Chicken Tikka Masala

This recipe was actually pretty simple to make, it just took some time and tools.  You can marinate the meat the night before or you can do it while you prep the ingredients for the sauce.  Sorry there are no photos in tonight's blog.

 

First, you absolutely need a food processor or blender for this recipe.  Second, you can peel the ginger with a spoon.  Third, this isn't exact--adjust the spices, sugar, salt, heat, and lemon juice to your taste.  I changed the original recipe because I prefer bolder flavors.  I think this adaptation hits the mark for a soul-satisfying Indian curry without having to leave the house.  

I package the leftovers in a sandwich container by putting the rice down first and ladling the sauce and chicken on top and freeze it like that.  I put these freezer meals in our lunches for work.  After making dinners throughout the week, I generally have a lot leftover, but by doing this, we have ready-made meals if we are just too tired to cook one night.  Over time, we build up quite a variety.  Be sure to label the lids though with a grease pencil or masking tape so a month from now, you remember what it is. 

Chicken Tikka Masala: (Adapted from Food Network’s chef Aarti Sequira)

Marinade:

2 cups plain yogurt, whisked until smooth
6 tablespoons Ginger-Garlic Paste, recipe follows
1 tbsp kosher salt
2 tsp teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 pounds chicken, poked with a fork—you can use any combination of chicken, skinless or skin on, boneless or with bone.  We used four legs and four thighs, bone and skin on.  Just make sure the pieces are the same—they all have skin and bones or they are all boneless and skinless.  If the pieces are cut, make sure they are uniform size and note you will be grilling them, so you won’t want to make them too small.  If you don’t have a grill or want to speed up the recipe, you could just used cubed chicken pieces and omit the grilling and place the raw chicken chunks in the sauce to cook.

Ginger Garlic paste: in a food processor puree 2 whole heads of raw, peeled garlic with one large peeled piece of fresh ginger, about the size of a small hand.  Cut the ginger into small cubes for ease and add canola oil while it’s blending until it finally purees.  It should be the consistency of pesto.

Sauce:

1 tbsp olive oil
6 tbsp butter
1 c Ginger-Garlic Paste
2 serrano or jalapeno peppers, minced (seeds removed if you don't want it spicy)
1 small can tomato paste
3 tbsp garam masala
1 tbsp teaspoons paprika
2 large cans diced tomatoes with juice
1 tbsp teaspoons kosher salt
1 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves (optional)

¼ to ½ c packed brown sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup heavy cream or half and half
Minced fresh cilantro, for garnish
Cooked basmati rice, naan, or crusty piece of bread, for serving

Directions

For the marinade: In a large bowl, or baking dish, mix together the marinade ingredients. Add the chicken and toss to coat. Marinate at least 30 minutes, or in the refrigerator up to overnight.

For the sauce: When you're ready to make the curry, place a large skillet over medium heat and add the olive oil and butter. When the butter has melted, add the Ginger-Garlic Paste, onions and peppers. Saute until lightly browned around the edges. Add the tomato paste and cook until the tomato has darkened in color, about 3 minutes. Add the garam masala and the paprika and saute for about 1 minute to draw out their flavors.

Add the undrained tomatoes and salt.  Bring to a boil, turn down to a simmer, and cook until thickened, about 30-60 minutes. Meanwhile, fire up your grill. When it is nice and hot, lightly brush it with oil. Place the chicken on the grill, shaking off some of the excess marinade. Cook until it's charred, about 2 minutes on each side. (Don't worry that the chicken will still be a little uncooked, it finishes cooking in the sauce).  If your sauce is chunky and you’d like a smooth sauce, now is the time to hit it with a stick blender to puree it.  Add the chicken and fenugreek leaves, if using. Take the heat down to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. Add the cream and stir through. Garnish with minced fresh cilantro, and serve over rice, with naan, or a crusty piece of bread!

What's For Dinner?

When we first moved in together, I burned through my arsenal of recipes,including a dish my mom used to make: Chicken and Rice.

When Tanya and I first started living together, we were both excited to show off how well we could cook.  One night she made the most amazing meatloaf I’ve ever had in my life.  Other nights she’d introduce me to her Sloppy Joes, Beef Stroganoff, chicken pot pie, lasagna, and the list goes on.  For her I made some of my specialties like grilled pork chops, potato salad, grilled cheese, risotto, polenta, Caesar salad, and the list goes on.  I think most people have a repertoire of things they make and they run through that when the question, “What’s for dinner?” comes  

up.

When we first became CSA (community supported agriculture) subscribers to a local farm, Whistling Train Farm, we encountered a problem.  We couldn’t just eat tacos on Tuesday or whip up a bowl of mashed potatoes when our mood demanded them.  We had all this produce we needed to use each week and sometimes there were things in our weekly basket we had no idea how to use.  Sometimes we just got plain sick of eating what we were given and had to find creative, new ways to use it.  The first winter we were subscribers, we had beets every single week for 12 weeks straight.  And Tanya HATED beets.  She hated beets though because she remembered the pickled old-people beets of her youth that came out of a can and ended up on some social gathering next to pickled herring and bread and butter pickles.  They taste a little different when they are orange heirloom beets, tossed in a little olive oil and roasted with some grey salt and cracked black pepper.  The point is, if we were going to do this, we had to be committed and we had to get creative.

We started to examine how to use preexisting recipes and techniques, tweaking them to use what we had on hand. One example is the often beloved, technically misunderstood, and not very intimidating once understood, Sushi Roll. We deconstructed the roll ingredient by ingredient and substituted what we could to meet our needs. The only thing that we couldn’t get away from buying in the store was the Japanese sticky rice (one because it is so farkin delicious and two because I love rice).  We did find an organic source, however.  I think it’s also important to remember you don’t have to go all in to make small changes. Replace one ingredient for something easy.  In this instance, we couldn’t get organic nori, the seaweed paper used to make sushi rolls, so we substituted it with blanched swiss chard.  

Here's a short instructional video about how to roll sushi in general.  Keep in mind, we've replaced the nori with blanched chard.

First I steamed the rice in a rice cooker.  For me, this means 1 cup of organic Japanese sticky rice to every 1 1/4 cup of water.  I added a little rice wine vinegar once it was done.  I realize sushi chefs train for years just to learn making rice before they ever even look at a fish, but it is what it is--let's get dinner on the table.

Next I got all the vegetables julienned and roasted off some pork the night before and shredded it.  You can use whatever combination of vegetables, fish, or other ingredients you choose.  It isn't the ingredients that matter, but the concept that sushi can be adapted to whatever you have and will be a nutritious and filling meal.  Unless of course you eat sushi in Mississippi where it's deep friend and sauced with mayonnaise.

Once the fillings were prepped, I got the chard ready by bringing a shallow, wide pot filled halfway with boiling water.  Next to it, I had a bowl of ice water to blanch the leaves to stop the cooking process once they came out of the boiling water.  You only want to soften the leaves and turn them bright green--cooking too long will compromise the leaf's integrity, making rolling the sushi difficult.

Once they are blanched, cut the tough rib out of the center.

I set all the ingredients aside and got plates ready.  I wrapped my sushi mat with plastic wrap to keep the rice from sticking and layered the chard leaves on top of that.  Then I added a thin layer of rice, not coming all the way to the edges.  To that I added vegetables and the shredded pork in the center.  I rolled the sushi and cut it into six pieces with a very sharp knife, being careful not to push on it and saw, but rather slice the roll gently so as not to crush it.

When we set out on this adventure, we didn't always know what to expect.  Cooking isn't like baking--it's very forgiving.  And even if everything fell apart, we could have just eaten this dinner as a bowl of rice and it still would have been delicious.  Don't be afraid to step outside of the box.   You never know what is waiting there for you.  While we still make Sloppy Joes, cheddar polenta, chicken pot pie and Caesar salad, we make new things too.  It turns out, we have some favorites we didn't even know about.