Tandoori Chicken done right

Tandoor: is a clay oven used to sear meats and bake flat-breads.


Tandoori chicken refers to chicken marinated in bold spices and grilled in a tandoor.
If all tandoori chicken were to be grilled only in a tandoor, then it would be a rare and priceless commodity in the league of caviar, truffles and gold. (OK maybe not THAT rare!)

Fortunately, grills do a good enough job of searing the meat.

A few Sundays ago, me and my small table-top gas grill set out in the quest for that perfect tandoori chicken - marinated in the perfect mix of spices and flavors that are infused to the bone, seared to a crisp crust outside and juicy tender meat inside. Cooked just right that is.

The perfect marinade:
Here we took the help of Rajah Tandoori Masala as a starting point. Couple of tablespoons of it were mixed with a cup of yogurt, two tbsp of ginger+garlic paste, a tbsp red chilli powder, salt, a tsp of toasted cumin powder, 1/2 a tsp garam-masala and crushed black pepper. It was whisked to an even mixture. Voila!, a tandoori marinade that would be the envy of an Indian chef. This was for about 5 lbs of chicken.

The bird:
The cut chosen for this perfect union was chicken thigh pieces with bone-in and outer skin removed. Needless to say - most of the visible fat was trimmed off.


Dressing it up:
Here it gets interesting as we begin the union of the meat and the spice. The marinade mix was liberally smeared all over individual pieces of the chicken, getting it in all the nooks and crannies and generally all over the meat. The pieces were stacked together in a mixing bowl with the remaining marinade mix poured on top.
The two are given 4 hours to chill out in a secluded corner of the fridge.


Burning it just right:
The burners set to medium, and the grill pre-heated for 5 minutes (as its small), the chicken pieces were places on the grill a couple inches apart from each other and cooked for 7 minutes each side.


Dish it out:
Drizzled with lime juice and served with sliced onions.

For a while the only sounds emanating in the room were "scrunch-scrunch", "hmmm gnosh-gnosh" and so on. I accepted these accolades with a gentle bow ... over my own plate.