Take One

I have one goal today, and that is to make Chicken Tikka Masala. I've been googling "Ultimate Chicken Tikka Masala Recipe" and get several options that I've been trying to smush together. The joke is that the only common ingredient in the different recipes is chicken. I generally google only "Ultimate" versions of recipes, since there's so many recipe sites and postings that it helps me weed stuff out. I figure if you're calling your recipe "ultimate", you feel pretty strongly about it.

I wind up at this recipe, which looks like what I'm after, both in ingredients, time of prep, and general attitude of the writer. I especially like the "curry paste" concept, and it sounds like this is going to go to a good place.

I've bought spice blends, not pure spices, and I think a mix of the tandoori curry plus the garam masala will be pretty close to correct. I round off some of the spice quantities and adjust to 2 chicken breast proportions, with a few other minor mods to get the recipe I'm going with.

Here it is:

Curry Paste - ingredients

• 1.5 tbl curry powder
• 1 tbl garam masala (M thinks this should get upped to 1.5)
• pinch salt
• 1/4 tsp lemon juice (a few good drops)
• 1.5 oz white wine vinegar
• 1.5 oz vegetable oil (could probably cut this to 1 oz easily)

Curry Paste - steps

1. Grind spices - I used a mortar and pestle, but a spice grinder would be better. Coriander seeds do not seem to respond well to hand grinding.
2. Mix lemon juice and vinegar with spices.
3. Heat oil over medium and pour in spice mix - stir together and simmer over low heat (slow bubbling) for about 10 minutes. This is the best part - frying the spices makes them awesome.
4. Remove from heat and let cool - store airtight.

Marinade - ingredients:

• 6 tbl yogurt (quantity isn't strict here, want a good coating)
• 2 chicken breasts, cut into roughly bite-sized blocks
• 1 tbl of the curry paste
  mix dry, add liquids, put in hot oil - medium heat 10
  mins
  6 tbl yogurt - marinate with 1tbl of paste

Marinade - steps:

1. Mix everything together in a ziptop bag.
2. Store in fridge for at least 1 hour. I'm not sure if and when you could over-marinate this.

Cooking - ingredients:

• Marinated chicken
• Kosher salt
• Remaining curry paste
• 1 tbl tomato puree (I used a little more than a tbl of tomato *paste*, since that's what I had)
• A little fresh ginger (I used a few shakes of ground ginger)
• A good pinch of chili flake or fresh chopped chili (I used half pepper flake and half chipotle flake for some cool smokiness)
• 2 cloves garlic roughly chopped
• Half a big onion chopped as you like it
• Squeeze of lemon
• Vegetable oil for sweating
• About 6 oz water
• About 2 oz cream or 4 oz half and half

Cooking - steps:

1. Sweat onions, garlic, ginger, and chili for 5-6 minutes.
2. Add curry paste and cook 1 minute more.
3. Add tomato puree (or paste) and cook 3 minutes more.
4. Add water and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, salt the chicken and grill (I used a pan) for 5-7 minutes or until cooked.
6. Squeeze in lemon.
7. Add cream or half and half - simmer to desired consistency if needed (was needed with half and half).
8. Add chicken to sauce - simmer to heat, add additional seasoning if desired.

Now you've got some delicious CTM. It may look like a lot or steps, but it was very simple to do and a lot of fun. My initial result was a little off the mark, but with M's help we added a bit more tomato and cream and it get perfect. Those amounts are in the recipe shown here, so go with it. This is not an exact science kind of thing, so you'll find a lot of tolerance for experimentation. Don't feel a need to stick to the quantities used. I'm sure it will be delicious.

Eventually, I'll try doing with this with pure spices and mixing them myself, but World Spice knows what they're doing, so why not just go with their blend?