Chicken / Tofu Tikka Skewers With Curry House Rajita, Onion Salad and Spiced Carrots
An Indian-inspired feast
Welcome, Sauciers! Today’s recipes are your monthly freebie, available to both free and paid subscribers.
Full access to every recipe (we’re hitting the 200 recipe mark soon) is available to our wonderful paid subscribers (have I thanked you recently?) of which you can become one here :
Like many Brits, I have a healthy obsession with food from India. Many of us do — thanks to the British rule over India, the “curry house” became a staple of our culture.
I miss British curry houses. I know they’re not the best example of Indian cuisine and I know many of them look like Indian-themed restaurants, but I love them with all my heart.
Living in Porto, there is only one decent curry house (that I have found so far) and unfortunately, it’s still only OK. So I’ve taken to recreating British curry house dishes at home.
Like this tikka marinade.
Chicken Tikka Masala is so popular in Britain it’s considered one of our national dishes.
But this is chicken tikka, not tikka masala. Masala refers to the sauce the tikka chicken is cooked in. Apparently this was originally to appease Brits’ desire for meat in gravy (CTM was invented in Britain, not India).
The tikka part is what I’m more interested in. Protein marinaded in spiced yoghurt and cooked in a tandoor oven.
In lieu of building a tandoor oven on my balcony — or even having space for a BBQ — I make this on the stovetop. Not as smoky in flavour but it works and my neighbours don’t hate me as much.
My preferred protein is chicken but you can make it with tofu too. In fact I often do because tikka tofu with a little squeeze of lemon makes for a great starter. You’ll find both recipes below.
And because poppadums and their accoutrements are one of my favourite parts of the curry house experience, I’m also sharing a recipe for rajita and onion salad.
Finally, a bonus spiced roasted carrot recipe.
Tikka marinade
Makes enough for 4-6 small skewers as part of a wider meal. Scale up if you’re hungry
1 tsp coriander seed
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 - 1/2 tsp chilli powder (depending on how how you like your marinade and the spice level of your powder)
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp turmeric
150g / approximately 3/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/2 tbsp olive oil
Generous pinch of salt
Toast the coriander seed in a hot, dry frying pan until you can smell the aromatics. Grind into a coarse powder using a pestle and mortar, or as I like to do in my low-tech kitchen, with the end of a rolling pin.
Add everything to a mixing bowl, stir, and your marinade is complete.
How to make the skewers
Chicken tikka
The marinade is enough for up to 300g of meat. I used chicken breast (the equivalent of one large breast) but you can also use thigh.
Chop the meat into bite-size pieces (just under an inch dice). Add them to the marinade and stick in the fridge for as long as you have. Half an hour is good, a couple of hours is better, but there is no hard and fast rule.
Take wooden skewers and snip them to fit the cooking vessel of your choice, which in my case is a hot frying pan on my hob (but you could BBQ these).
Thread the chicken pieces onto the skewers whilst you heat your frying pan. Slug in some oil into there and get it nice and hot.
Place the skewers into the pan and don’t turn them for at least 2 minutes. You want to get colour on there. If you think the pan is getting too hot, turn it down a notch or two. You want to get those chicken pieces both coloured and cooked through but not burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.
Turn the skewers every couple of minutes until each side has some nice colour, crispy dark bits, and the chicken is cooked through. Mine took around 8-10 minutes.
Serve with a slice of lemon to cut through the yoghurty marinade.
Tofu skewers
The same principles apply as above but swap chicken for extra firm tofu cut into similar size dice. Chop, marinade, grill.
Marinade everything in sight
There is no reason why you couldn’t use the marinade on other meats like lamb chops or skewers. It also works on grilled vegetables or even the Indian fresh cheese paneer.
Curry house onion salad
Less of a recipe more of a chop-and-mix situation. Makes enough for 3-4 people
1/4 large English cucumber
1/2 small brown onion
1/2 a tomato (or the equivalent in cherry tomatoes)
4-5 mint leaves finely chopped
A sprig or two of fresh coriander finely chopped
Salt to season
The key to onion salad is the chopping. You want a steady hand which produces a small, even dice on the cucumber, onion and tomato.
You can make this onion salad in advance, stick it in tupperware in the fridge until you’re ready.
Rajita
There are hundreds of different rajita recipes but my favourite is the simplest of all. Makes enough for 3-4 people:
160g plain yogurt
80g cucumber (around 1/2 - 2/3 of a large English cucumber)
Pinch of salt
A pinch of dried or fresh, finely chopped mint
Dice the cucumber similar to the salad - very small. Mix all the ingredients
Variations on rajita include:
Add fresh coriander
Add a pinch of ground cumin and / or garam masala
Add a little fresh lemon juice
Swirl in a small amount of chilli powder
Spiced carrots
Serves 4
Approximately 10-12 carrots peeled and cut into batons
1 tsp each of ground coriander, ground cumin and whole fennel seeds
Salt and pepper to season
Optional - fresh coriander roughly chopped
Heat your oven to 180C/350F.
Mix all the ingredients except for the fresh coriander in enough olive oil to coat the carrots. Place on a baking tray. Stick the tray in the oven, turn the carrots every 10 minutes until cooked. This should take anything from 30-40 minutes.
Sprinkle the final dish with the coriander.
