Chicken tikka plate

Before you start

• marinate 2 hours ahead
• skewers, or a rack over a tray under the grill

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 380gchicken breast — thigh if you would rather — it forgives a minute too long
• 100gnatural yoghurt
• 1 tbspgram flour — besan, roasted dry in a pan first — it is what stops the marinade sliding off
• 2 tspghee or oil
• 1 thumbginger and garlic
• 2 tspkashmiri chilli, garam masala and roasted cumin
• 1lemon
• 3 tbspmint and coriander chutney
• 1red onion

Method

6 steps

1. chop · 6m

   Chicken into pieces about the size of a walnut, all of them roughly equal so they finish together.

2. fold · 6m

   Roasted gram flour beaten into the yoghurt with the ginger-garlic, spices and lemon until it is a thick paste, then the chicken turned through it.

3. rest · 2 hours walk away

   Two hours in the fridge. An hour will do; ten minutes does nothing at all.

4. grill · 14m

   Threaded on with a finger of space between pieces — crowded, they steam each other and never char — then under a grill at full heat or onto a dry screaming pan, turned once.

5. grill · 5m

   Given long enough that the outside blisters black in places and the inside is cooked right through: cut the biggest piece, no pink, juices clear.

6. finish · 4m

   Ghee brushed over off the heat, lemon squeezed from a height, raw onion and the chutney alongside. No gravy — tikka is the dry version and adding one makes it a different dish.