Indian Tonight

I've been wanting to blog about my Indian cooking adventure but either I didn't have time or I didn't have access to the computer as KK was hogging it to watch cartoons at this newly found website.


It all started when I read about my cousin making aloo goobi in her blog. Aloo goobi is Hubby's favourite Indian dish and we always order it whenever we eat at Indian restaurants. I asked my cousin for the recipe and got some potatoes and cauliflower to try it out. Of course, there is also this process of acquiring all the indian spices required by the recipe, many of which I've not even heard of. See how new to cooking I am?


At the same time, I was visiting the supermarkets and checking out the Indian groceries they carry. I found a lot of ready-to-eat Indian curries and sauces. All you need to do is add the meat. There's even instant Basmati rice and pre-baked naan! I bought 2 jars of sauces to try - Tikka Masala and Butter Chicken. (Butter Chicken is my personal favourite!)


So it was Aloo Goobi and Chicken Tikka Masala with basmati rice for dinner. First time cooking all these for me. Verdict?


The Chicken Tikka Masala was a huge success. The sauce tasted very authentic, just like those we had in restaurants. Aloo Goobi was also not bad but slightly on the bland side. I think I may have misinterpreted the amount of spices and I also did not add any salt. The basmati rice was too wet. The next time I cooked it again, I reduced the amount of water and washed it more thoroughly and it turned out better.

Aloo goobi

The success of the Tikka Masala led me to surf for the recipe online. I chanced upon this website: http://www.recipezaar.com/ which has quite a lot of recipes with comments from people who has made them. There's even a nutritional information box accompanying the recipe so you know how much cholestrol you are eating...keke.



I made one of their recipe (http://www.recipezaar.com/38203) - Tandoori Chicken on another day. For this dish, I added another 2 more types of spices to my larder. Looks like I'll be cooking indian food more with all the spices I'm accumulating!


The Tandoori Chicken was fantastic. The chicken meat was flavourful and tender. It goes very well on a bed of lettuce, tomato and onion accompaniments. In fact, I think it will go well with bread too, like a Tandoori Chicken Sandwich? I'll try it and let you know :-)


I marinaded the 2 fillets of chicken thighs and 1 fillet of chicken breast with the lemon juice, spices and yogurt the night before. The next day, I fried one of the chicken thighs on the grill pan. The recipe actually said to bake it first before grilling but I found it very troublesome. I found out that grilling it direct gives you a better colour, just like on a bbq. However, because of the thickness of the meat, you got to watch out that the center is cooked thoroughly. Of course, there's also the fume and the chicken is slightly drier.


For the other 2 pieces, I baked them in the oven for 30 mins. There were some oil+juice of chicken on the pan which I kept aside. Then I put the meat on the grill pan for a while. You can see the difference in colour in the photo. The chicken breast on the right is baked/grilled while the thigh on the right is grilled only.

Tandoori Chicken