Cooking with Dr. Monkey

Today's episode: chicken tikka masala.

I stared by mixing my yogurt based marinade.  I used one cup of plain Greek Yogurt, to which I added about a quarter cup of water, a tablespoon of lemon juice, heaping tablespoons of cumin, Cayenne pepper, cinnamon, a teaspoon of ground ginger, and a couple teaspoons each of cracked black pepper an sea salt.  I then put my boneless skinless chicken thighs in it and sloshed them all around so they got evenly coated.  I then put the chicken in the fridge to marinate for an hour.

After the chicken had been marinating for an hour I started the sauce by melting a tablespoon of margarine in my frying pan.  To that I added one clove of minced garlic and one seeded and ribbed Serrano pepper.  Then I added two tspns of cumin, paprika, and sea salt.  I then added one cup of my hone canned tomatoes that I had liquefied in my food processor.  As that heated up I stirred in one cup of heavy cream.  I let that simmer.

I cooked my chicken over a medium heat while the sauce was simmering.

I chopped up some cauliflower and about a third of a zucchini and I added it to my simmering sauce.   When the chicken got done I cut it into bite sized bits and add it to my simmering sauce.  I also tossed in about a half a cup of frozen peas.

After about 10 minutes more of simmering I served my tikka masala over some rice.

The verdict: Holy hell what a delicious dish.  It's fragrant, flavorful, and filling.  I used about a pound and a half of chicken thighs because of I like their flavor and the fact they have a bit of fat on them.  The fat adds to the flavor.  I didn't grill my chicken like most recipes call for because it's cold as fuck out and I didn't want to go through that extra step.  I actually cut back on the spices in this dish, the recipe called for double what I put in the marinade, but it was still flavorful and not spicy hot at all.  Next time I'll cut back a little on the salt and use chunkier tomatoes and more of them.  I also serve it with some kind of flat bread to soak up the tikka masla sauce.

This recipe wasn't at all hard or complicated and it's much tastier than any factory made canned tikka masala sauce I ever had. I'll definitely make this again, maybe even for company.