Who needs a Take Away?
Tandoori Chicken, so succulent!
Well I hope that you have had a good week, I myself have been struggling to keep up with life its self but who said that this was going to be easy. If it were, then more idiots like myself would be doing this. Good news is that we are becoming agent for the BigGreenEgg so if you want one you will be able to get it from us from next week, keep an eye on our web site www.biltong.co.uk for details.
Thats the moan out the way, what I have in store for you this week is a classic dish that many people who have a weekly take away from the local Indian, never order. Thats because they really don't know what a good tandoori can be like. Imagine a good piece of chicken thats been braaied to perfection and triple that amount of flavour! All this using a ready made pack of spices and I'm going to add a South African twist.
A little bit about a Tandoor - The heat for a tandoor was traditionally generated by a charcoal or wood fire, burning within the tandoor itself (we are using a braai), thus exposing the food to live-fire, radiant heat cooking and hot-air or convection cooking, smoking by the fat and food juices that drip on to the charcoal. Temperatures in a tandoor can approach 480°C (900°F) we are only going to go up to 250°C (480°F) this time as Im still burning the Egg in. It is common for tandoor ovens to remain lit for long periods to maintain the high cooking temperature. The tandoor design is something of a transitional form between a makeshift earth oven and the horizontal-plan masonry oven but the Egg is a great all rounder and perfect for this job.
As you can see from the photo above this is going to be served with Pilau Rice, symbols (chopped up cucumber, peppers, onion coriander) and the classic Mrs Ball Chutney.
Ingredients for Main dish (serves 6)
- Large Free Range Chicken
- Pack of Nice & Spicy Tandoori spices available from my web site
- 4 tablespoons of yoghurt
- 3 cloves of fresh garlic (1/2 teaspoon of dried garlic if fresh is not available)
- 15g fresh ginger (1/3 teaspoon of dried garlic if fresh is not available)
Method
Either do this yourself or get your friendly butcher to chop your chicken into pieces. Then finely chop the ginger and garlic and add with the first four items of the spices to the yoghurt. Remember to save the last little packet of spices to sprinkle onto the chicken later. Mix them all together into a paste that you are going to brush onto the chicken . Make sure that you coat all sides of the chicken and then place in the fridge to marinate for as long as possible for up to 24hrs. Don't worry if you haven't got time 30 mins will give you a great result.
Next fire up you braai or if you are using an oven get it as hot as possible ideally at 250 °C (480 °F) so that it cooks and seals in the moisture. You should have the carcass of the chicken left, don't through it away make some stock to use at a later date. Its easy just chuck it into a saucepan with a chopped up onion, carrot bit of celery 2 bay leaves and some and a teaspoon of salt, place it in the braai or oven and bring it to the boil then let it simmer for the time it takes to cook the chicken, which should be around 40 minuets.
Note, Sprinkle the last packet of spices on the chicken just before you cook. I am not cooking the chicken directly above the coals, so if you can place a pan or some silver foil below the chicken so that it does not burn. The idea is that you get a high heat to the meat but do not place it over the braai coals where it will definitely burn within a few minutes. While this is cooking prepare your rice and symbols and don't forget the Mrs Ball chutney if you can get some.
The end result is fantastic and the chicken has a loverly crust of spices the will explode in your mouths, it's a very simple dish to make and I hope that you will all agree well worth the little time it takes to make.
Everybody likes a discount!
Get 10% discount off the recipe items for Tandoori Chicken until the 17/09/2012 that we sell on our website with this code when you checkout "tandoori" enjoy.