Chicken Tikka Masala

My adventures in Indian food continue, along with the Naan I made Chicken Tikka Masala. I've been told by several of my friends that I would really like Chicken Tikka Masala so I decided to give it a whirl. You know what? They were right I really enjoyed this dish. Really, what's not to love about this dish?! It has tomatoes (good), butter (really good), and heavy cream (which in my book makes any dish amazing!).

This recipe calls for a garlic ginger paste. This paste consists of a whole head of garlic, half cup of ginger and canola oil. I took all of these ingredients in a food processor and blended until it became a paste.

This paste is pungent, in a good way the aromas of garlic and ginger paired really nicely together. I was a little concerned about the amount of paste this recipe makes, not to worry. This paste is used in both the chicken marinade and the curry sauce.  So by the time I was done with dinner I didn't have any paste left.

Now that the paste is made its time to marinade the chicken. I took one pound of boneless skinless chicken thighs and cut it up into bite size chunks. 

Now its time to add the chicken to the marinade. The marinade is really simple just plain yogurt, the ginger garlic paste and salt and pepper. 

Side note: Whitney Houston's the greatest love of all is on right now and I am belting it out at this very moment. Okay now that I have that out of my system back to the meal. The chicken needs to marinade for at least thirty minutes but can marinade over night in the refrigerator. While the chicken is doing its thing. I start prepping the ingredients for curry sauce.

Now I take a large deep skillet and add olive oil and what I thought was a lot of butter to the pan. 

once the butter is melted I added the garlic/ginger paste along with two Serrano peppers to the pan to sautee.

This mixture cooks until it starts to darken in color. Once that happens its time to add the tomato paste!

Once the tomato paste is added cook for about three more minutes, and then add the garam masala and paprika and cook for one more minute to draw out the flavors of the spices.

Now I added the chopped tomatoes about eight roma tomatoes, my grocery store was out of organic romas so I used traditional tomatoes instead and since they were bigger I only used five. Along with the tomatoes I added a one cup of water to the pan.

Now I wait, this has to simmer for twenty minutes. While that is simmering its time brown the chicken. The recipe tells me at this point to fire up my grill. Which I don't have so I used the next best thing my cast iron skillet. Seriously if you do not own a cast iron skillet get one! I use mine so much for all kinds of things. Plus you can't make naan without one. 

Back to chicken thighs, since I don't have a grill I had to brown them in batches. After shaking off the excess marinade I placed them in the hot skillet browning on both sides for two minutes

Once chicken is browned I put it on a plate and set it aside, because it was time to get back to my curry!

The curry has simmered for twenty minutes and now its time to blend it until smooth. The recipe said I could put it into a blender or use an immersion blender. I opted for the immersion blender because its easier to clean. Let me tell you the blender would have been a better choice because the immersion blender ended up splattering curry all over me and my stove. Oh well you live and you learn.

This is what it looked like after I blended it. Not as smooth as it should be, but I was sick of curry splattering on me so I figured this was good enough. Now its time to add the chicken and let it simmer for ten more minutes (a lot of simmering with this recipe). 

Now for the good stuff the heavy cream oh yeah this takes the sauce to the next level oh how I love me some heavy cream!

All that's left is to stir until cream is combined and EAT! I poured the curry over basmati rice and served it with my freshly cooked naan. 

The night I made this dinner it was cold and rainy and it was the perfect dinner to have on a chilly fall night. It was very warm and comforting! Oh and the next day I took the left overs to my friend Sarah for lunch and she let her co-workers at Merrill Lynch try some and she called to tell me that they loved it! I take this as a huge compliment because she and her co-worker love Indian food and said mine was good. So hey I may have a future in Indian cuisine, who knew?

I enjoyed making this dish, but even more than that I enjoyed eating this dish. I have a feeling I'll be making this again long after Indian food week is over.