# Indian Chicken Tiki Masala



## erehweslefox (Jun 16, 2016)

***Edited to add, ingredient list****

2 cups chicken stock
2 tbsp butter
1 onion diced
3 lbs chicken
1 tbsp grated ginger
2 cloves garlic minced
1 tbsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp paprika
1 1/2 tsp corriander
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp cayanne
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 can Ro-Tell tomatoes, or equivalent diced tom and chille peppers
1 lb spinach, fresh or frozen
2-3 lemons
2 x 15 oz cans chick peas
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup cilantro fresh, or 2 tbsp dried (if using dried only use in recipe and don't garnish)
salt to taste


OK cooking friends, in my previously mentioned Quest to Use the Cheap Chicken I Got (see previous posts), this recipe stood out enough I wanted to make it a full post. Now I happen to have all these spices, mainly due to the fact that I shouldn't go to the Italian market down in Philly unsupervised. Wife attempts to enforce that, but it never really sticks. We have a hard decision on Chinatown after the Jellyfish debacle, but in my defense Jellyfish were ON SALE. I figured how hard can they be to prepare?

This uses a pressure cooker, and needs about three pounds of chicken total, or two if you are using just chicken breasts, it works with 4-6 legs and thighs or one roaster, once you pick the flesh off the bones. More on that later. 

Either in the pressure cooker on sear or low heat, or in a cast iron pan, sear the onions, garlic, and ginger, with the butter until the onions just turn soft. Add cumin, paprika, coriander, tumeric, Cayenne and pepper and cook on a low heat about 30 seconds until aromatic. Add tomatoes and spinach. Cover and cook about 3 minutes, more if using frozen spinach to thaw, fresh spinach should be wilted but still firm. 

Add to this half of cliantro, chx stock, and the chicken. Stir to combine. Cook at high pressure about 20 minutes, longer if using a whole chicken, slightly shorter (15 minutes) if using chicken breasts. 

Vent using quick release. If you are using a whole chicken, or legs and thighs, now is the time to remove bones and skin if you don't want them in the final product. My wife won't pick a chicken, so I normally fish the chicken out, strip the meat off, discard bones and skins (or reserve for stock later) and put the meat back in. 

Add Chick Peas, cream, 2 tbsp lemon juice and stir under a simmer until sauce thickens. If you like a thicker sauce, a bit of corn starch can thicken it up. salt now to taste for flavor, also adjust flavor to taste with other spices. I will simmer this lightly until the flavors come together, and then cool for about 10 minutes.

Just before serving add remaining lemon juice to taste, and garnish with remaining cilantro. Serve over rice or pasta. Both seem to work in my experience.

OK so this is obviously best with a combo of dark and white meat, and the fat that comes with using big ass chicken parts (well don't use the ass entire, that would be bad) rather than lean breasts. Some people in a dish like this like getting a couple drumsticks in their marsala, I don't, so the idea is after cooking (and capturing all those good skin fats etc...) to clean the flesh off the bones and get it back into the broth without it cooling off too much. 

I usually do this with 4-6 thighs and legs. Same procedure applies to whole chicken, just you have to be a little faster. 

Take a leg at a time, grab it with a slotted spoon, and put it onto a pie plate, I use a 10" pyrex one for this. Gives you room for work, and keeps the liquid the leg will shed in one place. 

You need two forks and a knife, one fork holds it, another works. So strip the skin off and put it to one side, scoop it up and throw it in the Tupperware for stock production, or chuck it. Get the four big pieces of meat off two on the drumstick and two on the thigh. Those get chopped up loosely and get thrown back in. Pull the bones on the thigh apart, and fish out the meat, same with that. These are hot, so you are going to have some ouchies if you get some practice you can do it with two forks. 

Run a fork along each bone, getting all you can, and meat goes in pot, bones go in the Tupperware for stock or into the trash. 

If you are doing a full chicken, cut everything off the carcass other than the breasts, and take them individual. The rest, use the same technique as above. 

The idea is you want to end up with white and dark meat, diced to about the same sizes, without bones, gristle, or large amounts of fat. I like using bone in for this, even though it is more inconvenient, as I think the end result tastes better with a mix of dark and white meat, not to mention the fats released cooking, and also when I make stock with the bones and fat from this recipe, which I save, it is spiced with the spices it was cooked in. Gives a subtle more spiciness to a stock. 

If I just gave my wife a thigh and drumstick on rice, with any preparation, she would just poke at it. She really hates taking meat off the bone. 

Now the advantages other than that of getting the meat off the bone in the cooking process? Makes this homogeneous, and thus easy to freeze. I normally serve this over rice, and mixing the leftover rice with the chicken, I usually get two portions out of this recipe for lunch. 

Cheers,

TBS


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## GotGarlic (Jun 16, 2016)

Tikka masala is good stuff 

May I suggest that you include an ingredient list with your recipe? It's a whole lot easier to follow when you know up front what you will need and how much. I'm a big fan of mise en place


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## erehweslefox (Jun 16, 2016)

GotGarlic said:


> May I suggest that you include an ingredient list with your recipe? It's a whole lot easier to follow when you know up front what you will need and how much. I'm a big fan of mise en place



Amusing story, I thought when I specified as a 'recipe' I entered all the ingredients. Didn't know that was just keywords! I thought that was the ingredient list. Editing to fix, ingredient list added. 

Mise en place is good, I always start with it. I hate to say it I often go off the rails, though. And how do you say in French, 'things I have in the fridge or the pantry?' It is very very rare I can assemble all the ingredients nicely, but hey I wish I could. Most of the time I start with what I have. Place on Recipe, if you will  This one has a good ingredient list. Thought I added it. 

Good luck if you try it, let me know. 

TBS


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## GotGarlic (Jun 16, 2016)

erehweslefox said:


> Amusing story, I thought when I specified as a 'recipe' I entered all the ingredients. Didn't know that was just keywords! I thought that was the ingredient list. Editing to fix, ingredient list added.
> 
> Mise en place is good, I always start with it. I hate to say it I often go off the rails, though. And how do you say in French, 'things I have in the fridge or the pantry?' It is very very rare I can assemble all the ingredients nicely, but hey I wish I could. Most of the time I start with what I have. Place on Recipe, if you will  This one has a good ingredient list. Thought I added it.
> 
> ...



Ha, that's great!  Since you can only edit for about 20 minutes after posting, you can ask a mod to add your ingredients list to other recipes you've posted.

I often replace ingredients in a recipe with what I have on hand as well ("ce que j'ai sous la main" en Français)  It's helpful to have amounts as a guide, though.


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## LizStreithorst (Jun 16, 2016)

I've made this exactly as  posted in my pressure cooker.  I can attest to the fact that the recipe is a keeper.


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## mcrx (Jan 4, 2017)

trying this one tonight. Not sure how great this cook made it, but it sounds like a great recipe!


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## Mad Cook (Feb 3, 2017)

The Wikipaedia account of the origins of Chicken Tikka Marsala is fun reading.


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## mcrx (Feb 12, 2017)

Mad Cook said:


> The Wikipaedia account of the origins of Chicken Tikka Marsala is fun reading.



haha no kidding!

"Place of origin	Uncertain; Indian Subcontinent or Scotland[1][2]"

"The origin of the dish is disputed. One of the explanations is that it originated in an Indian restaurant in Glasgow, Scotland,[2][4][8] but probably from the British Bangladeshi community which ran most Indian restaurants in the United Kingdom.[8]"

I'm sure it could be true! But, forgive me for being surprised. Pretty interesting indeed though! Another good perk to visiting UK maybe?


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## erehweslefox (Nov 17, 2017)

Indian cuisine as interpreted by a Scot, could be the story of my life...


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## taxlady (Nov 18, 2017)

erehweslefox said:


> Indian cuisine as interpreted by a Scot, could be the story of my life...


You have reminded me of a story. I was previously married to a Scotsman. His sister was visiting my M-I-L in Montreal, from Edinburgh. I was visiting with the two of them and they asked if I would like some supper, something "curried". My S-I-L assured her mother that the vegis would be properly cooked, not crunchy like in Chinese food. I promptly assured them that I wasn't hungry. Overcooked vegis with curry powder didn't sound the least bit appealing. But, SIL didn't overcook the veg and she used a curry paste and it smelled wonderful, so I said it smelled very good and could I try a little. It was, in fact, very good. I can't remember, but I think it was some sort of chicken curry. This is what I think of when hearing "Indian cuisine as interpreted by a Scot".


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## JustJoel (Nov 18, 2017)

I was inspired to look up the origins of chicken tikka masala by your post. I didn’t find anything definitive, just that it’s origins are disputed, and that it is considered to be Britain’s national dish by some. And I also found this amusing fact on Wikipedia (if one can consider the info on Wiki to be fact…)



> A tomato and coriander sauce is common, but no recipe for chicken tikka masala is standard; a survey found that of 48 different recipes, the only common ingredient was chicken.


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## Aunt Bea (Nov 18, 2017)

With a few tweaks this would be a good recipe to use up some of the leftover Thanksgiving turkey.


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## CraigC (Nov 19, 2017)

Mad Cook said:


> The Wikipaedia account of the origins of *Chicken *Tikka *Marsala* is fun reading.



Personally I'd leave out the "tikka" and have that.  Think we have a bottle of Marsala in the booze cabinet. Maybe Risotto Milanese with it.


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