I acted like an adult on Monday and went to the store and got our groceries for the week. As my wife can attest, I despise going to the grocery store. She usually gets our weekly food staples. I think it is due to my general aversion to crowded places. However, in a grocery store, the crowd is pushing around large metal death baskets on wheels. Plus, I'm a very fast shopper. I usually have a list and have mentally mapped out my approach to efficiently acquire each item. You get in my way at the grocery store and you become collateral damage. This time, I went in the evening. I figured the majority of responsible people bitterly did their shopping on Sunday night. I also brought my iPod and did not make a list. I just put on my headphones and let MF Doom accompany me through the store. Then, a strange thing happened. As I looked at the food items passing before me, recipes started to pop in my head. All of the jumbled up, passive knowledge from the cookbooks and food blogs I read manifested itself as a nicely organized mental recipe box. I leisurely wandered up and down the aisles. Except the aisles weren't aisles any more. They were streaming lines of green code. I also knew kung fu. (Show me.)
Here is one of the recipes:
Tandoori Chicken (Lebovitz, 2009, with modifications)
1/8 teaspoon saffron powder, or 1/4 teaspoon saffron threads (see Note)
1 tablespoon boiling water
4 skinless chicken thighs
4 skinless chicken legs
3/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder, depending on how hot you want it
10 turns fresh ground black pepper
1 cup whole milk plain yogurt
juice of one fresh lime
1 tablespoon finely-minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
Soak the saffron in the boiling water for five minutes. Score the chicken flesh deeply. Put the chicken in a large zip-top freezer bag. Add all of the remaining ingredients to the bag, including the saffron (and the water) and let out most of the air, then seal the top. Massage the bag to mix the ingredients and coat the chicken pieces. Refrigerate the chicken overnight (or all day, the longer the better). Prepare your grill or grill pan, make sure it is piping hot. Oil it. Remove the chicken pieces from the marinade and grill the pieces with the thick marinade clinging to them, until dark on one side. Flip and grill until darkened on the other side. (I urge you to use a meat thermometer. It takes out the guess work.) So, at this point, the outside of your chicken is cooked, but the inside is still a little raw. Your goal is to get the internal temperature of the chicken to 180 F without burning it. The ANSWER: Indirect heat. If you are inside using a grill pan, turn on the oven to 350-400F and bake them for 10 minutes. If you are outside, turn off half (or one side) of the grill burners, place the chicken pieces on the unlit half and cook them until you reach 180 F.
Next time I make these, I'm going to do it using a grill pan inside. I felt I didn't have that much control of the heat on my grill tonight. It is still relatively chilly and it took a long time for the indirect cooking portion to finish. The flavor is outstanding and the marinade made the meat extremely tender. The chicken was accompanied by a side of kachumber and jasmine rice. Also, as you can see in the picture, my chicken wasn't red like you would typically expect to see if you ordered Tandoori chicken at a restaurant. That is because I did not have the red food coloring that is sold at Indian markets.
