Kozhi Ada - Malabar chicken pockets

Crisp fried pockets of fennel-spiced chicken, made in Calicut the bakery way. 300 g and 500 g packs from ₹279. Keeps three months, ships across India.

Kozhi Ada is the chicken-filled tea-time snack of the Mappila kitchens of north Kerala. Ours is the bakery-style version: a thin wheat-flour pastry crimped by hand around shredded chicken cooked down with fennel, ginger, garlic, green chilli, black pepper, coriander, turmeric, garam masala and curry leaves, then fried until the shell is crisp and blistered and the crimped edge holds its shape.

It arrives ready to eat. Every pack - 300 g or 500 g - keeps for three months in a cool, dry cupboard - no freezer, no cold chain, no waiting for something to thaw before you can eat one, and nothing to reheat. Open the pack, pour the chaya, and that is the whole preparation.