Tandoori Chicken

My love for Tandoori Chicken blossomed in Pune where I studied for a year and a half. Being on a student’s budget; finding delicious yet inexpensive food was always on the agenda. During the year long search, I came across a little local eatery called Ratna. The Tandoori chicken there is everything you could dream of and more! It is so moist and tender that the meat literally melts like butter in your mouth.

Now that I have moved back to Ahmedabad; I dream about Ratna and their Tandoori Chicken. Eventually, the craving went to such heights that I just had to make it by myself. That’s when I realized; it isn’t so difficult after all!

Ingredients –

·         1kg Chicken

·         1 cup Yogurt

·         2 tsp Red Chilli Powder

·         1 tsp Coriander Powder

·         ½ tsp Cumin Powder

·         2 tsp Salt

·         5 Cloves

·         1 inch stick Cinnamon

·         1 tbsp minced Garlic

·         1 tbsp minced Ginger

·         2 tbsp Lemon Juice

Grind all the spices to make a fine powder and add to the yogurt. Stir in the lemon juice, ginger and garlic. Make deep cuts in the chicken and rub the marinade into it. For the flavor to develop you must refrigerate the meat for at least 12 hours (over-night).

Place the marinated chicken on a grill and cook in an over preheated to 250C for 25-30 minutes or until the meat is tender and cooked. Serve hot.

Note – the addition of a fresh salad counters the spiciness of the meat. Finely sliced onions, tomatoes, cabbage and green chilies with a generous squeeze of lemon and seasoning go perfectly with this dish.

For an outdoor party, you can also barbeque this chicken and serve it on skewers.

Banana Bread

Banana bread is made with a thick, sweet and sticky batter full of mashed bananas, and this is all that! The scent of this bread baking is heavenly. In addition, it can be considered to be healthy because butter has been replaced with oil. You can add chopped chocolate or nuts to the batter as well; but this is the moist, unadulterated version. Recipe credit goes to Varun’s mother – Vaneeta.

Ingredients –

·         2 cups Flour

·         1 cup Sugar

·         ½ cup Oil

·         1 tbsp ground Cinnamon

·         ¼ tsp Salt

·         2 tsp Baking Powder

·         2 Eggs

·         2 cups mashed Bananas

Mix all the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry in another. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and combine until they are just about incorporated. Mixing too much will make the banana bread tough and dry.

Preheat the oven to 170C; pour the batter into a greased loaf tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Note – you can also divide the batter into 12 cupcake cases and bake for 10-15 minutes to get moist banana cupcakes.