Chicken Tikka

For thousands of us Brits, weekends would not be complete without Indian food. We love a good curry!!! But the weather is STILL nice, it's been a whole week (hose pipe ban any second now). So with the BBQ giving me a cheeky wink I decided to have both.

I picked a recipe for chilli lamb cutlets, and after filling my trolley with all the fresh ingredients needed, I discovered my local supermarket was lacking one of them - lamb cutlets. Anyway to lazy to go and put everything back I switched up to chicken tikka. It was so easy and seeing as I had the food processor out anyway, I found myself making a sweet tomato chutney as well. I will post that recipe after this one.

Marinade:
1/2 tbsp paprika
1 tsp chilli powder
2 tbsp garam masala (why not make your own, recipe below)
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
4 garlic cloves roughly chopped
5cm (2inch) piece of ginger roughly chopped
15g (1/2 cup) coriander (cilantro)
125ml (1/2 cup) thick plain yoghurt

500g skinless chicken breast cut into cubes

For the marinade, blend all the ingredients together in a food processor until smooth, or chop the garlic, ginger and coriander leaves very finely and mix with the rest of the marinade ingredients. Season to taste
Put the chicken in a bowl with the marinade and mix thoroughly. Cover and marinade overnight in the fridge
Thread the chicken onto metal skewers
As I said I bbq'd them but for the other 51 weeks of the year I would pre heat the oven 200 C (400 F/gas 6) and place skewers on a metal rack above a baking tray. Roast uncovered for 15-20 minutes
Serve with wedges of lemon and traditionally minted yogurt or try my spiced chutney


Hold on to you knickers..... this pic doesn't look like I threw the food across the kitchen.

So ashamed of the lemon wedge bows but I am trying

Time taken     20 mins (excluding marinade time)

Effort     1.5/5

End result     3.75/5

Making your own Garam Masala

The recipe included a method to make garam masala. I was disappointed as I couldn't find my peppercorns so used ready made GM. I would imagine this would give the chicken that pop of flavours and when I make it again I will definitely try this

8 cardamon pods

2 cassia leaves

1 tsp black peppercorns

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp coriander seeds

5cm (2 inch) cinnamon stick

1 tsp cloves

In a spice grinder or pestle and mortar add the seeds from the cardamon pods, the broken up cassia leaves and the remaining spices and grind to a fine powder. this makes 3 tbsp and can be stored in an airtight container