Tandoori Chicken

[BBcue-Z]

Tandoori chicken is an Indian dish that is marinated in yogurt and Indian spices and then skewered and cooked in a clay oven called the "Tandoor".
The Tandoor is usually fueled with wood or coals and gets up in temp to 850 degrees or greater.
Here is a picture of an authentic Tandoor

But they come in different shape and sizes and looks almost like a Big Green Egg.

This how they usually cook the tandoori chicken. Since it's cooked at high temp, the chicken cooks super fast and remains very juicy.

And that's what it looks like when served at the restaurant


So since I don't have a Tandoor or BGE, I decided to use my CharGriller. I loaded it with extra charcoal and set up to where the skewers are suspended close to the fire to get the high temp effect.

I used chicken thighs and marinated them in yogurt, lemon juice, garlic, garam masala and Tandoori spice mix. I used paprika, cayenne peppers and Red food coloring to get that authentic red color

And the cooking was done



I thought it was very tasty and pretty close to the real thing
I served it with Basmati rice and Raita, which is an Indian yogurt sauce. I'd definitely do that again

[1buckie]

Good Stuff Z !!!!

One of my favorite flavors.........

I use a bottle mix, usually with coconut....







It's mixed into the cream cheese in the 'Turds too.....



There's nothing quite like that flavor with chicken.....breast or thigh meat always cooks up quick & is very moist at the finish......

Love naan bread cooked stuck to the inside of a tandoor.....nothing like it !!!!!

[mike.stavlund]

This is really helpful, @BBcue-Z , thanks!

My family has been experimenting with a recipe for butter chicken (aka chicken tikka masala), and I've been plotting a way to cook the chicken in a tandoor-like setup before putting it into the sauce.  Using skewers over really high heat seems like a great thing to try.  Seems like keeping it off of a grate will help it to get that great sear flavor on it.

I saw Alton Brown approximating a tandoor once, cutting the bottom off of a large terra cotta flower pot, then soaking it in water for 8 hours to keep it from cracking.  He then inverted the pot in his Weber, fueled it with three separate doses of lump, and put long skewers down inside when the thing was north of 600 degrees.  It seemed like a really sweet setup, but with my luck I'd invest all of that time and money and effort and the thing would bust in two on my first cook.   

[BBcue-Z]

Thanks 1buckie
Great minds think alike 
I love that Naan bread too! I've done it on a pizza stone inside of a grill, but it was not the same. A friend of mine sticks the dough on the inside of the lid of a BGE and it works very well.

Thanks @mike.stavlund
I truly think when the chicken is suspended over the coal and not sitting directly on the grate makes a big difference when cooking on High Heat. The radiant heat from the coals cooks the meat more evenly, where if it was sitting on the hot metal of the grate, it would cook the outside much faster then the inside.
In addition, those wide metal skewers get extremely hot and cook the center of the meat at the same rate as the outside.

[mike.stavlund]

Yes, @BBcue-Z those wide skewers seem like a key part of the cook.  Where did you get yours? 

[BBcue-Z]

Got them here:
http://www.sadaf.com/skewers/

[1buckie]

Mike, you can also get that seasoning from the same place:

http://www.sadaf.com/sadaf/?page=3

Sadaf is a tremendous all-around brand....tons of different spices, etc.

[SixZeroFour]

Chalk up another innovative cook for Mr Z! The tandoori chicken looks just awesome Hadi - thanks for sharing!

@mike.stavlund - We've also been trying to replicate an amazing butter chicken recipe at home but have yet to get it as tasty as our favorite take-out place. Most Indian Cuisine Restaurants up here offer two separate dishes, both Butter Chicken or Tikka Masala. The butter chicken is usually smoother (more cream?) and sweet, while the tikka is more spicy and the texture of the sauce is almost a touch grainy. Both are horribly addictive and loaded with flavour I would LOVE to learn to cook more Indian inspired dishes.