the Cafres" and cafre was the designation of the inhabitants of Cafraria, the region of Southern Africa inhabited by non-Muslim peoples (compare English kafir). According to this hypothesis, the cafreal chicken derives from the piri-piri chicken typical of those places. In many contexts and locations in the world, chicken piri-piri and chicken cafreal designate the same dish, but in Goa they are two very different things, even in color, since the first is red.

References

Indian chicken dishes Goan cuisine Indian fusion cuisine Portuguese fusion cuisine Indian cuisine {{india-cuisine-stub