Chicken Tikka

As delicious as oven-baked chicken tikka will go.

Good old chicken tikka. One of my favourite Indian dishes – amongst many...

There are two ways you can cook these – in the oven (the way this recipe says), or on a BBQ. I highly recommend you use a BBQ as it will make the tikka taste 100x better. I don't have access to a BBQ and therefore had to settle for the oven. But don't get me wrong – they still taste beautiful.

With the tandoori masala powder, I buy this from Sainsbury's in the world foods section – the brand is called Natco.

I also suggest you make the mint sauce for this tikka recipe, it really enhances the flavours and just tastes delicious!!

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INGREDIENTS

6 chicken thighs

1 cup full-fat greek yoghurt

3 tbsp tandoori masala powder

1 tsp turmeric

3 tsp garam masala

1/2 - 1 tsp chilli powder (I would use 1/2 tsp for minimal spice. You can put more if you like a lot of spice!)

2 tsp salt

6 wooden skewers (you may or may not use all of these)

Vegetable oil

INGREDIENTS FOR MINT SAUCE

1/2 cup greek yoghurt

1 tbsp mint sauce

METHOD

1. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together yoghurt, spices and salt until well combined. The mixture should be a red-ish pink colour.

2. Dice the chicken thighs so the pieces are big enough to slide about 4 onto a skewer. Place these into a large bowl.

3. Pour the marinade over the chicken and mix together until all the chicken is coated. Wrap the bowl in cling wrap and leave to set for about 45 minutes to an hour.

4. When 45 mins to an hour have commenced, preheat the oven to 190-200ºC fan. Prepare a baking tray with baking paper and brush lightly with oil.

5. Feed the chicken thighs onto the skewers, leaving a little gap at the top (you don't want to put chicken all the way to the tip of the skewer.

6. Place the skewers onto the tray next to each other. Put into the oven and cook for 25 minutes, turning them around at 13 minutes.

7. Serve hot with naan bread or basmati rice, and mint sauce!