I know that I haven’t written much after the frantic postings a couple of weekends back. Well that’s because nothing much happened on the food front. Plus I am down with various ailments. Listening to me will make me seem more like a ninety five year old than a thirty five year old. Anyway here’s something which I got out of the archives and made during that eventful weekend
Caveat: This technically isn’t tandoori chicken as you make it in a microwave and not in a tandoor (earthen oven from Punjab). The end result will not look as red/ orange as the tandoori chicken of restaurants. That’s because we don’t use food colours. You will need a microwave with a grilling function. I guess an electric oven would do too
Ingredients:
- 6 chicken pieces. I’d go for drumsticks. Slash the surface so that the masala goes in
- Marinade. Mix together : 2 table spoons of curd + 1 tea spoon each of jeera/ cumin powder, dhania/ coriander powder, red chilly powder, black pepper powder + 1/2 tea spoon garam masala powder + 1 table spoon ketchup for the colour, 1/2 tea spoon sugar
- You could add some paprika powder/ Kashmiri red chilly powder to add a redness to it
- 1 tea spoon salt
Recipe
- Spread marinade on chicken pieces and keep in fridge for 3 – 6 hrs. The longer the better
- Add salt on the chicken when its ready. It will drain out the juices if you add it earlier
- Put the chicken in the microwave. This process takes 25 minutes
- Put it on cook mode for ten minutes
- Take it out carefully, it will be hot, turn the chicken pieces over using a spoon
- Put it on grill mode for ten minutes
- Take it out, turn it over and grill for another five minutes.
- The dish is ready. There will be a lot of juice. You can sprinkle it over the chicken or on a bit of sliced onion, tomato and chilly as a salad. Best had with any form of roti.
So why try this despite the caveats? Consider the following:
- This is completely oil free. I have it from dubious sources in the trade that restaurants part grill the chicken and then FRY it when orders are placed
- You can get better quality chicken than what restaurants serve
- No food colouring
- For men who want to cook – anecdotal evidence suggests that men who can dish out tandoori legs make women go weak in their knees
- And for women who cook – no oil, grill, white meat … need I say more
Came by this only now and it was timely too. Papa-in-law wants me to cook something in the micro and serve. Two doubts here:-
1. I mistakenly added salt to the marinade already. Will that do serious damage as in, leave the chicken pieces very rubbery? Is there any way to salvage that?
2. Mine too is a micro+grill oven (no convection). I am planning to start with micro-cooking the chicken in a dish first. And then put it on the grill provided to combi-cook it further. But you mentioned there will be juice, so does one put a plate underneath the grill to collect it or what? As in, I don't have too much room for error since I am doing it for them and there's hardly any backup (yeah, am in a reckless mood but only so much 😀
Please let me know 🙂
Esskay.
No the salt won't make a difference. Keep a plate below. You can later add a bit of the juice on the chicken