Chicken tikka masala

A mildly spicy curry for those who do not like too much hotness. Not to be confused with chicken tikka, which is simply spiced chicken grilled on skewers. Extremely popular in the UK, where it can be considered a national dish. As with every curry, there are many variations of the dish - the only thing that they all have in common is an orange coloured sauce (masala). Here is my take on it, inspired by Hairy Bikers' recipe.

You'll need:

    one chicken breast

 For the marinade:

    4 spoons of natural yoghurt

    4 cm of ginger

    2 cloves of garlic

    black pepper

    cumin seeds

    ground fenugreek seeds

    ground coriander seeds

    cinnamon

    sweet paprika

    pepper cayenne

    one clove (crushed)

    turmeric

    salt

For the sauce:

    2 onions

    3 cloves of garlic

    4cm of ginger

    turmeric

    3 spoons of tomato concentrate

    1/2 glass of water

    a pinch of salt 

    a pinch of sugar

    2 spoons of sour cream 

    butter (for frying)

1. Cut the chicken breast into pieces, put in a bowl, add the spices and yoghurt and stir. Put aside in a fridge for at least 4 hours or better overnight.

2. To prepare the sauce, first chop the onions, garlic and ginger. Melt the butter on a frying pan and start by frying the onion for 3-4 minutes. Then add garlic, ginger and turmeric and fry for one more minute, being careful not to burn the spices. Add the tomato concentrate, pour the water and allow to simmer until the sauce reduces. At the end add the sour cream and stir. The sauce should have a nice orange colour. Put the sauce aside to cool down.

3. In the meantime prepare the chicken. It's best grilled. In home conditions you might either use a grill option in your oven if you have one, or alternatively (all other grilling options failing) fry it on grilling pan.

4. Before you add grilled chicken to the sauce, you need to blend it. The smoother the sauce the better! Then add the chicken and warm everything up again, e voila!

Bon appétit!