Now we are getting to the stuff India is known for, the spicy foods. This is probably the dish I was most excited to make because the are essentially hot wings, how can you go wrong with that? The wings obviously have the Indian twist from the spice selection, and this dish takes at least a whole day to make if you want it done properly. If you plan ahead and make this, it can make for a great dinner choice that mixes things up. Here’s what you need to make it:

• 2 pounds of skinless chicken legs (about 8 legs)
• 2 cups of Greek yogurt
• Salt
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder (I used onion slices, works just fine)
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper (This is where the spice comes from, adjust if sensitive)

Since this supposed to be a spicy dish, I went ahead and added more cayenne pepper to my version of the recipe, (this will come back and bite me) I love spicy foods. The main reason why this recipe takes a day to make is because you are supposed to let it sit and marinade for at least one whole day before cooking. This allows the flavors to be tasted throughout the whole chicken leg and not just on the surface. Another change I made was that I used a air tight bag to marinade my chicken in so it really gets in the meat. I would recommend this if at all possible. Here is the way to cook this meal:

• First, cut shallow lines along the chicken legs and put them in a huge zip-lock bag
  (or an airtight bag like I said earlier)
• Add all the ingredients to the bag make sure it gets well incorporated into the chicken by sloshing the bag around.
• Then, put it in the fridge for a day (If impatient, you could do it for about 8 hours)
• After that, oil up a skillet and set it to medium-high heat
• Throw the chicken on with a little bit of the marinade poured into the skillet to make sure the flavor is cooked in. Should take about 10-15 minutes till cooked all the way through
• Finally, preheat the oven to 400 and cook it on baking sheet for 25-30 minutes
• Enjoy the meal, if the spice is too much, my roommates said it doesn’t taste bad with ranch!

Tandoori chicken was one of my anticipated dishes when I started this blog idea, I’ve loved eating it at restaurants and was excited to try and make it myself. Obviously I wasn’t able to meet the standards restaurants have set, but I don’t think I did poorly. I added too much cayenne pepper and it affected the flavors of the other spices negatively, and made it hard to enjoy eating it when it hurt to eat. However, the flavor was there and I was happy to share it with my roommates. For a little fun fact, tandoori chicken is a somewhat new food to the world, it was popularized in the 1940’s and is traditionally smoked in a tandoori oven: hence the name. It is possible to get the smokey flavor by grilling over a BBQ, so next time I make this dish I will try it that way (and with less pepper) to see if the flavor is even better. Hopefully you all can enjoy this dish, it is definitely worth a shot if you have the time to check it out. Next blog we will be getting into dishes that I am more familiar with cooking and eating, curry-like dishes with rice. I’ll see you all next time as we tackle making Malai Kafta.