Tandoori Chicken – succulent and tender chicken with a smokey flavour
Tandoori chicken is my go-to dish when I want minimal prep, washing and cooking. For most of the parties hosted @ home, it is my go to dish. You can prep it in advance, bung it in the oven and get on with the rest of the cooking if any and cleaning is usually a breeze.
I usually make tandoori chicken with a whole chicken – in curry cut pieces (i.e 1 chicken cut either in 12 or 16 pieces). I feel it suits a diverse crowd, if people like the leg, breast or thigh piece. However if you are using only leg pieces, chicken breast or chicken supreme pieces (leg and thigh attached), cooking times may vary. leg and chicken supreme pieces take the longest to cook – anywhere between 20-25 minutes while breast pieces cook quickly 10-15 minutes.
I also usually add 1/2 an onion for every 1 chicken, it helps thicken the marinade and gives a more robust flavour to the grilled chicken. The colour, not the garish red colour like in most restaurants, comes naturally from Kashmiri red chillies. It has a beautiful red colour and less pungency or heat compared to the normal red chillies.
You know how they hang up the pieces of half-cooked tandoori chicken in restaurants? They specifically do this so the marinade dries up on the chicken and coats it beautifully. So the 10 minutes drying time on the countertop before flipping the pieces helps the chicken to retain its succulent moist texture yet having a beautiful marinade coating that is not too wet.
Tandoori Chicken
Ingredients
- 1 kg chicken (cut into 12 pieces)
For the marinade
- 1/2 onion
- 5-6 garlic cloves
- 1 inch ginger, peeled and chopped
- 1/4 cup thick yoghurt (strained for 5-10 minutes) or use greek yoghurt
- 2 tbsp kashmiri chilli powder
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 1 tsp pepper powder
- 1 tbsp coriander powder
- 1 tsp kasuri methi
- 1 handful fresh coriander leaves
- salt to taste
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
for basting
- 1 tbsp melted ghee
Instructions
- wash and drain the chicken. Make deep gashes on the thick pieces of the chicken, such as over the leg pieces and breast if whole . This will allow the marinade to flavour the pieces better
- put all the marinade ingredients in a blender and blend to a fine paste.
- marinade the chicken with the ground paste for atleast 1 hour or overnight. reserve the remaining marinade
- line a baking tray with aluminium foil, it will make cleaning a breeze
- preheat the oven to 200
- add the chicken pieces on a single layer without over-lapping
- bake for 10 minutes on 1 side
- Switch off the oven and take out the chicken from the oven. Let it rest on the countertop for 10-15 minutes. This will allow the marinade to dry out and coat the chicken nicely
- After 10 minutes, flip the chicken pieces, baste the chicken with the reserved marinade and bake for another 10 minutes.
- Baste the chicken once more with melted ghee and set it under the broiler/grill for atleast 5 minutes until it develops nice char.
- Serve with onion slices, coriander and mint chutney, some potato wedges and lemon slices
