I have no BBQ but it’s summer and I’m going to make myself some Tandoori Chicken. Living wild here riding no bbq, lucky it’s been a rather cold summer so turning the oven on won’t bake me!
Now I made this in my level 1 Indian cooking class at George Brown but I wanted using the recipe from my Tiffin the 500 recipes from Indian cook book because why not!
All that was different was in class in we used a powder that gave our chicken that deep orange colour, in Tiffin they did not call for that item so I did not use it. Oh we also had access to a tandoori oven sooooooooooo I mean was there a huge different….YES a tandoori oven is way better than my oven or a bbq. One day I will have a tandoori oven myself. I can dream can’t I. Why is a tandoori oven so much better? Higher heat and how the heat is sealed inside also you use metal rods. The rod heats up and cooks the inside of your chicken oh but don’t use this rod https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJBPZjCCz_w
Now I know when your cooking any Indian dish you get over whelmed right off the back looking at the ingredient list and seeing item after item but DON’T! If you go to a Indian grocery store they will have everything your looking for so your shopping is all one stop. Also can we talk about how much fun it is to go to grocery stores that aren’t Sobey’s. More ingredients does not mean it’s more complex just scale all your items out at the beginning. On top you will use a lot of those spices again for other dishes so really the list gets smaller and smaller till you run out!
With tandoori chicken all your doing is making a marinade for the chicken to rest in for four hours then tossing it on the BBQ or your apartment oven because your girlfriend won’t let you BBQ on your balcony because of fire code. I mean come on I would have a fire extinguisher ready, I use to be a pyro technician fire is my jam! I will figure this problem out.
Now grab your yogurt, ginger-garlic paste, green chile paste, red chile powder, ground coriander and don’t do what I did and get ground cardamom I caught it at the last second before I put it in. Now cardamom powder is nice for mango lassie but it wasn’t called for in this recipe! You will also need garam masala, tandoori masala, ground cumin, lime, oil and chaat masala. I forgot to do the chaat masala as well you melt oil and brush oil on the chicken on after then sprinkle the chaat masal. I really messed this one up!
Now the book doesn’t say where to add the lime. I’m guess it’s for at the very end maybe to drizzle on top. I wasn’t sure but I took a note of Salt,Fat,Acid,Heat and added it to the marinade. The acid helps to break down the chicken making it tender and juicy.
Grab your yogurt and combine everything except the chaat masala, lime and oil. I know I said I added the lime up there but you don’t have to. I’m playing around I’ve made this already I was having fun.
When I began to added the spices I heard my teachers voice ” spice to who your cooking for” what does that mean, well simple Shoe doesn’t like a lot of heat. So I give the red chile powder a try and it had some kick. So I cut the amount down by half. I also didn’t add the green chile paste for that very same reason. I might have the belly of a dragon but Shoe does not. Whisk everything together don’t use your hands only do that when your adding the chicken.
Something I’m guilty for is I haven’t tried all the spices on their own next adventure!
Also don’t be all fancy and what not buy a cheaper yogurt your just using it as marinade which leads me into my next point you just have to let it sit for four hours. I did 24 hours and that’s the maximum you should go or as it is written or been told. Now the reason I did it for 24 hours is because I prepped it for dinner the next day. What could go wrong!
How it went wrong! I forgot to tell Shoe to take it out of the dish I had them marinading in and onto their own pan so the skin will crisp up, she just slide it in the oven in one easy go. Had I explained that and not just texted her put the chicken in the oven be home in 45 minutes. The chicken takes 20 to 30 minutes.
Normally you would grill it but I live in apartment in Toronto so get off my back it had to be the oven man! Anyway the chicken still turned out great! The top of the chickens drier bbq skin texture and the bottom was moist any juicy it made for a great combo.
Now I went out and bought samosa and made mango lassi but we will talk about those another time.
This was a simple recipe to make and it’s a good one if you do the prep the night before. I find this helps cutting down on the cleaning myself.
Now something I wanna talk about the Tandoori masala is a spice blend you can buy at any Indian Grocery store. Look for MDH (Mahashian Di Hatti), they have rows and rows of splice blends that will add that little something extra to spice up your life! See what I did there gah that’s a terrible joke!
Tell next time!
One Bite Closer 