In this article, you will learn about a delicious recipe for cooking tandoori chicken. This dish came to us from India, there tandoori is a clay oven with a cylindrical shape. This is where the name of the tandoori masala chicken recipe comes from (tandoori - oven, Indian tandoor, masala - spice mix).
If you do not have such kitchen equipment, you should not be upset. You can also use a conventional oven. Therefore, having cast aside a number of doubts, feel free to start cooking tandoori chicken according to the Indian recipe at home.
Let's start cooking
To cook tandoori chicken, it is better to give preference to chicken drumsticks or thighs - such meat is more juicy and goes well with various types of side dishes or salads.
We wash the hips, if necessary, remove the remains of feathers. After drying, dry the chicken with a paper towel. We make several transverse incisions - due to this, the chicken is pickled much better and baked evenly.
If you want to use chicken as an ingredient for pizza, salad, pita, hamburger, sandwich, it is better to take fillets. Such meat is perfectly cooked in the oven and on the grill. However, the fillet can be overdried in the oven, so care must be taken not to overexpose it.
For the preparation of tandoori chicken, you can use a prepared mixture of spices under the same name. In addition to these spices, marinade can be flavored with chopped garlic and lemon juice. If you don’t have kefir or yogurt, which are part of the tandoori chicken recipe, you can replace them with plain water.
What do you need?
Firstly, it will take about 25-30 minutes of free time to prepare the ingredients and about 40 minutes to prepare the dish.
Ingredients for the implementation of the tandoori chicken recipe:
- 1.5 kilograms of chicken (thighs);
- a teaspoon of curry;
- a teaspoon of chili peppers;
- a teaspoon of salt;
- a teaspoon of ground ginger;
- a teaspoon of paprika;
- a teaspoon of ground cinnamon;
- a teaspoon of ground turmeric;
- 2 cups kefir.
Note Bene! Instead of the listed spices, you can use a store-bought mixture of spices in a bag called "Tandoori masala for chicken."
Cooking process
- Prepare the fillet.
- We prepare the marinade: take a container, add spices (cinnamon, turmeric, curry, ginger, chili, paprika, kefir or yogurt, salt), mix spices and kefir. (Instead of spices separately, you can buy a mixture of spices in the store.)
- In extreme cases, water can be used for marinade.
- Immerse the chicken in the marinade, leave the meat to infuse in spices for 15-20 minutes.
- The next step is to bake the fillet (thighs) in the oven. Preheat it to 200 degrees, bake meat for 30 minutes. The main thing is to ensure that the meat does not turn into a dry “sole”.
- If you wish, you can cook chicken on the grill. For this purpose, the meat is cut into identical pieces across.
- Serve hot tandoori chicken in hot form with any salad or side dish. In addition, this meat is perfect for making pizza, Caesar salad, home-made shawarma, sandwiches, salads and so on.
Tandoori Chicken Salad
To prepare a nutritious salad, the following components will be required.
So what we need:
- 50 grams of cucumbers;
- 25 grams of melon;
- 25 grams of watermelon;
- 100 grams of lentils;
- 150 grams of chicken breast;
- 30 grams of dried cherry tomatoes;
- bunch of tarragon leaves;
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
To prepare a tandoori mixture:
- 20 grams of chopped garlic;
- 150 grams of yogurt;
- 5 grams of rosemary;
- 15 grams of parsley;
- 5 grams of salt;
- 5 grams of paprika;
- 5 grams of ground pepper.
Cooking salad
Of course, you will have to run around in search of lentils, since this cereal is not the most popular in Russia. However, you should not exclude it from your diet - it contains a large number of useful substances, and yet, as many respond, it tastes pretty good.
The secret of chicken salad in tandoori sauce lies in the fact that we will make the sauce ourselves!
To prepare the tandoori, mix the following ingredients (in grams): 20 grams of chopped garlic, 150 grams of yogurt, 5 grams of rosemary, 15 grams of parsley, 5 grams of salt, 5 grams of paprika, 5 grams of ground pepper.
Then we place 150 grams of chicken breast in the prepared tandoori mixture and leave it for 8 hours in the refrigerator. Take the meat out of the mixture. We heat the pan with sunflower oil and put the chicken in it. On low heat, bring to readiness (remember that you can not overdry).
We leave the finished chicken to cool. Then cut the meat into thin slices. Cook lentils. Drain the water and divide the cereal into 2 parts. One part of the lentils is whipped in a blender with garlic, parsley and olive oil. The second part is laid out on a plate. Dice melon, cucumbers, watermelon. We spread the whole lentils in the center of the plate, then melon, cucumbers, watermelon, chicken, decorate with dried cherry tomatoes, cherry leaves.
Tandoori chicken with rice and cardamom
We will need:
- 300 ml of natural yogurt;
- 75 grams of tandoori;
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice;
- one and a half kilograms of chicken breast;
- 1 onion;
- 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil;
- 350 grams of long grain rice;
- 2 boxes of cardamom;
- 500 grams of spinach;
- 1 liter of chicken stock.
Cooking Instructions:
- We mix yogurt, lemon juice and tandoori in a bowl, add the chicken breasts, chopped into cubes, mix well, cover and marinate for about 10 minutes.
- At this time, heat the oil in a pan and add finely chopped onions. Fry for 3 minutes, add rice and broken cardamom boxes. Stirring, cook for 5 minutes.
- Add hot broth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to small and simmer for about 15 minutes.
- Preheat the grill in the oven. We put chicken pieces on wooden skewers and cook for 5 minutes on each side.
- We wash the spinach and put it in a large pan without drying it with a paper towel. Cover and cook for about 2 minutes over medium heat. Spread rice, spinach and chicken in plates. Serve to the table with yogurt.