Chicken Tikka Masala

I've been cooking my own Indian food for a few years now. People are always impressed that I make my own Indian dishes at home, but to me it's not too much more time consuming or difficult than making spaghetti. But maybe it's because I don't make it "the right way". I don't know if I do or not because I essentially made up my Chicken Masala and Paneer Masala recipes. I just kind of follow my gut and my palate and go for it.

But if you are interested in making it a little more complicated, I have been known to make my own paneer (cheese). That can easily replace the chicken in this dish. It's actually pretty easy, and it saves you $$$ from buying expensive paneer in the stores. Tonight, though, I made this dish with Chicken. Making your own paneer does take a little bit of pre-planning and is not possible when you are searching for last minute dinner ideas.


Ingredients
2 Chicken Breasts, cut into chunks
1 Tbsp Butter
1/2 medium Onion, chopped
1/2 Red Pepper, chopped
1 tsp Garlic, chopped
1 tsp Ginger Paste
1 can Tomato Paste
1 cup Plain Yogurt
2 Cloves
2 Cardamom Pods
1 small stick of Cinnamon
2 Tbsp Garam Masala
2 tsp Cumin
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp of sugar
salt and pepper
Garnish with Cilantro or Mint



Directions
Add butter, onion, cloves, cardamom pods, and cinnamon into a large saute pan. Heat for a few minutes and then add the Chicken pieces. As the chicken is cooking, add the red pepper, garlic, and ginger. At this point, I go ahead and start adding a majority of my spices in order to give a little flavor to the chicken. Once the chicken is thoroughly cooked, add the tomato paste (In the summer when my garden has an abundance of tomatoes, I make my own tomato puree which is much more flavorful. However, its January and canned tomato paste is fine. Fine.) Then add the yogurt, lemon juice, and any remaining spices that you failed to add above. Then I add a little bit of sugar or sucanat. I don't think any real Tikka Masala dishes call for sugar, but I have this need to add sugar to any tomato base recipe. Probably the result of years of eating my mother's cooking (see previous post).

Anyhow, now is probably a good time to dip your finger in the pan and taste the concoction to see if it may need to be tweaked to meet your specific Indian taste preferences. A little more cumin? A pinch more garam masala? Maybe you want to make it super spicy and add one of these. Whatever you want. It's your homemade Indiana dish. I normally garnish with cilantro or mint leaves, but I, again, seeing as it is January, didn't have any fresh off hand from the garden. Thus we had to do without. It was still pretty good, though.



The above picture is just after the yogurt was added. Mix the yogurt in throughly. I even sometimes add a little whole milk if it gets too thick. Once its done, serve over rice. Sometimes I make Indian Rice such as this or that. But tonight Ed wanted regular Basmati rice with just a little Olive Oil and Salt, and I obliged. You can take the Colombian out of Colombia but you probably shouldn't really mess with his rice too much.



Ed's Verdict: Ed loves Indian food and always enjoys when I make it. And just for memory sake... ahhhhh reminecent of a trip taken exactly two years ago this month!



Finally, just for fun I'm adding our dessert. We had Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Frosting courtesy of Betty Crocker (and a certain very helpful in the kitchen 4 year old wannabe baker.) Click here for some ideas on jazzing up a boxed cake!