Ever have a cooking failure? As much as I would like to believe that I only know how to create amazing food, it does not always happen. Tonight was such a night. I am venturing into the world of Indian cooking. Indian food is still very foreign territory to me. I can eat it but when it comes to cooking it I am very lost. You see I'm not quite sure how all the various spices come together to make that distinctive Indian flavor. We were not taught Indian cooking in school. It is a cuisine that is probably hard to teach in culinary school where the chefs were all trained in the classic European technique. I don't have any friends of Indian descent and we all know authentic recipes are usually family recipes passed on from mother to child and not posted on the internet.
Despite all this I still wanted to test the waters. After all it was trial and error that helped me perfect my Thai red curry. So I searched and searched through various recipes for a chicken tikka masala. After doing my internet research and reading through such reliable sources as wikipedia, I discovered that tikka masala is not a true Indian dish. It is British in origin. It is said that a Bengali chef prepared chicken tikka for his clients. His clients sent it back and asked for a sauce. How can you serve meat that is not nappe with sauce? In order to appease the British palate, the chef created a sauce using Campbell's Cream of Tomato soup doctored up with a few Indian spices. I'm not sure if this legend is entirely true. Is Cream of Tomato popular in Great Britain?
With so many varying recipes I decided to stick with Savory Spice Shop's Tikka Masala blend as a starting point. I can then work from there. After all it is just a mixture of various spices. A co-worker speaks highly of the spice blends at Savory. Savory Spice Shop specializes in spices for the average home cook instead of supplying the Denver area restaurants. The blend contains: Spanish sweet paprika, cumin, coriander, ginger, guajillo chile, aji amarillo chile, garlic, turmeric, black pepper, black cardamom, charnushka, spearmint, cloves, mace, cinnamon and bay leaves.
The owner of the shop put together a recipe for using his blend. Below is his recipe.
Ingredients:
1lb. sliced chicken breast
31/2 -5 tbsp. tikka masala powder
1 1/2 tsp. honey
3 1/2 tbsp. tomato powder mix into 8 oz. water
2-3 tbsp. olive oil
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup half & half
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2mcup plain yogurt
12oz bag frozen vegetables or 2 cups of sauted, fresh bite-size vegetables
Directions:
Convert tikka powder into paste by following the instructions on the label and set aside. If using, thoroughly mix tomato powder, honey powder and water into a smooth sauce and set aside. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium/high heat. If sauting veggies, do so now and set aside. If using frozen, pop in microwave for 2-2 1/2 minutes. Next, lightly brown the sliced chicken on both sides and remove to a cutting board. Lower heat to medium, add veggies and stir in tikka paste. Cook for 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, cut chicken into bite-size pieces and stir into veggies. Next, stir in lemon juice, sea salt, your tomato choice and cook for 3-4 more minutes. Mix together the yogurt and the half & half in a small bowl. Reduce heat to a simmer and thoroughly stir in the yogurt mixture. Cover and simmer for 5-8 minutes stirring occasionally.
Serving Suggestions:
Over rice with chopped cilantro and pita, tortilla or naan bread. Start cooking rice simultaneously and it should be ready to serve when the tikka masala is complete.
You can use 3 1/2 to 5 tbsp. Tikka Masala powder depending on the level of heat and depth of flavor desired.
Recipe Summary:
Servings: 4
Total time: 1/2 hour
Thanks to: Mike Johnston, Savory Spice Shop Owner
Reflections:1. I didn't use vegetables because I've never had tikka masala with vegetables before. I did have some purple potatoes that I needed to use. Potatoes and chicken sounded like a great combination.
2. The tomato powder and water mixture made something that looked like canned tomato sauce. Is tomato sauce made from a mix?
3. 3 1/2 tablespoons of tomato powder was too much. It tasted too tomato-ey(?)
4. Since I added uncooked potatoes, I needed to add more water and cook it longer.
I wasn't thrilled about the flavor. Maybe it needs to sit in its own juices and all the flavors will then meld together. I could barely eat my dinner. I didn't finish it. Most of it went into the garbage disposal.
It is just not my cooking day. The second disaster was the rice. I've cooked hundreds of pots of rice and I'v'e never had a bad pot of rice. I put the basmati in my trusty rice cooker. As the water boiled, it created all these bubbles that threatened to lift the lid right off the pot. It looked really dry. I added more water. After the pot switched from cook to keep warm, I got a wet uncooked mess.
Both the rice and the potatoes & chicken in the tikka masala sauce was not entirely disgusting it just wasn't amazing. The rice was edible and the masala was bearable.
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