Tandoori spice

A friend of mine has just returned from a trip to South Africa and Mauritius and I was really spoilt, she brought me back a couple of lovely presents, a tea towel with an African Proverb and some gorgeously fragrant and colourful spices. The tea towel is on my wall in my office to remind me that I should not talk so much about things I want to do, I should just get on and do them!!

My tea towel - A chattering bird builds no nest — I know you are all jealous of the blue painted brick wall in my office. Don’t you love rentals!!

Packet of Mauritian Spices — Mauritian Spices

The spices sat on my bench for a couple of weeks before I stopped chattering and actually decided I would do Tandoori chicken because the tandoori spice smelt delicious. My husband is the butterfly/BBQ chicken expert in the family and at a demonstration he attended on different ways of preparing meat he learnt about soaking meat in brine to retain moisture. So the chicken sat in a brine of about 2litres water and a quarter cup of salt for 4 hours while I mixed the spices into the yoghurt. There were no instructions on the packet of spices so I just stirred it in until it looked about right, popped the chicken in and left it overnight in the fridge. The container BTW is a Tupperware marinading dish that you can turn over, many years old and I still love it.

Chicken ready for overnight in the fridge — Ready for overnight in the fridge

Next day the BBQ expert cooked it for about 45 minutes in the Webber and I served it with a black bean and rice salad. I will tell you more about that next week and give you the recipe.

I have put the recipe below because that is what I usually do, please note it is very important to follow the recipe exactly!!

TANDOORI CHICKEN

INGREDIENTS

1 chicken free range chicken
A tub of greek style yoghurt
Some tandoori spice
About 2 litres of water and 1/4 cup of salt

METHOD

Soak chicken in brine made with salt and water for about 4 hours
Give the chicken to someone who knows how to butterfly it or look up on You Tube, I’m sure it is very easy.
Stir some tandoori spice into yoghurt until it is pretty pink colour
Pop chicken into yoghurt and refrigerate overnight
Next day give the chicken to someone who knows how to BBQ it for cooking or once again, look it up on You Tube for directions on BBQing
Serve with salad (I used black bean and rice salad)

I loved the whole plate. The cinnamon flavour was quite pronounced though and my husband found it a bit sweet for his liking. But it went really well with the bean salad. I still have half a packet of the spice left which I would like to try again, any suggestions on what I could do to lessen the sweetness?