Chook! Tandoori!

About 1.5 weeks ago, I bought a big tub of plain yoghurt, supposedly to use it for oatmeal masque, but I don't need that much of yoghurt. Instead of wasting the yoghurt and doing nothing about it, I decided to set a new challenge in my culinary adventure; cook tandoori chicken! Despite my kitchen does not have a tandoor, and I am still having the love and hate relationship with the oven but I'm willingly to take a leap of faith and make mistakes along the way.

Getting the right ingredients, especially the spices is quite important. Please boycott marketplace at Raffles City when comes to getting spices. They're selling a small bottle of cardamon seeds at S$14.00 (7 euros) That's absolutely daylight robbery! Maybe I should post this highlight in SG expat forum or something. Anyway, I paid less than S$2 for the cardamon seeds that I used.

For the ingredients, you need cloves, chilli powder (you may use ceyanne powder), about 6 table spoon of plain yoghurt, lemon juice, cardamon seeds, coriander powder, cummin seeds, mashed garlic and ginger, salt, grounded pepper. Not forgetting, we need our dear CHOOK! Chop it! Please trim off the visible chicken fat.

Pretty easy steps
clean the chicken and stab it, strategically, of course. Mix the chilli powder, some salt and ground pepper. Massage your chicken with the mixture. Yes, after all that stabbing, you massage the chicken with love and tenderness.

Following after that, use a big container/round container. It's wise to use a container because you could just cover the container and leave it in the fridge for the marination.

Now it's time to make the key mixture which consists of yoghurt, lemon juice, cloves, cardamon seeds, cummin seeds, coriander powder, mashed garlic and ginger, grounded pepper and salt. Once it's ready, add the chicken. I wanted the dish to be slightly spicy and also to look abit more red, hence, I added abit more chilli powder.

One important tip: Marinate the chicken for at least 8 hours or overnight. (not more than 2 days) Thaw the marinated chicken for 30 minutes before grilling it.

Preheat the oven to over 450 degrees, and the cooking time is 45 minutes. Check the chicken once in awhile while it's cooking in the oven and brush it with alittle bit of olive oil after you drain the excess marinade.

Serve it with garlic couscous and some chopped yellow peppers, onions, tomatoes and cucumbers.

Time to put on some punjab music, raise your hands and move your shoulders.