Chicken tandoori with pickled onions.

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog, hope we all had a wonderful weekend. I am back with another yummy recipe, chicken tandoori with pickled onions! Now this recipe is not as authentic as the traditional one because I couldn't get all the spices and I don't have a tandoor :(. So I made use of what I had, used my oven as a tandoor  and added my own little twist :). If you are like me and just want a little bit of that Indian cuisine, definitely give this a try :).

So lets start with the ingredients needed:

• Three chicken leg quarters ( you can use other parts)
• One cup of plain yoghurt
• Half of a lemon
•  Fresh ginger ( enough for a tablespoon, blended or grounded into a paste)
• Two big cloves of garlic (blended or grounded into a paste)
• One chicken bouillon (optional)
• One teaspoon of salt
• One teaspoon of black pepper
• One tablespoon of dry paprika
• One teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• One teaspoon of turmeric
• One teaspoon of nutmeg powder
• One teaspoon cinnamon powder
• One teaspoon coriander powder
• Some cardamon seeds 
• A dash of dry thyme
• A dash of curry powder
• Mustard oil (mix a little mustard with vegetable oil if you can't find any)

STEPS

So we are going to make two marinades for this recipe. For the first marinade, wash your chicken and score them on both sides, put them in a bowl, squeeze in the half lemon, add in your chicken bouillon, a dash of salt, half of the one tablespoon of dry paprika, garlic and ginger. Mix everything together and let it sit for about 15 - 30 minutes.

For the second marinade, add in the one cup of plain yogurt in a bowl, add in your salt, the remaining dry spices and mustard oil. If you have garam masala spice available use it instead of the spices I listed above. Give everything a whisk and add it to your already marinating chicken and make sure the chicken is coated all round, like so

Some people like adding red food coloring to make the chicken appear red but I prefer the natural color.

Let this marinate for about one hour then preheat  your oven to about 180 degrees celsius for about 10 minutes. Add in your chicken and grill it till its dark brown and thoroughly cooked. It should take about 30 - 45 minutes. Don't forget to flip the chicken and dab oil on it from time to time. That's it for the chicken!

Now for the pickled onions, slice up half of an onion, add a dash of salt, 2 - 3 tablespoons of vinegar and a dash of black pepper(optional). Mix and let it sit for about 30 minutes and that's it! you can make a lot in a jar and just keep it in the fridge to use as a topping :) 

I hope you give this recipe a try and enjoy!!!