Tandoori chicken
Encyclopedia
Tandoori chicken is highly popular Indian
Indian cuisine
Indian cuisine consists of thousands of regional cuisines which date back thousands of years. The dishes of India are characterised by the extensive use of various Indian spices, herbs, vegetables and fruit. Indian cuisine is also known for the widespread practice of vegetarianism in Indian society...

 and Pakistani dish consisting of roasted chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...

, yogurt, and spice
Spice
A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark, or vegetative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for flavor, color, or as a preservative that kills harmful bacteria or prevents their growth. It may be used to flavour a dish or to hide other flavours...

s.

Preparation

The chicken is marinated in Yoghurt and seasoned with tandoori masala
Tandoori masala
Tandoori masala is a mixture of spices specifically for use with a tandoor, or clay oven, in traditional north Indian, Pakistani and Afghan cooking. The specific spices vary somewhat from one region to another, but typically include garam masala, garlic, ginger, onion, cayenne pepper, and other...

. It is moderately piquant in India and Pakistan, but the heat is reduced in most Western nations. Cayenne pepper
Cayenne pepper
The cayenne pepper—also known as the Guinea spice,cow-horn pepper, aleva, bird pepper,or, especially in its powdered form, red pepper—is a red, hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes and for medicinal purposes. Named for the city of Cayenne in French Guiana, it is a cultivar of Capsicum annuum...

, red chili powder or kashmiri red chili powder is used to give it a fiery red hue in the original version. A higher amount of turmeric
Turmeric
Turmeric is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae. It is native to tropical South Asia and needs temperatures between 20 °C and 30 °C and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive...

 produces an orange color. In milder versions, both red and yellow food coloring are used to achieve the color. It is traditionally cooked at high temperatures in a tandoor
Tandoor
A tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven used in cooking and baking. The tandoor is used for cooking in Azerbaijan, India, Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central Asia, as well as Burma and Bangladesh.The heat for a tandoor was...

 (clay oven), but can also be prepared on a traditional barbecue grill.

History

The story of its origins lies with Kundan Lal Gujral, a who ran a restaurant called Moti Mahal
Moti Mahal
Moti Mahal Pearl Palace, may refer to:* Moti Mahal Delux Tandoori Trail* Moti Mahal , in Lucnow, Uttar Pradesh, India* Moti Mahal , in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan* Moti Mahal , in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, India...

 in Peshawar
Peshawar
Peshawar is the capital of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the administrative center and central economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan....

 Pakistan in the 1920s. Following the partition
Partition of India
The Partition of India was the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics that led to the creation of the sovereign states of the Dominion of Pakistan and the Union of India on 14 and 15...

 in 1947, Gujral found himself one of many Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...

 refugees fleeing to India to escape the rioting and upheaval. He moved his restaurant to Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

 in a place called Daryaganj
Daryaganj
Daryaganj, also called Darya Ganj , is a neighbourhood of Delhi inside the walled city of Shahjahanabad . The "darya" refers to the river Yamuna which was just outside the walled city...

. Using new recipes to keep his patrons interested, Gujral tried cooking chicken in tandoors which were until then only used to cook naan
Naan
Naan is a leavened, oven-baked flatbread. It is typical of and popular in South and Central Asia, in Iran, and in South Asian restaurants abroad. Influenced by the large influx of South Asian labour, naan has also become popular in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.Originally, naan is a...

. Tandoors are bell-shaped ovens set into the earth and fired with wood or charcoal; they can reach temperatures of about 485°C (903.5°F).
The tandoori chicken at Moti Mahal so impressed the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...

, that he made it a regular at official banquets. Visiting dignitaries who enjoyed tandoori chicken included American Presidents
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

 and John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

, Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Bulganin
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin was a prominent Soviet politician, who served as Minister of Defense and Premier of the Soviet Union . The Bulganin beard is named after him.-Early career:...

 and Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

, the King of Nepal
Mahendra of Nepal
Possibly no heir for the time period of 1911 through 1920. Previous Crown Prince: Tribhuvan Bir Bikram Shah, from 1906 to 1911....

, and the Shah of Iran.

The fame of tandoori chicken led to many derivatives, such as chicken tikka
Chicken Tikka
Chicken tikka is a chicken dish served in Indian and Pakistani cuisine. It is popular in countries all over the world. It is traditionally small pieces of boneless chicken baked using skewers, in a clay-based oven called a tandoor, after marinating in spices and yogurt.The word tikka means "bits,...

 (and eventually the Indian dish popularized in Britain, chicken tikka masala
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chicken tikka masala is a curry dish of roasted chicken chunks in a spicy sauce. The sauce is usually creamy, spiced and orange-coloured...

), commonly found in menus in Indian restaurants all over the world.

Regions

It is popular outside of Pakistan, in other parts of South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

, where it is eaten as a starter before a meal.

See also

  • Pakistani cuisine
  • Indian cuisine
    Indian cuisine
    Indian cuisine consists of thousands of regional cuisines which date back thousands of years. The dishes of India are characterised by the extensive use of various Indian spices, herbs, vegetables and fruit. Indian cuisine is also known for the widespread practice of vegetarianism in Indian society...

  • Punjabi cuisine
    Punjabi cuisine
    Punjabi cuisine is food from the Punjab region of northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. It can be non-vegetarian or completely vegetarian. One of the main features of Punjabi cuisine is its diverse range of dishes...

  • Tandoori masala
    Tandoori masala
    Tandoori masala is a mixture of spices specifically for use with a tandoor, or clay oven, in traditional north Indian, Pakistani and Afghan cooking. The specific spices vary somewhat from one region to another, but typically include garam masala, garlic, ginger, onion, cayenne pepper, and other...


External links

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