Baked Curry Chicken with a side of Tandoori Masala...Chicken

Alright folks, this meal will whisk you away to the far East…and is simple to cook, but you'll probably need to hit the grocery store and maybe even an asian market to trade your currency for spices and any other silks or treasures your heart desires.  

Better Homes and Gardens had a pretty simple Baked Curry Chicken recipe that I wanted to try out. I was having a hard time coming up with a good side dish to pair it with....I guess because most Indian dishes have such distinct flavors you can't just serve up some mashed potatoes with them can you?  

Well we all know thats BS.  Mashed potatoes are delicious and go with everything.  Not that I cooked them with this.  

Lets take a quick look at the recipe:

Baked Curried Chicken

First I went to the local grocery.  I had some of the spices on hand, but if you don't cook a lot then you probably won't.  You'll need to pick up some curry powder, bay leaves, ground cinnamon, chicken bouillon cubes, and minced garlic.  

I was interested to see what Raisins would bring to the dish…its not something I've seen before in Indian food. I opted not to include the dried apricots, seeing as they were 5 bucks a bag and I believed in my heart I could live without it.  

Across the street from Kroger in Denton, there's a little Indian market, so I went shopping for a side dish.  After telling the guy behind the counter what I was making, he recommended a chicken Tandoori Masala dish.  I said look bro, are you the kind of guy that gets french fries and mashed potatoes with his entree at Chilis?  But he was pretty much full on Indian and either didn't understand or just didn't think I was very funny.  

So I bought a boxed spice mixture and some ginger and garlic paste.  I also picked up some frozen Naan bread.

For any of you who haven't eaten much Indian food, in particular Nann…then do yourself a favor.  Stop what you are doing, drive to the nearest Indian restaurant and gorge yourself on these tortillas on steroids. They are the bread of the Gods.

  You're welcome.  

So it was set.  I was going to have Chicken, Chicken, and Naan.  

For the Chicken Tandoori, I used both white and dark meat.  Mix two tablespoons of the Tandoori spice mix with two tablespoons of the garlic/ginger paste.  The box called for curd…I have no idea what that is, so I just poured in a couple of tablespoons of Olive oil. 

Cut slits in the boned pieces of chicken, and slice the two chicken breasts into 1 inch cubes.  Rub the marinade into the chicken with your hands making sure the mixture gets in the grooves and then let it sit for an hour or two.  

For the baked curry chicken, I substituted the brown rice with jasmine rice, and I also cut up some Yukon gold potatoes into one inch cubes to add to the recipe. 

See….Potatoes did make it into this dinner!  Yay!

It's pretty simple from here.  Combine the rice, potatoes, stewed tomatoes, all the spices, a cup of water, a squeeze of lemon juice and some chicken bouillon into the pot.  

Get it boiling, then dump it into some baking pans and into the oven at 350. 

I also boiled up some plain jasmine rice to go with the Tandoori Masala chicken.

Each dish needs to cook for about 45 minutes.  If you used both white and dark meat chicken for the Tandoori Masala dish (below), then put the bone pieces in first, and add the 1 inch white meat cubes about twenty minutes later.

In the last 5 minutes of cooking, wrap the Naan in some aluminum foil, and put it in the oven.  

Plate up…crack a coldie, and get your Indian grub on!