ADVENTURES IN DOMESTICITY: Chicken Tikka Masala Edition

Welcome to my culinary experiment!

Sadly, it is time for my orange-colored culinary journey around the world to conclude. It started in East Hampton, traveled across the Atlantic to The Gambia, headed west to Thailand, and now retreats back east a little to India, home country of my next endeavor, chicken tikka masala.
I was inspired to try this dish after my friend Eunnok whipped up a batch for himself and posted pics on Facebook. It looked delicious, and he confirmed that it indeed was. He forwarded me the recipe, one thing led to another, and voila, here I am with another Adventure in Domesticity.

Assisting me for this dish was none other than IndianJones, whose subcontinental heritage was quite helpful when the two of us visited a nearby Indian market. He helped me pick out a box of garam masala, which is an elaborate blend of various spices. I should note that for anyone who’s never been to an Indian grocery store, it can be a bit of a spice overload. That’s not a bad thing. I’m just saying the number of spice blends can be a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, I had my very own Indian guide to ease me through the process.
Anyway, with the garam masala chosen (not to mention some naan and papadam), I eventually made my way home where it was time to start the process.
The recipe calls for some marinading action, which I accidentally forgot to photograph. Nevertheless, I was to sprinkle cumin, coriander, cayenne, and salt onto about two pounds of chicken breast meat. Somehow I misread this as dredging; so I made more of a mess than necessary. On the upside, the chicken was very well seasoned. I did this in the morning and let the chicken chill all day, but apparently, you only need to do this for about an hour or so.
In the meantime, I mixed plain yogurt, garlic, vegetable oil, and ginger together in a bowl and set aside in the fridge.
Fast forward several hours, and it’s time to get cooking.

Things started off simply enough. I cooked some onions, ginger, garlic, tomato paste, and chiles in oil. I was supposed to use a serrano chile, but I accidentally got the wrong kind, which was unfortunate because it was very mild. Oh, this was also the point where I added the much-hyped garam masala. Needless to say, my kitchen was very fragrant in the best sort of way.

Next I added sugar and a big can of crushed tomatoes. Eunnok recommended also using diced tomatoes for texture, but I felt like going 100% crushed. That’s how I roll.

Then it was time for some covering action as I brought the sauce to a boil.

Once the sauce hit a boil, I reduced it to a simmer, and then I moved onto my chicken prep. Here’s the aforementioned garlic, ginger, oil, yogurt mix.

And here are my seasoned chicken breasts.

I dipped the breasts in the yogurt, shook off any crazy excess, and placed them on my foil-covered broiling pan. This was a bit scary for me as I’d never broiled anything before, and I was deathly afraid of starting some sort of smokey inferno beneath my oven. At this point, Jash had come over to watch TV, and since he’s broiled things before, he was able to assuage my fears by informing me that I was an idiot and that everything would be fine.

Meanwhile, after having simmered for about fifteen minutes, I added some cream to the sauce, which transformed the masala from bright red to the resilient orange we’ve come to expect from the dish.

Is that intense or what? Note the fresh cilantro I added too.

In a triumph of multitasking, I also heated up some naan in the toaster oven.

Hooray! I managed to successfully broil my chicken without reducing my apartment complex to a smoldering pile of embers. The experience was quite annoying though. I broiled the chicken for ten minutes and then checked the internal temperature with my instant read thermometer. The results: 120 degrees. I needed to get it up to 160 apparently. I broiled the chicken five more minutes — same results. Then three minutes. Same results. WTF? Finally, I just cut open the chicken to see for myself, and lo and behold, it was done! Fuck you, thermometer. Actually, it was probably my fault, but still… The most important part was that the chicken was cooked and had a lovely char on it.

By the way, I should note here that the broiled chicken was absolutely delicious on its own, and even without the masala sauce, it would have been a great dinner in and of itself.

With the chicken tikka masala reaching the home stretch, I heated up some leftover rice from my panang curry.

I then added the chicken — which had rested for five minutes — to the sauce.

I mixed that shit around.

And at last, the dish was complete.

My humble spread.

Time to eat…

I’m a very proud chef.

THE VERDICT: Excellent!! By far the best of my recent cooking adventures. It was so good, so flavorful, and so wonderful. Plus, as a value, it lasted over four meals — with each one suitably filling me up. I made a few tweaks after dinner. I added more garam masala to the pot to bring out the Indian flavors. As it was, the tomatoes were just a taaad to “tomato-y,” which almost made the dish taste more Italian. Adding more garam masala helped. I also added more cayenne pepper for heat since my lame ass chile had supplied none.
Aside from that, everything else was perfect, and it only got better and better with each passing day. I would definitely make this again. It was pretty easy, it lasted a long time, and it had the most complex flavors of all. Thanks Eunnok!