First shot at Tandoori Chicken

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Shortly after I moved out on my own I bought a cookbook named the “Best Ever Indian Cookbook“, which is written by a few people and contains over 325 recipes. My girlfriend keeps telling me I should learn to cook Indian food (she’s Punjabi), so I thought I would learn how to do at least a few dishes; the bonus is that I enjoy the food so knowing how to cook them is good for me too!

I recently looked through it and decided I would try my hand at the Tandoori Chicken recipe. It was a simple recipe where I halved many of the ingredients since I was doing two pieces of chicken instead of four.

Ingredients:

2 boneless chicken breasts

1/3 cup of plain low-fat yogurt

1/2 tsp garam masala

1/2 ginger powder

1 crushed garlic clove

3/4 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp ground turmeric

1/2 tsp ground coriander

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp salt

I omitted this, but it says a few drops of red food colouring gives the dish it’s classic colour.

Preparation:

• Clean and make a couple deep slits in the chicken where they are meatiest. On a boneless piece, that’s pretty much anywhere. When done, set aside.
• Mix the ingredients listed above (minus chicken) until it is a paste-like substance (see pictures – I added the yogurt last, but didn’t take a picture of that).
• Cover the chicken in the marinate (I just left in the mixing bowl) and place in the fridge for about three hours.
• When done, pre-heat the oven to 475F, place the chicken in an oven-proof dish  and in the oven.
• Bake for 25 minutes or until desired tenderness.

As you can see in the pictures above, I served the chicken with Spanish pilaf rice and a Caesar salad. Enjoy!