Tandoori chicken - and the tandoor
"Tandoor cooking uses four distinct techniques. Direct heat rises from the charcoal, a process akin to grilling. The hot clay walls of the oven cook bread, similar to griddling or skillet-roasting. Radiant heat in the belly of the tandoor produces results similar to convection baking. And smoke, which occurs as the marinade and meat juices drip onto the hot coals, adds fragrance and flavour." Steven Raichlan - New York Times
The older son and family are coming to dinner so I am making a family favourite -Tandoori Chicken. Well we call it Tandoori Chicken but, of course, it isn't really. It's Charmaine Solomon's recipe that I have followed for very many years now. Really it's roast chicken marinaded in yoghurt and Charmaine Solomon's tandoori spice mixture. And one thing that I have found whilst researching this is that there are a thousand and one spice mixes out there.
But still speaking of sons. My younger son - well both of them really - were very conservative eaters in their teenage years. My husband and I loved Indian food - well we are British - and so we often went to our favourite Indian restaurant Haveli, and we often dragged our boys along. Initially it was really hard to get the younger one to eat anything, but eventually he succumbed and agreed to eat Tandoori Chicken. It was the only thing he would eat and he wouldn't share. Curiously now that they have grown he is the more adventurous one in Indian restaurants - he will try almost everything, although it has to be eaten with naan, no rice. The other one will now only eat Chicken Butter Cream - but then I believe this is Tandoori Chicken with a sauce.
Anyway, because my younger son had grown to like 'genuine' Tandoori Chicken I decided to make it at home - albeit without a tandoor, and so I turned to Charmaine Solomon who was one of my first teachers in Indian cooking. In her book Indian Cooking for Pleasure she has a whole lot of curry pastes and spice mixtures, and one of these is for what she calls Tandoori Mix. Which is what I use to this day. Here it is.
2 teaspoons turmeric, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder (optional), 1 teaspoon garam masala, 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, 1/2 teaspoon powdered saffron (optional), 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder. Mix it all together and store in a jar.
When it comes to cooking time you use 1 teaspoon of the spice mix to 1/4 cup yoghurt (3 for a meal for four), + lots of crushed garlic and a teaspoon of grated ginger. I also add some chopped herbs - parsley, dill or mint - but that's just my addition. Marinate and roast in the oven. Easy peasy and delicious.
An authentic tandoor oven is a clay and mud contraption, placed on the ground and in which a charcoal fire is lit. The oven looks rather like one of those ancient Greek amphorae but with a rather wider top. The fire is lit a couple of hours before needed - it reaches temperatures of around 400ºC which, as you know, is extremely hot. Bread is slapped on to the sides and meat, fish and vegetables are put on long skewers that are inserted into the oven or balanced over the top. I read, and I can well imagine it is true, that it takes great skill to get the balance right between cooked to perfection, raw or burnt. As my quote at the top describes the cooking meat and bread gets extra flavour from the aroma and the smoke of the fat and the spices that drip on to the coals. These days, of course, you can get gas fired or electric versions, but these won't produce the same wonderful flavour. So really you should check whether your favourite Indian restaurant uses charcoal or more modern gas or electricity. I, of course am making no pretence at being authentic. And I'm not even going to cheat and buy some premade naan. I'm going to try once again to make my own chapattis. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. As backup there will be rice.
Speaking of naan though I always find it somewhat miraculous that the bread stays stuck to the wall of the oven and doesn't drop off into the flames.
The other bonus of tandoor ovens in Indian restaurants is that they are usually placed behind a glass window and you can see the cooking in action - which provides wonderful entertainment for your small grandchildren as they wait for their food to arrive. Probably seeing it cooked in this way might also tempt them to eat it. Or is that wishful thinking?
It's a very ancient way of cooking - I saw one article that said 5000 years. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether Persia or the Punjab, or Rajasthan has the honour of being the first to use it. But its use is definitely widespread across the Middle East and central Asia. I think there seems to be some agreement that the modern craze began after partition in India when Pakistanis fled to Delhi, bringing their tandoors with them. Madhur Jaffrey for one, said that they were unknown in her childhood in Delhi.
This is her marinade:
1 medium onion, chopped and blended in a food processor with 6 cloves garlic and 4cm fresh ginger, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 225g yoghurt, 1 tbsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground turmeric'1 tsp garam masala, 1/4 tsp ground mace, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4-1/2 tsp cayenne (to taste), 2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp black pepper. 1/2-1 tsp orange food colouring (optional).
Her cooking method is to barbecue, but I'm sure you could roast in the oven too.
Then there's Jamie (well he is British), and Yotam Ottolenghi - both of whom have recipes. Interestingly Yotam Ottolenghi's article was all about trying to get teenagers to eat - and cook - more adventurously. Also interestingly Jamie has a recipe that simply uses a bought Tandoori spice mixture. For, of course, you can buy this these days - or a tandoori paste - in jars. No need to make up your own. It's all done for you. Well you can also buy it frozen, semi prepared or as a takeaway from your favourite Indian restaurant. Jamie and Yotam's efforts are shown below - Jamie on the left and Yotam on the right:
You can, of course cook other things than chicken this way. My current favourite when we dine at Haveli is the Tandoori Salmon - large chunks from a skewer. They are absolutely delicious. Here are some prawns, which I'm sure are good too.
Anyway got to go and make the bread and the onion salad to go with it.
