Curry Recipes Online

Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: Tomdip on May 19, 2011, 03:38 PM

Title: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Tomdip on May 19, 2011, 03:38 PM
I really like Chicken Tikka on its own or in a CTM, and Blade's recipe is cracking. 

But whenever I add tikka to a non creamy curry I really don't see any benefit to the curry.  I cant pick up any Tikka flavours and begrudge both the extra effort in making the tikka, and not getting the benefit of enjoying it in its unadulterated state.

I have noticed on BIR menus and on lots of recipes on here that I may be in the minority as adding Chicken Tikka to a curry seems to sex it up for a lot of people.

Do other peeps really notice the difference in adding Chicken Tikka to their madras, dansaks or vindaloos? 

Me I am happy with cheapo frozen chicken breasts, boiled and cubed :)
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Malc. on May 19, 2011, 03:55 PM
Like yourself and Phil, I prefer to eat tikka unadulterated served simply on a sizzler. Adding Tikka to any dish (including masala) seems odd to me, especially when being added to spicy dishes.

I have come to wonder about why restaurants are pushing this these days. Obviously there is a price hike so they are making more money but is it easier for them. Certainly if they are cooking it fresh straight from the marinade into the tandoor, it would certainly be more appealing to most consumers.
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: solarsplace on May 19, 2011, 04:28 PM
Hi

Pure unadulterated good quality chicken tikka served on its own as you quite rightly say is the bees knees.

There are some curries places near me that advertise chicken tikka madras and vindaloo, and I have to say I agree with you guys. Some dishes just should not be meddled with. They are just perfect with plain chicken.

However, there are several dishes that 'just work' and work well, such as your garlic chilli, roshney, jalfrezi with chicken tikka in place of plain chicken.

I guess some places just try to appeal to the non bir educated average punter and try to appear to do something a little special by offering odd combinations and tikka with everything.

Most weekends I will make a 1killo batch of Kushi or Blade tikka done on the BBQ and make dishes like the garlic chilli, or kushi rogan josh and the others mentioned above - personally for me I love the tikka in those types of dishes and its well worth the effort.

However, I still think you should'nt mess with the madras and vindaloo etc. Those should not be molested with tikka chicken - its just not right.

Cheers

Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: 976bar on May 19, 2011, 05:03 PM

However, I still think you should'nt mess with the madras and vindaloo etc. Those should not be molested with tikka chicken - its just not right.

Cheers

Hi Solarsplace,

I understand you're thinking but have to ask have you ever tried Chicken Tikka Madras? I love both the plain and the Tikka versions and find they just give a bit of variety when making Indian food all the time :)

And a lot more restaurants rightly or wrongly are making these dishes nowadays, I guess given the competition, they need to do something else, but it's still a nice alternative......
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Ramirez on May 19, 2011, 05:28 PM
I'm not fussed really and I don't really mind. I don't think adding Chicken Tikka to, say a Madras, improves the dish, but it does change it and it can be nice for a change (although I do think the change is subtle).

In terms of home cooking though, I never add Chicken Tikka to my mains. In fact, I am increasingly using raw instead of pre-cooked.
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: chewytikka on May 19, 2011, 06:50 PM
Hi All
IMHO Most BIR's are customer driven, that includes the choice on the menus, Its simple evolution over the last 30 years.

Chicken Curry used to come on the bone at one time, a waiter would ask On or Off the bone Sir,
then probably too many drunken customers were choking on bones, so that choice ended.

Then it became Dark meat or Breast, Sir. The answer being Chicken Breast please!
Even with an extra charge put on it, breast became normal, and the dark meat choice, by and large was dropped.

When the Tandoor was introduced, customers liked Tikka so much, they started asking for it in their curry, instead
of breast meat... Thus a whole new addition started appearing on menus.

And it didn't stop there, customers started asking for (Bloody Mixed Curries which really freaks me..)
Chicken,Lamb,Beef,Prawn Madras please, the Chef's chuckle and the owners charge a bit extra.

As for Chicken Tikka, lots of dishes have evolved purely because of "Chicken Tikka" and wouldn't
exist without it as a main ingredient.

Just like in my local, the Chef cooks a wonderful "Railway Lamb Curry" and I bet on occasion some Muppet will
ask for it made with Chicken Tikka or King Prawn or Spam or something.
And of course the restaurant will oblige, as long as they pay the 12.95 price tag.

So that's my little rant, its the customers fault. :-X
cheers Chewy
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Peripatetic Phil on May 19, 2011, 07:07 PM
So that's my little rant, it's the customers fault. :-X
Sadly, I agree.  And it all started with Chicken Tikka Masala.  How I long for the good old days, when a curry was a curry and a tandoori was a tandoori and ne'er the twain did meet ... 

In fact, they were so well segregated that at the Agra in Whitfield Street, it was extraordinarily difficult (indeed, often impossible) to get a chapatti with one's tandoori chicken instead of a naan.  Chapatti with curry : no problem; chapatti with tandoori -- no, sorry Sir, only naan ...

** Phil.
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: bamble1976 on May 19, 2011, 07:07 PM
Hi

I think the tikka can add something to the dish when you initially get the sauce flavour then a little bit of the tikka comes through!!  Again I think this shows how even on the forum the differing opinions on something as simple as this are vast.

Barry

p.s. I am that freak who loves a mixed meat curry!!  I just love meats!
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Stephen Lindsay on May 19, 2011, 09:02 PM
Having the usual curry fare with Tikka instead of plain chicken has also been on our menus for a while here in Scotland. Changes and developments are not necessarily a good thing though are they? Take the use of Pataks products in Tikka and Tandoori - it seems that this is widespread but in my opinion it represents the kind of dumbing down of menus that this thread talks about.
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: solarsplace on May 20, 2011, 09:19 AM

However, I still think you should'nt mess with the madras and vindaloo etc. Those should not be molested with tikka chicken - its just not right.

Cheers

Hi Solarsplace,

I understand you're thinking but have to ask have you ever tried Chicken Tikka Madras? I love both the plain and the Tikka versions and find they just give a bit of variety when making Indian food all the time :)

And a lot more restaurants rightly or wrongly are making these dishes nowadays, I guess given the competition, they need to do something else, but it's still a nice alternative......

Hi 976bar

Perhaps I was being a little harsh. I had a chicken tikka madras - and to be fair, it was very nice. I just thought that the restaurant was getting a bit silly as they were hybridding (is that a real word?) most of their dishes. Every dish seemed to be made of a combination of 2 or more other dishes.

Well, I probably exaggerate when I say every dish, but a fair few. But as Chewy points out, perhaps many of the clients are asking for these mixes and they are driven by the customer. Nothing wrong with it at all to be fair, as long as it is still possible to get the standard version of a dish if that is what you want.

Cheers
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: 976bar on May 20, 2011, 10:37 AM

However, I still think you should'nt mess with the madras and vindaloo etc. Those should not be molested with tikka chicken - its just not right.

Cheers

Hi Solarsplace,

I understand you're thinking but have to ask have you ever tried Chicken Tikka Madras? I love both the plain and the Tikka versions and find they just give a bit of variety when making Indian food all the time :)

And a lot more restaurants rightly or wrongly are making these dishes nowadays, I guess given the competition, they need to do something else, but it's still a nice alternative......

 Nothing wrong with it at all to be fair, as long as it is still possible to get the standard version of a dish if that is what you want.

Cheers

I couldn't agree more, it's still nice to get those "Authentic" dishes if that's the correct word if you want them :)
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: coogan on May 20, 2011, 12:12 PM
That's me, Chicken Tikka Everything. Bon god! It's all my fault.

For me it all started as an infection prevention thing.

Back in the early eighties when I use to frequent the dodgy curry houses of east London you were never sure of the hygiene standards within the establishments. So after a good few cases of dodgy guts following a curry out - obviously nothing to do with the gallon or three of lager consumed - I decided to only have chicken fresh from the Tandoor. The charred skewer hole reassured me that the chicken was cooked completely through and the intense heat from the tandoor would have annihilated any bugs - rather than risking eating scary curries utilizing warmed up half cooked chicken that had been laying around in humid conditions for god knows how long.

I was cured. So I used to enjoy the likes of Chicken/ lambTikka, Chicken shaslik, Tandoori King Prawn, Tandoori Lobster or even Tandoori mixed grill - probably the start of mixed meat curries chewy! - served sizzling straight on to a freshly cooked paratha bread with the provided salad - no rice to risky. As these dishes were all dry I used to ask the chef for side portion of masala sauce madras hot or various other sauces like dhansak, pathia, or even korma with added fresh green chillies to drizzle over them.

Hence for me personally to get the true taste of a BIR I would need to make dishes using main ingredients cooked in a tandoor - side dishes aside. That is why I bought a nipoori and why I can tikka/tandoori Chicken, Turkey, Game, Meats, Fish, shellfish, vegetables , fruit or anything else that I can find, combine it with a sauce and enjoy it to my stomachs content.

Tikka ing the hiss aside. I actually love the contrasting taste of the tikka/tandoori with the sauce rather than the whole dish all tasting the same. If we all truly want to create the taste of a BIR's we must keep up with the times and evolve our recipes to match theirs - if that means mixing, matching and using a tandoor so be it. 

Bon Tikka




Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Razor on May 20, 2011, 02:21 PM
Around Manchester, a tikka meat only adds between 20p and 50p more to the end dish, so no big deal really.

There are some places that can pull it off and some that can't!  My local TA are masters of 'tikka' curries, in the fact that the cooked marinade is just that, it's locked onto the meat and won't 'bleed' into the curry once added.  Therefor a chicken tikka madras is just that, peices of chicken tikka in a madras sauce and not chicken in a tikka madras flavoured sauce, if that makes sense.

I always order my chicken or lamb curries, with tikka meat rather than plain meat because of the contrasting flavours.  It makes the curry much more interesting IMO

Ray :)
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: chriswg on May 20, 2011, 02:29 PM
If I order a steak, even in a rich sauce, I want it char-grilled, in fact during the summer just about every piece of meat I eat is BBQ'd or flame grilled. It just tastes better that way. If a waiter in an English restaurant asked you if you would like your chicken cooked on the char-grill or cubed and boiled I know what 99% of people would go for. It just tastes better flame grilled. Just ask Burger King :)

I appreciate people will point to the spicy over powering sauces that negate the taste of the tikka but that just isn't true. Plus, the excess tikka marinade ends up mixing with the curry sauce to give it a lift. I find a Madras or Vindaloo too bland now, hot and spicy yes, but still bland. I can only be satisfied by more complex dishes like Chicken Tikka Rezzala or Roshney Chicken (which comes with Tikka as standard).

People always ask what's the point of ordering a Vindaloo as it kills your taste buds, but to me it doesn't. I can still appreciate the taste of a keema rice and onion bhaji. The people who usually ask think they are being brave by ordering a Korma though. To them it probably would destroy all their senses for a week. Once you have built up some immunity to the spicyness it becomes a beautiful addiction.
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: mickdabass on May 20, 2011, 03:17 PM



Upgrading a curry to a tikka curry isnt new to me. Ive been eating Chicken Tikka Baltis since the 80s - a match made in heaven
Ive got the chicken Tikka nailed now .....just wish I could find a decent Balti recipe
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Stephen Lindsay on May 20, 2011, 04:00 PM
Upgrading a curry to a tikka curry isnt new to me. Ive been eating Chicken Tikka Baltis since the 80s - a match made in heaven
Ive got the chicken Tikka nailed now .....just wish I could find a decent Balti recipe

Is this something you use in a CTM mick as it could be included in the CTM reviews?
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: mickdabass on May 20, 2011, 04:54 PM
Hi Stephen

Ive been perfecting my recipe for quite a long time now.
I can post it if anyones interested.  ;D
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: coogan on May 20, 2011, 07:34 PM
Hi Mick,

Im interested! That tikka looks spot on - wife was reaching for the screen - moist, it's not even curry night until tomorrow!

bon tikka
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Ramirez on May 20, 2011, 08:23 PM
wife was reaching for the screen - moist

 :o

I'll admit, when I read this I thought "wait....what?" - but I don't think you meant what I initially interpreted!  ;D

Rude thoughts aside, that Tikka does look wonderful Mick.
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: bamble1976 on May 21, 2011, 08:45 AM
or did he!  :o  I am shouting the wife to have a look as we speak ;D

Barry
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: coogan on May 21, 2011, 09:05 AM
Curry does effect Mrs coogan in the most strangest of ways it just tikka's her fancy!!
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: Stephen Lindsay on May 21, 2011, 06:37 PM
Hi Stephen

Ive been perfecting my recipe for quite a long time now.
I can post it if anyones interested.  ;D

yes very interested!!!
Title: Re: Chicken Tikka Everything
Post by: mickdabass on May 22, 2011, 01:43 PM
yes very interested!!!

tikka look at this lol

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5829.0 (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5829.0)