Chicken tikka masala — the great classic of North Indian restaurants in the U.K. and
U.S. Frankly, it's a dish that I think is best left to those restaurants. It's a huge
pain to make at home. That is, unless, you have some leftover homemade tandoori chicken
around. As we established in our previous video, linked in the description, tandoori
chicken is very easy to make at home, and just as good as the restaurant product. So,
I say, when you make it, make twice as much as you need. Have tandoori chicken one night,
then a few nights later, throw your leftovers into a curry. It's a natural synergy, and
it makes this amazing dish a breeze to do at home.
First thing to consider, though, is the rice. With a saucy dish like this, you really do
want a starch to soak it all up. You want aged basmati rice — arguably the only white
rice that actually tastes like something. I'm just gonna make a whole 1-pound package.
That's a little more than two cups. Honestly, I think you can skip this step, but if you
want a restaurant-type product, you gotta wash the rice. You just pour in some water,
and swish it around with your fingers, dump the water out, and repeat. Pour in some water,
swish it all around, maybe rinse with a little bit more water then pour it out. What we're
doing is dissolving and rinsing away the outer starch coat on these grains. If you don't
do this, the cooked rise will be kind clumpy instead of fluffy, which frankly I'm not convinced
is a bad thing. But if you want nice, individual grains, you gotta do this a bunch of times
until the water is at least starting to go clear.
You pour the water out for the last time, then dump the wet rice into a pan. The basic
water-to-rice ratio is 2 to 1, but these grains are already holding some water, so you gotta
account for that. I'm pouring in 3 and 3/4 cups water into what was originally like 2
and a quarter cups of dry rice. And I'll do like a heaping teaspoon of salt for all of
that, but that's really to taste. I'm just getting the salt evenly dissolved.
Then tradition calls for us to simply let this soak for a half hour. I honestly don't
think that makes a very big difference. I think it probably evolved mostly as a fuel-saving
measure — it shortens the cooking time. But I'll let it sit there until I'm ready
to start cooking the curry.
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let this guy get back to talking about food.
So with your rice soaking, you can turn to your chicken. Here's half a batch of tandoori
chicken legs from the last video. Gotta pull the meat off in chunks, and I highly recommend
doing this with your hands, not a knife. Your hands can tell the difference between a delicious
hunk of meat and a gross glob of cartilage. Your knife cannot tell that difference.
You could cut these nto further chunks, but I like to leave them as-is. My favorite Indian
place in the world is called Mela — it's in Boston — and they always have big identifiable
shreds and chunks of leg and thigh meat in their curries. Yes, chicken tikka is technically
a kebob, but I think that a lot of restaurants actually use chicken tikka masala as a way
of getting rid of leftover tandoori chicken, and chicken tikka is basically the same stuff
— it's just chicken marinated in yogurt and spices and cooked at very high heat. Same
stuff, just boneless and on a skewer.
Only other prep, as you can see, is to just take a big onion and chop it up. Nothing fancy.
Just get it into little pieces.
OK, big pan on high heat. I'll also get the rice started at this point. High heat until
it comes to a boil. You could put some oil in the pan but I've got some ghee — Indian
clarified butter. Do not use whole butter, it'd burn. Use oil if you don't have this.
Then in the onion goes, really blasting it on high heat. I wanna get some deep roasted
flavor out of the onion. They're filled with water, those pieces — they will not burn
as long as you keep them moving.
OK, after a couple minutes, you've got some color on them, I think it's time to toast
the spices. This is the leftover homemade masala from the last video. You could just
use prepackaged Garam Masala, about two tablespoons, I'd say. Move that around and let it toast.
I'd lower the heat to medium at this point. Big squeeze of tomato paste goes in, a couple
tablespoons at least. Without this, the flavor is just kinda flat. You need it for acidity
and intensity. Maybe a tablespoon of Kashmiri chili powder. This is the secret ingredient.
It gives you that beautiful red color with a nice, mild heat. Use more if you want it
hotter. If you can't get Kashmiri chili powder, use paprika for color and cayenne for heat.
And I feel like I'm forgetting something. I dunno. Anyway, when you're terrified everything
is gonna burn, a good-quality 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes goes in. Deglaze with that.
Oops, our rice is boiling over, which means it's time to reduce the heat to low. Let it
simmer about 15 minutes, it'll be done. Oh, I know what I forgot — ginger garlic paste.
Peel and grate your own if you want to, but I always just buy it bottled at the Indian
grocery. A few big spoonfuls of that. I should've put that in to fry right before I put in the
tomatoes, but it probably won't matter, because we're gonna fry the tomatoes, and therefore
everything in them.
I think a key to this dish is to cook the tomato sauce down pretty aggressively, stirring
it constantly so it doesn't burn. Nice wide pan so we get plenty of evaporation, and 10
minutes later, enough water has boiled out that it's really caramelizing. Oh hey, the
rice is done. Just turn the heat off, leave it covered.
Now is when you put in the cream. I did like half a cup there, which is conservative. I
don't like it too rich. And then there's the ingredient that eluded me for a long time
— water. A lot of water. Maybe two cups. Enough to make the texture light and smooth.
I know it seems crazy — we just spent all that time and effort reducing the water out
of the tomatoes — but we did that so that we could caramelize them and develop flavor,
not because we want a dry finished product.
Don't worry, this stuff is very intensely flavored, it is not gonna taste diluted.
Give it a taste. It needs salt. And it needs the other secret ingredient — sugar. At
least a tablespoon. This is totally what they do at the restaurant. It is essential to get
that classic taste.
Now, this is when a lot of restaurants would strain this. If you want that silky smooth
finished texture, you gotta strain out the solids and dump them. But that strikes me
as a restaurant nicety that has no place in the home. That beautiful, smokey, grilled
tandoori chicken goes in. It's fully cooked, you're just warming it back up again. At this
point I can make a final judgment on texture — I wanted to add some more water to loosen
it up some more.
Look at that: glossy, rich, roasted, sweet, sour, umami — it has ALL THE FLAVORS. A
little rice on the plate, chicken and sauce to the side or on top, you do you. And because
I am one of those people who genetically does not perceive cilantro as tasting like soap,
I will rain down a heavy carpet of beautiful green leaves.
And that tastes not like a suitable substitute for the restaurant product. That tastes like
the restaurant product. There's tons of leftovers, too. Tandoori chicken the first night, tikka
masala the next night — it is as natural to the home kitchen as it is delicious. You
gotta try it.