Chicken Tandoori—the last tandoori recipe you'll need

Tandoori chicken, named so because it is meant be cooked in a clay oven (tandoor), is a dish that was born in undivided Punjab. It went on to become one of the most well-known dishes of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely available all over India and Pakistan and everywhere the diaspora has immigrated. Tandoori chicken is also the base ingredient for the most well known Indian dish, chicken butter masala, or tikka masala as it is known in the West.

Tandoori chicken is made using fairly simple ingredients mixed in a marinade with yoghurt, then applied to the whole chicken. The chicken is usually a small bird—under a kilo, dressed and skin removed, although tandoori chicken is now made with wings, drumsticks, boneless chicken thigh (tikka kabab), etc.

The recipe is well known but it is tricky to get the proportions right. Most home recipes tend to use too much garlic and ginger. A good tandoori chicken should not smell of garlic, or any one ingredient in particular. If it is noticeably garlic-y then there was too much garlic. Similarly, the quantity of dried spices need to be just right, otherwise the spices will burn when cooking and produce a strange bitterness.

Our tandoori spice mix has been arrived at after testing many kilos of chicken tandoori because small errors are often not noticeable until you scale up a recipe. If you follow this, you are guaranteed to get a flavourful tandoori chicken.

We are also launching our Tandoori Moshla mix which is even more flavourful because it is made from all whole spices instead of powdered spices that we use at home. The spices are ground fresh every few days and the date of grinding is printed on the label. So you always know how fresh your spice packet is. You can purchase it from the Amar Khamar website here: https://www.amar-khamar.com/products/tandoori-moshla, OR visit their store: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZoZWVeMbcXUF7gh79

As with any kabab, the thing to avoid at all costs is excess moisture. This means drying the chicken well before using, draining any excess water out after the first marinade, squeezing all water out of the curd/yoghurt before using (it should be as thick as cream cheese)—do everything you can to not add any water to the marinade. This is even more important for home ovens which are nowhere near as hot as traditional tandoors that can reach temperatures of 500ºC and can retain that heat well because of their huge thermal mass. If you marinade is watery, your tandoori chicken will steam instead of searing.

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📝 FULL WRITTEN RECIPE WITH INGREDIENT LIST
www.bongeats.com/recipe/chicken-tandoori
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🎥 RELATED VIDEOS
🎬 Kolkata mutton biryani: https://youtu.be/wlklb1hNnyM
🎬 Chicken kathi rolls: https://youtu.be/NfDXmzS7CsI

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🌶️ Buy the Bong Eats tandoori moshla: https://www.amar-khamar.com/collections/bong-eats-x-amar-khamar
🛺 Order online, or visit the Amar Khamar store in Gariahat: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZoZWVeMbcXUF7gh79
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