Chicken Tikka

xxdilemmaxx

Hey all,

Anyone have a recipe for a nice chicken tikka or chicken curry? Making it for party of 15 at the weekend and would rather use a tried and tested one than one found by googling!

aman

Try either of these. My husband is from India (he doesn't cook himself though!) & I would cook either of these regularly.

Chicken curry

1 large onion chopped
4 chicken breasts cut into pieces
1 clove garlic crushed
1" ginger grated
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp coriander powder
pinch salt
1 tin tomatoes
water

Fry onions in about a tablespoon of oil for a few minutes until almost transparent. Add garlic & ginger & fry for a few seconds until you start to get the aroma of spices. Add chicken & brown slightly. Add all the rest of the spices & fry until the oil runs clear of the mixture. Add the tin of tomatoes & bring back to boiling point. I then add a little water to make a fairly thin sauce (it will reduce while cooking). Cover & cook over a medium heat for at least an hour.

Chicken Curry with Yogurt

1 large onion finely chopped
4 chicken breasts chopped up or 4 chicken portions
1-2 cloves garlic crushed
1" piece ginger grated
2" cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
3 cloves
3 cardamoms
6 black peppercorns
1tsp chilli powder or 2-3 finely chopped chillies
1tsp turmeric
2tsp garam masala
300-400g natural yogurt
water

Brown chicken in hot oil. Remove chicken from pan. To the hot pan add the cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves, cardamoms & peppercorns. Fry for a few seconds. Add onions & fry until transparent. Add dry spices & fry until oils runs clear of the spices. Add chicken back in & fry for just a few seconds. Start to add natural yogurt a tablespoon at time stirring continuously (I sometimes remove it from the heat while I'm doing this so the yogurt doesn't go grainy). After you have added about half the yogurt a spoon at a time the sauce starts to come together so you can return it to a gentle heat & just throw in the rest of the yogurt. After the sauce is made you can add a little water. Cook over a fairly low heat for about 1 hour.

The Sweeper

Aman, I've a question for you about curries with whole spices. Do you remove them before serving, or just serve and pick them out, or do you ever take out the large pieces (cinnamon stick, bayleaves) and then blend the rest of the sauce with a hand blender or anything?

olaola

I have this from last year - it's a good recipe for tikka masala, along with other curry recpies.

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,1851549,00.html

aman

Minesajackdaniels wrote:

Aman, I've a question for you about curries with whole spices. Do you remove them before serving, or just serve and pick them out, or do you ever take out the large pieces (cinnamon stick, bayleaves) and then blend the rest of the sauce with a hand blender or anything?

Normally I would just leave them in & they can be picked out. I would never usually blend sauces with a hand blender - mine would be more Indian home cooking so maybe a bit rough & ready. I don't really think the sauce needs blending though - a good stir usually does for me.

The Sweeper

Thanks for that. What I mean by blending with a hand blender is that smaller whole spices - coriander seeds, whole peppercorns, cloves, cardamoms - get blitzed into the sauce completely when you blend it, making the dish less of a booby trap for the eater. I don't mind picking whole spices out of my dinner and leaving them to one side, but I know pickier people aren't crazy about it.

On occasion I've browned meat off in oil, then fried spices in the same oil, added my onions/garlic/ginger/whatever else I'm using, then my liquids - tomatoes, stock, whatever. Reduce the lot, then blitz with hand blender until smooth, then return meat to sauce to cook through... I do that if I'm striving for an indian takeaway style curry.

Minder

If you want that fresh flavour of spices, try using whole spices, dry fried then ground. Or try making your own paste. I have a recipe from the curry club cookbook that makes a paste from a large collection of spices; the spices are ground and made into a paste with vinegar & water before cooking in oil. When the water is cooked out, the paste in kept in a jar in the fridge with a thin topping of oil. Keeps for ages. It has a fantastic flavour and aroma - beats the shop bought jars hands down.

Incidentally, the same book recommends using blitzed onion, garlic & ginger as the basis of most sauces. Not that there is any right way to make a curry.

I am not averse to eating a curry with whole spices but I do not like the overpowering and mouth numbing effect of finding a whole cardamon pod while eating:eek:

Davidth88

Hi,

If I was going to cook a Chicken Tikka ( dry cooked chicken ) , what I do is the following.

Soak some wooden skewers ( stops them burning )

Get some chicken in bite size pieces.

Mix some greek yogurt, lemon juice, reasonable amount of garam masala ( I buy this to be honest ),chill powder ( optional ), salt , pepper and fresh coriander. Put the chicken in this and leave it for an hour if you can.

Put the chicken on the skewers , on a baking tray in a oven ( 190 degree ) for about 20-30 mins , until all the yogurt has evaparated , I would turn them half way

Enjoy

Krusty_Clown

I grind up my spices with a bit of rock salt in a Pestle and Mortar..
I'd usually stick a couple of whole cloves and cardamon pods in with the rice (along with some tumeric) and I don't bother picking these out, as they're easy to find amongst the rice..

Nothnig worse than a mouth full of cloves!