Tandoori chicken

Before you start

• marinate 4 hours ahead — overnight is better
• no tandoor: this is the oven-and-grill version, and the smoke is the part you lose

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 420gchicken thighs — skin off, bone in
• 100gnatural yoghurt — thick, or hung in a sieve first
• 1 tbspghee or oil
• 1 thumbginger and garlic
• 2 tspkashmiri chilli powder
• 2 tspgaram masala and roasted cumin
• ½ tspajwain
• 1lemon
• 1red onion

Method

7 steps

1. chop · 6m

   Each piece slashed to the bone three or four times. The cuts are the only way the marinade and the heat reach past the surface, and without them the middle is plain boiled chicken.

2. fold · 5m

   First rub: lemon, salt and half the chilli worked right into the slashes and left ten minutes.

3. fold · 4m

   Then the yoghurt, ginger-garlic, ajwain and the rest of the spices, turned until every surface is coated.

4. rest · 4 hours walk away

   Four hours in the fridge, or overnight. This marinade tenderises as well as colours, which is why it wants the time.

5. roast · 25m walk away

   Oven as high as it will go, chicken on a rack over a tray so hot air gets underneath, and roasted until the marinade sets dry and begins to catch at the edges.

6. grill · 8m

   Grill element on for the last few minutes, and watched — this is where the char comes from and where it turns to soot. Done when the juices run clear at the bone and nothing next to it is pink.

7. finish · 6m

   Rested five minutes, ghee brushed over while it is hot, then raw onion rings and lemon.