Tikka Chicken

For the Tikka Paste 

this will make about 1 cup so I usually double or triple the batch as we eat this sort of food a lot in my house.

2 tablespoons coriander seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 ¹⁄₂ tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons paprika
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons chili powder
¹⁄₂ teaspoon turmeric
1 tablespoon dried mint
¹⁄₄ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
3 drops red food coloring ( I leave this out)
3 drops yellow food coloring ( I also leave this out)
²⁄₃ cup wine vinegar
²⁄₃ cup vegetable oil

What to do:

1. Grind coriander and cumin seed to a fine powder.
2. Add remaining spices, mint and salt, stir well.
3. Mix in lemon juice, food color, wine vinegar, and 2 tbs water to make a thin paste.
4. Heat oil in pan, stir fry paste for 10 minutes until all water is absorbed. when oil rises to the top, the paste is cooked.
5. Allow to cool before storing in air tight jars.    

 Once you have your paste made and ready to use . you can make chicken tikka in 10 minutes flat .. and for this I use a wok . and you want a good quality one, not one of those flimsy non stick jobs. so invest in a good quality wok and you won't look back . Woks work better on a gas stove with a high flame  they need to be smoking for best results.

To Make the Chicken Tikka you need:

Tikka Paste 1 cup

Plain Greek yogurt

4 whole chicken thighs cut into cubes

2 onions diced

1/2 green capsicum diced 

About 2 heaped tablespoons of tomato paste. ( If you don't have any use condensed tomato soup, I have and it doesn't make much difference)

Red chillies. this is optional  but I usually add 2 or 3  sliced and depending how hot the chilli is depends whether I leave the seeds in or not ..for this batch the chillies were small and super hot so I deseeded them first.. ( make sure you wash your hands after handling them though)

So now your set to go ...

What to do:

1.Coat the chicken bits with a little of the paste and pop in in the fridge for a couple hours to marinate.

2. Get you work nice and hot . add a little bit of oil  (I use sesame or vegetable)

3.pop the marinated chicken in the wok and cook for a few minutes tossing with a metal spatula. Once it starts to brown pop in the onions, capsicum and chillies, continue cooking until the onions start to brown.

4. Add the rest of your tikka paste, the tomato paste or tomato soup, mix well and simmer until the chicken is cooked.

5. Add the yogurt, mix well. until it is heated through and serve with either fried rice, vegetable rice,  boiled rice or my favorite yellow rice.. which is just rice done in the rice cooker with turmeric. chopped coriander and extra yogurt if desired.

Tikka Chicken

Tikka Chicken with vegetable rice