Tandoori dishes are the ideal comfort food: warming, fatty, juicy and aromatic. There is a science behind why tandoori makes you happy. Part of the traditional red color comes from a generous amount of red chili peppers. Eating spicy food triggers a reaction in the brain to reduce stress and kill pain through the release of dopamine and endorphins. The moderate heat from the chili pepper is combined with ginger, tartness from yogurt and lemons, aromatics from garam masala…and the magic does not end there. The wings are then put in a tandoor, a traditional clay cylindrical oven fired by charcoal or wood. Temperatures can reach 450 C searing the meat on the outside in a flash, allowing it to stay tender on the inside. The meat is kissed by the smoke of the charcoal/wood, allowing it to hit all your taste buds in a wonderful symphony of goodness.

The unfortunate thing is that most of us do not have a tandoor (though when we are finally successful in finding a house, the first thing that Stijn will do in our garden is to build us a tandoor – or so he says). I have been trying to figure out how to recreate this wonderful recipe without a tandoor, and found out that you can easily use your oven broiler to mimic the tandoor. The chicken comes out surprisingly tasty: crunchy and slightly charred on the outside, and still juicy and tender within. The secret though is to use smaller chicken parts, as you are cooking on high heat under the broiler and you do not want your chicken to burn, while the inside is still raw. I find that wings or drumettes work best, plus it is the ideal party food because the portions are small. This is what you need for a small party. Do prepare a day in advance, as you want your chicken to marinate overnight:

Ingredients:

• 1 kg chicken drumettes or chicken wings (drumettes and flats separated)
• 1 cup of full fat Greek yogurt
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 onion
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• a small thumb of ginger
• 5 garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp garam masala (I use Euroma Garam Masala by Jonnie Boer)
• 1 tsp turmeric powder
• 1 tsp smoked paprika powder
• 1/2 tbsp kashmiri lal mirch (this is a vibrant red chili powder that is quite mild. I have tried using others, but they are too strong. You can now easily get this at normal Indian supermarkets which are almost in every big city in NL)
• 1/2 tsp chaat masala (available at Indian or Asian supermarkets), note that chaat masala usually also contains salt
• black pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• some lemon wedges to serve (not for the marinade)

You’ll notice that I do not use red food coloring, which is normally used in tandoori chicken. I’d rather keep to natural ingredients and there is enough redness from the kashmiri lal mirch and paprika powder.

Optional

• handful of coriander leaves
• handful of mint

Method

This is actually quite easy. Just put everything in a blender and mix. Although not part of the traditional recipe, I like adding fresh coriander and mint to add some freshness.

Pour the mixture in a 3 L ziplock bag and add the chicken. Close the bag and massage so that the marinade covers the chicken evenly. You can now put the ziplock bag in the fridge to marinate for at least 8 hours.

Once they have marinated, oil your wire rack. I also line an oven tray with foil to put under the wire rack, so that the marinade does not drip directly into the oven. Now pre-heat your oven on 250-275 C and put on the broiler just as you are about to add the chicken (Dutch: bovenwarmte). Once hot enough, put your chicken on the wire rack and into the oven. Check them regularly. Once they have a nice brown color and get lightly charred, turn them. This will take approx 8-12 minutes. Broil them on the other side for 8-12 minutes as well and they are done! Put them on a serving platter and squeeze some lemon juice on them and you are ready to eat.