Recipe

Tandoori Chicken

4 servings · prep 20 min + 12 h marinade · cook 25 min

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• lunch
• dinner
• indian
• grill

Authored by the maintainer; Moti Mahal-school marinade, home oven adapted from the clay tandoor.

Ingredients

the chicken

• 1.5 kg chicken legs and thighs, skin on, bone in, slashed 2 cm deep through the meat

the second marinade

• 300 g full-fat Greek yogurt — Thessaly Greek yogurt dairy
• 3 tbsp ginger-garlic paste (equal parts pounded in a mortar)
• Half goes into the ginger-garlic paste; reserve none separately — Tropea allium farm
• 2 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp black pepper — Kerala pepper estate
• 2 tbsp mustard oil (or 2 tbsp ghee)

the first marinade

• 3 tbsp lemon juice — Sicilian citrus orchard
• 2 tbsp Kashmiri chili powder
• 1.5 tsp fine sea salt — Trapani salt pans

the serve

• 1 red onion, sliced (for serving)
• Lime wedges, for serving

Method

1. First marinade. Rub the slashed chicken with lemon juice, Kashmiri chili, and salt. Massage into the slashes. Rest 30 minutes — the acid starts breaking down the surface proteins. · 30 min
2. Second marinade. Whisk yogurt, ginger-garlic paste, garam masala, cumin, coriander, turmeric, black pepper, and mustard oil into a thick paste. Coat the chicken — work it into every slash.
3. Refrigerate 12 hours minimum, 24 hours ideal. Turn once. · 720 min
4. Heat the oven to its absolute maximum — 260°C / 500°F or higher — for 30 minutes. Place the chicken on a wire rack over a foil-lined tray (catches drips). Tap off excess marinade so it doesn't pool. · 30 min
5. Roast 20 minutes. The marinade should char black at the edges, brick-red across the surface, with deeper colour where it pooled in the slashes. · 20 min
6. Switch the oven to broil/grill at the highest setting. Broil 3 minutes per side for additional char. Watch closely — the line between charred-and-amazing and incinerated-and-bitter is about ninety seconds. · 6 min
7. Rest 5 minutes. Plate with raw red onion rings, lime wedges, and a small bowl of mint-coriander chutney if you have it.

Notes

Tandoori chicken was invented in 1947 at the Moti Mahal restaurant in
Delhi — the same restaurant that later invented butter chicken from
the leftovers. Kundan Lal Gujral lined his clay oven with hot coals
and skewered chicken legs vertically inside; the burst of dry radiant
heat above 480°C produced char-and-tender results that nothing else
could match.

Home ovens cap at about 290°C. Get as close to that as your oven
allows. A heated baking steel above the rack helps; an outdoor grill
on high helps even more.