Grilled tandoori chicken

I have been remiss in my blogging duties. Primarily, I have been unhappy with my photographic adventures, but now, with the recent time shift, I can often prepare dinner when it is still light out and I can use outdoor light to photograph dinner. I hope I'll have more posts in the future.

Here's a quick dinner you can prepare. It's a delicious dinner for the weekend that can be prepared with a tiny bit of prep time, and about an hour of marination time. I start it towards the end of Bbq Jr's naptime, and we can eat it as a lovely Sunday night dinner.

Modified from Bon Appétit:

1 cup chopped fresh cilantro

8 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ cup olive oil
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
¼ cup fresh lime juice
2 chickens, quartered

Run the cilantro, garlic, cumin, paprika, cayenne, salt, lime juice and olive oil through a food processor to make a lovely, smelly paste.

Pour that lovely paste into a deep pan (I use a pyrex baking pan).



Then gently blend in the yogurt. (Don't blend the yogurt in in the food processor or you'll end up with tandoori butter. Blech).



Mix into a lovely marinade.

Marinate the chicken in this lovely paste. For one lovely hour. In the lovely fridge. (Cause really, you don't want to incubate Salmonella in this paste. So keep it in the fridge.).



Get a medium fire going on your grill. I like to let it burn down a bit for this dish. The dripping yogurt grease is just begging for a flareup, so really, medium fires are your friend. Or charred chicken is your friend. Your call, really. But I prefer medium heat.

Turn the chicken frequently. I find this is a dish I can't really leave the grill. Flaring yogurt explosions are too likely (at least in the first 15 minutes).

Continue moving and flipping the chicken gently. You don't want to tear the skin, so be gentle. But keep moving it, so you don't char it. You want the chicken browned, cooked and untorn. No pressure. No delicious pressure.

Continue cooking, roughly 30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked and nicely browned.

Serve. And love that tandoori flavour. Fresh spice, grease, moist chicken and loveliness. Yum.