🇬🇧 How to Make Chicken Tikka Masala

Craving Chicken Tikka Masala? On FoodNeverComes the food never actually comes — so here's how to make real Chicken Tikka Masala at home, in about 1 hr + marinating, with stuff you probably already have.

🛒 Ingredients

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• 800g chicken thighs, boneless, in large pieces
• Marinade: 200g thick yoghurt
• 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp garam masala
• juice of 1 lemon
• Sauce: 2 tbsp butter
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
• 400g tinned tomatoes, blended
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 200ml double cream
• 1 tsp sugar
• salt
• coriander leaf, rice and naan to serve

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Marinate the chicken in everything listed for the marinade, ideally overnight. The yoghurt's acidity and its calcium both work on the meat, and 30 minutes will not do what 12 hours does.
2. Cook the chicken hot and fast — grill, or in a very hot oven at 240°C for 15 minutes — until the edges char. Those blackened edges are tikka, and a gently poached chicken makes a sauce with no backbone.
3. Soften the onion in butter for 10 minutes, add the ginger-garlic and cook it out until it stops smelling raw.
4. Add the ground spices and let them fry in the fat for 30 seconds before the tomatoes go in. Spices bloomed in fat taste of something; spices boiled in liquid taste dusty.
5. Simmer the tomatoes 15 minutes until the sauce darkens and the fat separates at the edges. That split is the sign it is ready for cream.
6. Stir in the cream and sugar, then fold the charred chicken and any resting juices through. Warm for 5 minutes only.
7. Finish with garam masala and coriander. Born in a British curry house rather than in India, and eaten here in enormous quantity — a former foreign secretary once called it a true British national dish, which tells you most of what you need to know about British food.