Tandoori Chicken

Shira mentioned a few weeks back that she wanted an excuse to make naan. You may be wondering why grilled garlic flatbread needs an excuse to be made. Two reasons: one, I will mercilessly mock a bread dinner (while eating a sandwich) and two, naan does not go well with many of the East Asian rice dishes I tend to make all of the time (sushi + naan, anyone?). When I first started making the naan, I made it to go with dahl back during my summer of vegetarianism. More recently, it's been a faithful companion of delicious lamb curry. I had some sort of mental block which prevented me from remembering which recipes I prepare to go with naan (yes, what sort of entree should I prepare to go with bread?) so I didn't make much of an effort to entertain the idea of naan dinner.
 
As previously mentioned, Shira nearly forgot to go to New Orleans. In what I can only assume was an attempt to distract herself from the intense awesomeness of rocketing to the top of her class of cadets at Space Academy, she picked up Cook's Illustrated Cooking For Two 2010 to read. While I think a lot of the "shortcuts" in Cook's Illustrated are wacky (or solved by buying the most expensive gadget) and sometimes the techniques are convoluted, it's hard to argue that I won't know how the recipe will turn out. I very much appreciate the rigorous testing a recipe goes through. I was quite excited to see a recipe for tandoori chicken because I it meant that I at last knew what to make with naan. I even had the chicken to do it with. A quick run to Weaver Street secured the yogurt but they were out of garam marsala. Luckily, CI provides an simple equivalent (well, simple if your spice pantry is full of curry spices) of coriander, black pepper, cinnamon, and cardamom.

I started the naan before Shira came home because even though the dough rises quickly, it takes forever to grill the naan because we don't have a large griddle. I made a modification to the recipe Shira posted below and used yogurt instead of milk (plus a tiny amount of extra water because the dough was a bit dry). The naan recipe I used before I found this one used yogurt and I wanted a bit of tang. The yogurt also made the naan easier to stretch (though it's not ever that difficult). Thanks, lactic acid. My next modification was to the yogurt sauce that went with this dish. Because I had half of a cucumber in the fridge, I looked up the raita recipe in a curry book that I have. While I had the book open, I checked out their version of Tandoori Chicken. It was very similar, save for the addition of paprika and red food coloring. I also did not have chili powder, so I used a combo of paprika and cayenne. I did not make a direct volume substitution, but the resulting chicken was pleasantly spicy.

The chicken was great, tangy from the yogurt and lime juice and deliciously spicy thanks to the cayenne pepper. The chicken was a little dry but that's usually what happens to chicken breasts. And there was raita to make up for it (and the heavy handed pepper). The pile of naan, which seemed to be in ridiculous excess, was decimated by the end of the meal. I was a bit sad to remove the skin from the chicken but I don't think it would have been crispy at the end of cooking. Another delicious meal at Ten Forward and one which did not require exhaustive efforts.

Tandoori Chicken
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen's Cooking for Two, 2010

Serves two

Raita
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I picked up low-fat by accident, feel free to be a fatty and use whole milk)
1 tbsp chopped cilantro
1 tbsp chopped mint
1 minced garlic clove
1/2 cucumber, grated, salted, and drained (see below)
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
salt and pepper to taste

Grate the cucumber coarsely. Cover with 1/2 tsp of salt and let sit for 30 minutes. Gently squeeze the excess water out of the cucumber. Combine with the yogurt, herbs, garlic, and spices. Taste for salt and add more if necessary (usually the salt on the cucumber is sufficient). Place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before use, to let the flavors combine.

Garam marsala
1 1/2 tbs whole coriander
1 cardamom pod
1/2 tsp whole peppercorns
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

Heat a small skillet over medium heat. When the skillet is hot add the coriander, cardamom seeds (remove them from the pod), and peppercorns. When almost done toasting, add the cinnamon powder. Remove from the skillet one the coriander starts to lightly brown. Grind the spice mixture together.

Chicken
2 tbsp oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp minced fresh ginger
1 1/2 tsp garam marsala (either what you have on hand or the mix above)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup plain yogurt
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1 tsp salt
2 bone in, split chicken breasts, cut in half (You will most likely find these with the skin on. Just remove it)

 1.) Heat the oil in a skillet at medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and cook for about half a minute. Add the garam marsala and cook for another thirty seconds. Remove the skillet from the heat.

2.) Trim the ribs from the chicken using poultry shears. Score the chicken pieces with a knife, making cuts about one inch apart and 1/8 inch deep. Combine the rest of the spice paste, lime juice, and salt. Rub this mixture on the chicken pieces and let marinade for 30 minutes at room temp.

3.) Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a sheet pan with foil (to catch chicken drippings) and place a baking rack on top of it.

4.) After the chicken has finished its thirty minute marinade, dip the pieces in the yogurt coating (from step 1, not the raita). Place skinned side down on the rack and bake for 15-25 minutes or until the chicken breasts reach an internal temperature of 125 degrees.

5.) Remove the chicken, turn the pieces over, and turn the oven to broil. Once the broiler has heated up, put the chicken on the top rack under it and broil for 8-15 minutes or until the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees.

6.) Let rest for ten minutes at room temperature and serve with the raita.

Grilled Garlic Naan

I really, really love naan. I had never made it myself before moving to Ten Forward with the Captain - she found this recipe online a few summers ago, and sometime in the past year it turned from one of the things that she is usually in charge of making from one of the things I am usually in charge of making, which in my opinion is pretty great. Most likely I started making it under her supervision because I wanted her to teach me, then it just became habit. Regardless, naan is wonderful and this recipe is pretty stellar. It is rather time consuming - very much a slaving over a hot stove/grill type of thing - but I think it's worth it and I'm always confused about why we don't make it more often. I had been mentioning for a while that we needed to make something it would go well with, then Monday I came home from a trip to New Orleans (which I almost forgot to go on! This is true.) with a copy of the latest America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated Cooking for Two magazine which had a pretty excellent looking tandoori chicken recipe ins. Captain Letdown made that, and started the naan while I was at work, and I took it over when I got home. Also there was raita, but I believe she's going to be posting about the chicken and the raita, since she made them. It was a very excellent food evening, and there was much naan-documenting, so here we are. Incidentally, this makes an extremely good amount of naan. Four people (maybe three, I can eat a pretty spectacular amount of naan) who love bread can finish it off in one sitting, but the leftovers are excellent, so we never cut the recipe down.


Grilled Garlic Naan
original recipe

2.25 t (teaspoons) active dry yeast (this is the equivalent of one packet, if you don't buy by the jar like we do)

1 cup warm water (like any bread recipe, you want this to be lukewarm to skin temperature, but not hot, which will kill your yeast)

1/4 cup white sugar

3 T (tablespoons) milk

1 egg

2 t salt

4.5 cups bread flour

oil for the bowl and the grill

2 t minced garlic (optional, but really, why wouldn't you)

1/4 cup butter, melted

     About three hours before you want to be eating naan, start by proofing the yeast - dissolve it into the warm water with a pinch of your sugar and let it stand about ten minutes, or until it's frothy and excited. I usually just proof in the liquid measuring cup I was measuring the water into. If it doesn't get frothy and excited, either your water was too hot and you killed the yeast, or the yeast wasn't good to start with. Try again!

      While the yeast is proofing, whisk together your flour, salt, and the rest of the sugar in a large bowl. Add your egg - either it should be already beaten, or you can push the dry ingredients to one side, add the egg to the empty side, and beat it there. I do this because I am lazy and want to wash fewer dishes. Add the milk and the yeast, when it's proofed, and stir it together to make a soft dough. Knead it together until it's smooth, about 6-8 minutes.

 You can transfer it to a lightly floured surface, or do it right in the bowl (again, fewer dishes) if your bowl makes this practical - that is, if it's large enough and not sharply angled. The bowl really should be pretty big, as the doubled dough is sizable. We use a giant metal mixing bowl we somehow inherited from Mary Menville. Oil your bowl pretty well (before you move it back, or just pick the dough up for a minute) and put the dough in it, turn it over to get both sides with oil (this keeps it from drying out during the rise) and cover your bowl with a damp towel or cloth (this also keeps it from drying out during the rise.)

Put it somewhere  warm and draft free and let it rise until doubled in volume - this takes roughly an hour, depending on how active your yeast is and how warm your rising spot is. We tend to put rising dough in the oven, with just the oven light on to generate a bit of warmth. Towards the end of this time you should prepare your garlic, if you're using it, which you should.

       When the dough is doubled, punch it down and knead in the garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough and roll them into balls about the size of a golf ball, and place them on a tray (we use two baking sheets) to rise again, once more covered by damp towel(s). 

This rise, also until doubled in size, should only take about half an hour. Toward the end of this time you should preheat your grill - as you can see in the pictures, we use a cast iron grill pan on the stovetop, which I keep at medium to medium high heat. The original recipe says high heat, but our heavy cast iron gets very hot, so medium high is plenty. Due to the melted butter that's coming up, the recipe generates plenty of smoke even without actually burning your naan, so, you know, watch out for that. We usually end up cracking a window, but we've never set off the smoke alarm making this (hooray!).
 

     When your balls of dough are doubled and your grill is hot, lightly oil the grill and melt the butter and put it and a brush of some sort by the grill. Now is when the slaving over a hot stove comes in. Also the smoke. Take the first ball of dough, and stretch it with your hands (the original recipe says roll it out, but I think this works better) into as thin a circle as you can -

I look for maybe five to seven inches across, and the circle idea can get pretty vague. Many of mine end up shaped approximately like one continental mass or another. So, the stretching: I start by flattening the dough a bit with my palms, then grasping the edges of the disk between my thumb and forefinger and putting my other fingers under the edge and then spreading them apart a bit. Turn a bit, repeat, turn, and so on until it's about as thin and regular as it seems like it's going to get. I hold it at the top and let gravity stretch the bottom a little at the same time. It ends up with a bit of a thicker rim around the edge, but that's fine. Alternately, stretch or flatten them however works for you. Regardless, flatten the first one, then place it flat on the grill.

Brush some melted butter on the exposed side. Let it cook until it gets a bit puffy and the bottom is nicely grill marked, one to three minutes (this is when I start stretching the next piece of naan) turn it (I use tongs) and brush the newly exposed other side with butter. Grill until this side is marked and doesn't look like raw dough - this will be shorter than the first side, maybe just a minute. Remove to a plate, and place your next piece on the grill, and repeat the whole process over (and over and over!). When all the naan has been grilled, feast upon it with gladness. (Illustration: a happy girl with a massive pile of naan.)