A Must-Have Recipe for Your Indian Cooking Arsenal

Over the weekend, we had the opportunity to learn about the various and vital spices that make up Indian cuisine during our Indian Soul Food cooking class with Chef Navjot Arora at his restaurant, Old Monk, in Alphabet City.

We learned to make dishes such as Tandoori Chicken, Prawn Balchao, and Chana Masala.

Below is a recipe for Tandoori Chicken, where we learned, according to Chef Navjot, that any well-respected chef’s favourite part of the chicken is the neck. We’ll be eating more chicken necks in our future, and we hope you will too.

                                     TANDOORI CHICKEN

 INGREDIENTS                                                            QUANTITY

Whole Chicken                                                                    1

Hung yogurt/sour cream                                                 8oz

Red Chilli Powder                                                              1 tsp

Ginger Garlic Paste                                                           2 tbsp

Salt                                                                                         1.5 tsp

Coriander Powder                                                            1 tsp

Garam Masala                                                                   1 tsp

Cumin Powder                                                                  .5 tsp

Kasoori Methi (dried and crushed)                           .5 tsp

Oil                                                                                          2 oz

Lemon juice                                                                        1

METHOD

1. Skin the whole chicken, remove any excess fat and make serrations. You can cut the

whole bird into pieces to ease marinating and cooking

2. Make a paste of (ingredients 3 to 11), keep half aside and the other half rub the

chicken, making sure the paste goes inside the serrations or gashes as well, keep in

the refrigerator for 6 hours

3. Mix the hung yogurt or sour cream with the rest of the paste and coat the chicken

with the marinade

4. Cook the chicken in the tandoori oven or a preheated convection oven at 475 for 20

minutes or till the chicken is done

5. Serve with basmati rice