My experiments with Indian cooking go on. Yesterday I woke unnaturally early for me, at half past six, and reading the previous evening's junk mail my eye fell on an offer at my local K-Supermarket, grilled chicken for 2.99 euros (raw weight about 1.1 kg). I am no great friend of chicken (wings excepted), but after my morning coffee I headed for K-Lauttasaari all the same. I got to the shop at a quarter to eight, and of course the meat counter had not even started grilling the chickens yet. So that the trip would not be a complete waste, I asked for one raw. By then a picture of a beautifully red tandoori chicken had already begun to take shape in my mind 🙂
A few days ago I went to the Kinopalatsi cinema, and while waiting for the film to start I ate a tandoori chicken salad (6.50 euros) at the Fennia block branch of Namaskaar, which turned out to be excellent. The place is in the tunnel between Kinopalatsi and Kaisaniemi metro station. On Monday, dropping in at Vii Voan, the Asian grocer in Hakaniemi, I had bought a bag of tandoori spice just in case, so my early-morning shopping trip ended in a brisk walk home with a raw chicken and a pot of thick Bulgarian-style yoghurt.
I had never jointed a whole chicken before, so a bit of googling helped here too. After some head-scratching, the handsome corn-fed bird had been turned, with a sharp Fiskars knife and my hungry gaze for seasoning, into the traditional eight pieces: wings, drumsticks, thighs and breasts. I was not in the mood for making stock, so the rest of the carcass went in the bin, and so did the skin, which is not used in Indian cooking. After turning the pieces over for a while I decided to get rid of the remaining bones too, and they came away easily by hand. I cut deep criss-cross slashes into the breast pieces, so that the marinade gets into the meat as well.
Once the meat was ready I left it in the fridge in the yoghurt and tandoori marinade until the evening. Ideally it would have marinated overnight, but this time I could not wait that long. Yoghurt is said to tenderise meat, though far more gently than lemon juice or vinegar.
I read that a real tandoor is a clay oven with glowing charcoal at the bottom, and that it gets far hotter than a home oven ever does. That is why I heated my oven to 300 degrees with the baking tray inside it. After ten minutes I took the tray out, brushed the pieces with the rest of the marinade and put them back, and then switched the oven off. The chicken was left to finish in the remaining heat for another 20 minutes with the door shut.
I ate half of the finished chicken with the potato and pepper masala left over from the day before. Today I made black rice and cucumber raita to go with the cold chicken. With tomato and oak leaf lettuce the whole made a very pleasant meal.
Cooked black rice is a deep purple, as the picture shows, and apparently the colour comes from the same pigments as in blueberries. I soaked the rice for an hour before cooking it, which makes it softer. Raita is a yoghurt sauce for cooling the mouth after spicy food at an Indian meal. Mine has nothing but coarsely grated cucumber, chopped coriander and a spoonful of honey, and I put a coriander leaf on top.
Recipe card
Tandoori Chicken
- serves two
- Marinating 6-24 hours
- Oven 300 °C
- Cooking 10 min, then 20 min in the switched-off oven
You will need
| 500 g | boneless chicken, e.g. breast and leg meat |
| tandoori spice mix | |
| 200 ml | Bulgarian-style yoghurt |
Method
- Marinate the meat well in advance, 6-24 hours before cooking. Remove any skin from the chicken pieces. Cut deep criss-cross slashes into the breast pieces.
- Stir the tandoori spice into the yoghurt as the spice packet directs, put the meat in a freezer bag and pour the marinade over it. Mix thoroughly so that the marinade gets into the slashes too. Leave in the fridge to marinate.
- Line a baking tray with foil, folding the edges up to make a shallow bath. Heat the oven to 300 °C with the tray inside.
- When the oven has reached temperature, put the chicken pieces on the tray and cook for 10 minutes.
- Take the tray out of the oven and brush the pieces with the remaining marinade. Put the chicken back in the oven and switch the oven off. Cook for another 20 minutes without opening the door.
Recipe card
Cucumber Raita (Kheere ka Raita)
- serves two
- Preparation about 10 min
You will need
| 200 ml | Bulgarian-style yoghurt |
| 1 tbsp | honey |
| about 10 cm | piece of cucumber |
| about 50 ml | chopped fresh coriander |
| (cumin) |
Method
- Grate the washed cucumber coarsely into short shreds and chop the coriander finely.
- Stir the cucumber and coriander into the yoghurt with the honey. Keep cold until serving.
- Garnish with cumin if you like.
Recipe card
Black Rice
- serves two
- Soaking about 1 hour
- Cooking 20-30 min
You will need
| 200 ml | black rice |
| 300-400 ml | water |
Method
- Soak the rice in a little water for about an hour before cooking, which makes it softer.
- Cook in 300-400 ml of water until soft, 20-30 minutes.
There are thousands of kinds of rice, so it is impossible to give exact cooking instructions 🙂
Serve the tandoori chicken cold or hot, cut into pieces of 3-4 cm. Spoon a generous amount of the refreshing raita onto the plate next to the rice; it is good for dipping the chicken and bread in as well.
