Oh chicken tikka, like spaghetti with meatballs and general Tso before you, you have no cultural reference. The California roll of Indian cuisine. Created by an Indian expat in Britain to help western palates adapt to Middle Eastern flavors, Chicken Tikka Masala is the most popular “Indian” food around. Since we hadn’t cooked Indian before, we thought it would be a good starting point. We didn’t have much time to cook that night, but this recipe seemed so simple, what I had overlooked was resting and marinating times. Because of this, our final product was slightly on the bland side but still really delicious.
A staple in Indian cooking is ghee, or clarified butter. To make it, just boil some butter for awhile and keep skimming off the foam.
Dried Kashmiri chiles.
If you are noticing the strange counters, this is because we are house-sitting for the week. That’s how we scored this sweet mortar and pestle.
Add Garlic
And Ginger
Here is how the ghee looks when it's done. It's like what people dip their lobster in.
I was going to get chicken pieces to save time, but the store had other plans. Everything was past expiration and not looking too nice. But the good news was this was a local chicken raised organically at Watson’s farm here in Bermuda. It’s extremely rare to get local chickens here and I was pretty happy about that.
Add these things to the mortar.
Cut some holes in the chicken to get the marinade all in there.
This had an amazing smell
Yogurt
Ok, I swear to you this is a lime! What is happening!! I’m kinda freaked out, I think there is a ghost in my camera like in that shutter movie!
This is supposed to sit for at LEAST 4 hours but we only had 1 and that’s why it was a little bland.
Meanwhile, Mandi thought she would try her hand at Naan. I am not going to put the recipe because it did not come out that great. It was still delicious, but more biscuity.
Wait, what’s this!!
Elvis!!!!
Haha just kidding, that was the ghee poured on the counter for naan making proposes. And this is Elvis, the reason we were house sitting in the first place. Elvis, you’re a star now!
These are for the start of the sauce
Naan dough
MMMMM the chicken was great out of the oven. We each had a wing and they were yum.
With some ghee in the pan, throw in the garlic ginger and chiles.
Add a can of chopped tomatoes and some cream, and the chicken.
Oh yea, cook some plain jasmine rice in the mean time.
Cilantro tastes good on top
Making this made us realize many things about cooking in a kitchen that is not your own. Check back tomorrow for more thoughts on this.Also I am going to put a more detailed recipe with the measurements and stuff just below here when I reformat my site in a few days, so be sure to check back for that as well.
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