Cooking at Home

After eating out most of last week, or eating whatever was easy to cook (like hotdogs). I decided today to make some good food. So tonight is Indian food night. Of course I'm making Chicken Tikka Masala which is about as Indian as General Tso's is Chinese. That doesn't stop it from being good.

Chicken Tikka Masala

Serves : 4

Ingredients

6 Chicken thigh pieces (boneless) (Or use some boneless skinless chicken breasts)

Marinade

• 6 tbsp. Yogurt
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tbsp Garlic paste
• 1 tsp red chili powder
• 1 tbsp Garlic paste
• 2 tbsp Ginger paste
• 1 tsp Cumin Powder
• 1 tsp Curry Powder (Garam Masala)
• 4-5 tsp lemon juice
• Salt to taste

For Gravy

• 2 Tomatoes(chopped)
• 1 Onion
• 1 tsp Ginger-garlic paste
• ½ tsp. Cumin powder
• ½ tsp. Coriander powder
• ¼ cup Milk
• 1 tsp Sugar
• Salt to taste

Directions

Chicken tikka masala is a two step process, Tikka and Gravy. Grilling the chicken definitely flavors this dish but if you do not have a grill, you could use any oven too. Once you have your chicken grilling, you could start the gravy process in parallel. (I usually just cook the chicken in a pan)

1. Cut chicken into smaller pieces. Drain any water.
2. Mix all ingredients for the marinade and add chicken into it. Set aside for at least 1 hour
3. Grill chicken on hot grill (barbecue) to golden brown. Baste butter (or oil) frequently to ensure that chicken remains tender and moist. Do not overcook.
4. Heat oil and add ginger, garlic paste. Fry a little and add chopped onions.
5. Keep heat on high to slightly caramelize the onions. Caramelizing onions enhances its flavors for this dish.
6. When onions turn golden, add chopped tomatoes and keep frying on medium heat until the oil separates.
7. Add cumin and coriander powder. Mix
8. Add salt and sugar and drop the chicken tikka pieces in it.
9. Let it simmer for 5 minutes on low heat and let the flavors mingle a little.
10. Increase heat to high and incorporate milk slowly. Stirring continously.
11. Once the gravy is of right consistency, reduce heat to low. Prepare any garnish
12. Serve with basmati rice. In the event you don't have basmati rice, white rice will do.
    

(Another hint, if you decide to cook basmati rice you should rinse it as it's a very starchy rice. Rinse it with cold water until the water stops being cloudy.)

I'd have a photo of the food, but my one camera has a dead battery, and my good camera's busted.

Podcasts

Today I thought I'd mention a couple of interesting Podcasts.

The first is the MPR's "The Current" Song of the Day podcast. They feature a variety of music from both local (MN) and other artists. The music tends to be pretty good and given they release one song every day it doesn't take long to accumulate a nice collection of free tunes from them.

I also enjoy listening to the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. This podcast features well Irish and Celtic music and comes out once or twice a month. Unlike the MPR podcast it's usually about a one hour solid block of music. Doesn't work as well as MPR for fitting in with the rest of my music, but it's still fun to listen to.

On a less musical note I enjoy listening to NPR's weekly radio news quiz show Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This radio show features current events, and special guests along with some wacky news. Where else would you ever learn about the Burqini, or scented tires so you can burn some lavender rubber? Plus special guests such as "Elmo", Tony Snow, and Associate Justice Stephen Breyer always have something interesting to say.

That's it for now, I might have some more podcast fun later. All the podcasts are available on iTunes along with through the links I've posted here.

The Light It Burns

Well apparently I've finished my transformation into a creature of the night. It appears that spending a couple hours outside in the morning is enough sunlight to cause a large amount of sunburn on my arms and face. Apparently, our ozone layer has shrunk a bit compared to when I was younger as it used to take a lot more sun before I'd burn, that or I'm now a Vampire.