Topic: Wondering about BIR Chicken Tikka

[George]

just had interesting experience having made Blades tikka.
i know having done several side by sides that using mustard oil and lime juice does make a difference. however it clearly has it's limitations - the "zing" or i guess breadth of flavour was just not there in the Blades recipe. i did reduce the lime juice from the 4 tbsp spec to 2 tbsp and this may be why.

But you didn't make Blade's tikka recipe, did you? I think his recipe specifies 4 tbls of lemon juice. You used 2 tbls of lime juice and perhaps made other changes as well. That sort of change is significant, so how can it be fair to pass comment on the original recipe?

[TMH1]

Hi Solarspace, The BIR Chicken Tikka is cooked using the tandoor, and yes the marinade is fairly runny, at home people attempting to make their own marinade for tikka use greek style yougurt which is fine but needs to be played with a little to loosen before using, also adding the other ingredients which will thicken it furthur , using a home grill and lying the tikka flat to cook does not help to evenly distribute the marinade, standing upright in the tandoor on squewers with the required heat needed does allow the marinade to drizzle evenly over the chicken coating it evenly, i have witnessed this in my good friends tandoor using my marinade, we have had great results, you may want to save some pennies and buy yourself a tandoor, also my nann bread takes on a whole new taste and texture when tandoor cooked rather than grilled.

Hope it helps you a little, if you want my marinade recipe i will gladly let you have it.

[solarsplace]

Hi Solarspace, The BIR Chicken Tikka is cooked using the tandoor, and yes the marinade is fairly runny, at home people attempting to make their own marinade for tikka use greek style yougurt which is fine but needs to be played with a little to loosen before using, also adding the other ingredients which will thicken it furthur , using a home grill and lying the tikka flat to cook does not help to evenly distribute the marinade, standing upright in the tandoor on squewers with the required heat needed does allow the marinade to drizzle evenly over the chicken coating it evenly, i have witnessed this in my good friends tandoor using my marinade, we have had great results, you may want to save some pennies and buy yourself a tandoor, also my nann bread takes on a whole new taste and texture when tandoor cooked rather than grilled.

Hope it helps you a little, if you want my marinade recipe i will gladly let you have it.

Hi TMH1

Catchy user name you have yourself there

I would love to see your tikka marinade recipe, thanks for the offer

Would you be prepared to share it on the site and post it here? - http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?board=76.0

Cheers

[JerryM]

George,

please accept my apologies - i did not make the Blades to spec. since the 70's madras/base fiasco and lorryadoo's i've had clear instructions from the boss.

for info the changes: lime juice 30ml was supposed to be lemon dressing 60ml. tikka paste was supposed to be tandoori paste.

Axe,

i do like the aniseed and using it a lot. i'm tending to us it in combination with fennel in base. i also like it in bhajis. i've left the lasan unchanged ie i just use fennel.

the marinade as you say can't be too thick - using the gas bbq it's not as critical as domestic oven (a bit like TMH1 mentions about the tandoor)

[TheFasterCurryMaster]

My 2 cents:

I used to use my regular yoghurt to make the marinade for my chicken tikka, this yoghurt is the same that i eat my breakfast cereals with and it is very runny. The other day I saw greek yoghurt in the supermarket and decided to use that for my marinade. It is very thick compared to the other one.

Results: the chicken made using the runnier yoghurt was much more tender and juicier. I'm definately going to stick to my breakfast yoghurt for my marinades in the future too.

Another interesting point is that the first marinade I tried was the Kris Dhillon one which is really simple: salt, chili, yoghurt and a bit of oil. Later I found out about these recipes here, and tried dipuraja's with all those pastes, but really the result was horrible, really too overspiced and salty. I couldn't eat the chicken by itself because it had a thick layer of spice crust tasting like I'd be eating patak's paste out of the jar. When added to a curry, it was actually really okay. I'm going to try to add small amounts of spiced to the original Kris Dhillon simple marinade like garlic, ginger, cumin, lemon juice, and garam masala and see what happens. I think it'll be good.

[George]

I'm going to try to add small amounts of spiced to the original Kris Dhillon simple marinade like garlic, ginger, cumin, lemon juice, and garam masala and see what happens. I think it'll be good.

Welcome to the forum. Before attempting random modifications based on Kris Dhillon's recipe, I really would urge you to try Blade's chicken tikka recipe, off this forum. I doubt if you'll want to return to a Kris Dhillon recipe, after trying Blade's.

[George]

lime juice 30ml was supposed to be lemon dressing 60ml.

Jerry - why use lemon dressing when you could use the real thing? i.e. lemon juice.

Before making this post I must have pushed the modify button instead of the quote button on your post. It wiped out your post (sorry) for a few seconds until I was able to rebuild it, hence the "edited by" note.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Another interesting point is that the first marinade I tried was the Kris Dhillon one which is really simple: salt, chili, yoghurt and a bit of oil. Later I found out about these recipes here, and tried dipuraja's with all those pastes, but really the result was horrible, really too overspiced and salty.  I'm going to try to add small amounts of spiced to the original Kris Dhillon simple marinade like garlic, ginger, cumin, lemon juice, and garam masala and see what happens. I think it'll be good.

That is exactly how my own Tikka & Tandoori recipes evolved : KD as starting point, slowly add spices until near-perfection achieved.  The end result was, both IMHO and in the opinion of wife and guests, as close to perfection as one could wish for.

** Phil.

[JerryM]

George,

i use lemon dressing in place of lemon juice out of ease. originally i tried both fresh lemon and bottled and retained using bottled until lasan drew me to lime juice. ps for all none curry marinades which i make a lot of i use lime juice (bottled unless i want top notch when only fresh does).

i continued though using bottled lemon juice in main dishes until the site got me interested in lemon dressing. i now use only lemon dressing in main dishes. because i have it available if i'm pushed to use lemon then the dressing is the only stock i have.

honestly i am very happy with tikka. i would like to do side by side between ifindforu and CA's but no rush - will wait for a chiminea night.

best wishes,

[ifindforu]

Hi

For a long time now, I have been making CA's Chicken Tikka and not really thinking about it because it is such a nice recipe taken it for granted that it is yummy, and instead concentrating on trying to perfect other main dishes etc.

I just suddenly started to realise that all the restaurants round my way now seem to be using Chicken Tikka in so many of their recipes that it seems to be more common to have Tikka in your dish than plain chicken.

Anyway, now moving in a Tikka thinking direction, I suddenly thought about how markedly different the BIR's tikka was from the Tikka I cook. It is remarkably tender, mine comes out tender but this is an extra tenderness. It is actually quite subtly coloured, but the main difference seems to be that it is almost like the marinade they use must be very thin and almost watery as there appears to be no for want of better terms Tikka crust layer, it is almost like the chicken has just been stained by the marinade there is no detectable coating just a little colour and obviously the flavour.

I'm wondering if it is even actually cooked in the tandoor? it has skewer holes through the pieces, but surely there would be some scorchings and slight shell to meat that has been in a tandoor?

Any thoughts on this? cheers all.

tikka sauce is thin because iy has much mustard oil in it,actualy loads the chicken is Sardia brand from brazil its done in at tadoori oven then refried in a steel pan with sliced onions mhethi and a small bit of the sauce/tikka