In the United Kingdom the number of homes that cannot pay their energy bills is set to triple by April 2022. In Spain, 10% of all households cannot adequately heat their homes during the winter months and in Italy, electricity bills jumped by 55% by January 2022. It gives them a licence to impose the kind of “ technocratic social engineering” that makes poor people poorer while stripping away working-class aspirations, as we already see in places like California and Germany. Today the world is again reeling from soaring energy prices but this time the wound is self-inflicted - a product of misguided policies meant to accelerate the transition to green energy.įor the political and academic clerisy, the energy “reset” is like manna from heaven. For many NRIs and those hailing from Thiruvananthapuram, no visit to the city is complete without a bite of Kethel’s fried chicken.Roughly a half century ago, rising energy prices devastated Western economies, helping make the autocrats of the Middle East insanely rich while propping up the slowly disintegrating Soviet empire. “The ingredients and the recipe are the same that we have here. New branches have sprung up in Kollam, Kochi and Kozhikode, run by Maheen’s son and sons-in-law. Even today, several film stars and celebrities order parcels from Kethel’s,” he says.īy 1.30pm., the place is packed and a small crowd waits outside impatiently to bag a table. They were the ones who called the table and bench as soon as you enter ‘the Durbar’. “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. There are no cold storage facilites here. The masala is made every day and the chicken is dressed only the day it is cooked. At present, only the succulent, chicken fry and chicken liver are served. 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. 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.
Fresh spices such as fennel, red chilli, (Andhra Piriyan) coriander, are sourced from Chala itself and are hand-pounded and ground into the marinade.
#Green byword how to
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.ĭeep frying marinated chicken at Kethel’s Rahmaniya restaurant in Chala market, Thiruvananthapuram 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.
“My father was not keen on my joining the restaurant. He has been running the place since 1993 after his father passed away. We made it with our marinade and it was an instant hit,” says Maheen with a faint smile. “I had to convince them to give us chicken that was not more than 400 to 450 gm. That is when he decided that they would serve spring chicken only and went to Namakkal to meet poultry farmers there. Maheen felt that the texture of the meat changed and became fibrous once the chicken matured. Initially, free-ranging country chicken was used. Now only chicken is served at Rahamaniya. Even when the best of mutton was served, people would wonder if it was some other meat,” says Maheen. But by the eighties, we stopped the mutton. “In 1949, he started a restaurant in Chala that used to sell dosa, idiyappam, appam, puttu and so on with mutton curry. M Maheen, owner of Kethel’s Rahmaniya restaurant in Chala market Over the years, the ‘Kettle’ became colloquiliased to Kethel’s. He became known as as ‘Kettle Sayipuu’ (sayippu was a colloquial word used to refer to Muslims, a corruption of the Hindi ‘Sahib’). From morning to evening my father used to sell them tea he carried in a kettle.” It was the early forties and the heat was on the British to quit India. 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.
M Maheen, who runs Kethel’s now, says it was his idea to stick to spring chicken. 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. Sourced from Namakkal in Tamil Nadu, the chicken is prepared and marinated at Rahamaniya. Marinated chicken ready for deep frying at Kethel’s Rahmaniya restaurant in Chala market, Thiruvananthapuram.
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