Recreating Madhur Jaffrey's Chicken Tikka Masala From Taste | Bon Appétit

Hi everyone, I'm Priya, we're in the BA test kitchen for a super secret conversation about Chris Morocco. Today we have world famous mother chef Joffrey together. We're going to put Chris's super flavor skills to the test, so this dish is my

chicken

tikka

.

masala

not

chicken

tikka

masala

chicken tikka tikka masala because it is a small diced piece of meat and it is very popular throughout Britain so we are challenged to replicate this exact dish with the same ingredients and only two days you will be able to try it . smell it, touch it, but at no time will you be able to see the plate.

At the end of the second day, we will try Chris's dish again and I will be the judge. I'll rate it. I would be very nervous. if I were Chris, no, not at all, just try to stay quiet, yeah, no kidding, mmm, it smells good, I'm getting kind of Korean SH flavors, like a little chili mixed with the possibility of some kind of cumin and cilantro. The situation is definitely like a warm spicy undertone, possibly like cinnamon or clove. Okay, are we talking about a type of yeasted naan style bread? Well, I got it. It became very nice, pleasantly charred, a very fragrant piece of what appears to be chicken.

Here it's probably a chicken thigh. grilling I guess it has a yogurt marinade and has a real richness, warmth and tenderness. It's too spicy and not rich enough to be like butter chicken in my opinion, this is something about chicken tikka masala. world, this to me is kind of like, you know, giving me more something like turmeric, cumin, coriander, black pepper, chili powder, kind of curry spice world, but like the possibility of some tomato happening over there; okay, listen sometimes like the most damn things like I tripped you up. I was like what is that, but it was just a piece of garlic, so yeah, it's like there's not really that much sauce in this bowl and I'm trying to find, you know, big obvious chunks of spice like a you know. whole cardamom type but no, yeah, I can't find anything, I guess maybe it's like a tomato puree, it's something where we don't have any pieces of tomato, it's just a tomato puree, there's a lot of richness. there are a lot of spices so these are the spices I'm thinking of and I'm not entirely sure where to put them in terms of the chicken marinade or the sauce cardamom cumin coriander ginger question mark black pepper Brad, what did I say?

I had like one, I had a request, I'll send you to station two so quick, man, whatever I can hear you, but Arya Stark, over here, I know exactly where you are, yeah, thanks, Brad distracted me, I think this is Chicken Tikka Masala. Again, this is not my area of ​​expertise at all, the person I like just knowing that you know from being in a lot of videos, I would say possibly like a modder, Joffrey, you know, he's someone who likes to cook for you. I know a kind of royalty for Indian cuisine. I feel like I have enough of an idea to get off to a good start, so we have spices, a warm spice, cinnamon, cloves, curry, spices, coriander and hot chili powder on chicken thighs.

I feel pretty. Well, let's go to the supermarket. Hopefully, all of these things will be there. Oh yeah, we're going out, so we're talking strategy. There is not much. I'm getting vegetables. I need some garlic. and I need a little bit of ginger and that's if everything else is a spice or a protein or cooking fat and then like in our flatbread situations, ginger, add a little bit of zinc, garlic, I think there's onion in the sauce, okay, so we have spices here. experiencing a certain range of warm spice flavors similar to what you would find in a garam masala, which is like the mix of spices used in curry, let's pick one off the shelf and check it out before moving on. from ourselves, so this is garam masala, this one has cumin, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and mace, so there's that kind of cinnamon and cloves that we're picking up.

I'm going to get this, okay, we'll just take things one by one. we have cumin coriander garam masala turmeric cardamom I want some mustard seeds, so I have a couple of chili options. I think we have Kashmiri, a chili powder in the kitchen, which is also a good option. boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I wasn't looking for tomato, but tomato found me, oh, here's the ghee, it's cultured clarified butter, okay, oh guys, what's up? Yeah, there's nothing to see here, so I bought some good quality whole milk yogurt. Yogurt is included in the marinade. Flatbread options, I'm sure.

They won't rate me on the flatbread itself, but I don't trust anyone. I think that's okay, so I just got back from the supermarket and I think it's imperative that we get some chicken in yogurt marinade as soon as possible, so about a cup of yogurt, let's say there's a little bit of garlic and some ginger a little bit of umami a little bit of heat a little bit of salt let's try some chili powder so this is a hot paprika ooh I like that it has a little bit of spicy fruit flavor and some depth I'm planning on being disappointed with this cayenne that looks rusty and old, it's so hot, it's like the friend who shows up at your party like he's already drunk, you know, it's like where is this going, so this is Kashmir, a chilli. the soft dust in Cayenne is still burning.

I'm so upset, oh that's really nice, smoky and fruity, they call it mild, but it's hot. I like it, I could go with that, we'll just start with half a teaspoon every now and then. I was getting this lingering cardamom and I'm trying to find big obvious chunks of spice like a whole cardamom, but I'm wondering if maybe that's because there was only garam masala in the marinade and in the sauce or in one. or the other one not, this is very difficult, so this is garam masala, which is cardamom, cloves, black pepper, cumin and mace.

I mean, who's to say it couldn't be buttermilk instead of yogurt or a combination? Okay, I'm going to go with this for the When the chicken just goes into the marinade, I'm going to set it aside at room temperature in an hour, so I'm going to roast it with spices, like a curry type powder from my own creation, cumin seeds, black pepper. I'm going to make some cilantro, hey Sola, can I ask you a question about technique real quick? Just ignore what's going on here, okay, but if I said, hey, I want to make some kind of spice and similar aromatic paste, do you think I need? toast my spices first or do you think they will know usually you don't know yeah do you feel like it's a pretty common practice to puree like diced onion with water?

I feel like I have seen you do it like you did with your briyani, thanks friend. I think I'll stop adding extra cinnamon or cloves to the dish and rely on the fact that it will come out of the chicken. Cardamom, yeah, I want to put some cardamom in there. I just want the cardamom seeds to be like very floral fenugreek in fenugreek to me it has a fake maple syrup quality to it and very sweet. I want this to be really fun because I wasn't really feeling the texture of the spice chunks. I'm going to add some yellow mustard with turmeric.

Look at it too and grind the chili powder in there, so with the addition of the chili powder I now have it in our sauce base and our marinade for the next step of the chicken, so I'm doing the rough dice on this. onion. I'm just mixing this onion and ginger mixture with a little bit of water just because I've never experienced a distinct part of any of those things in the sauce, but I think they're there flavor-wise, hmm, so I guess the question is. As in theory, I guess you could probably add the tomato to this.

I guess the other question is how is the liquid forming in the sauce, you know, there's water, possibly like a little bit of buttermilk or something, oh man, it's in chunks. this is very disappointing. I'm going to start with a couple tablespoons of ghee and make our sauce here, spice mix into our onion mixture. The bottom line here is that we're cooking up all of these aromatics that will form the flavor base of this. sauce this will cook until you get a jam paste. I'll add a little tomato and then it'll cool while we roast the chicken.

We are making fun. How about? I think I'm making chicken tikka masala. Well, yeah, I guess what's wrong with me is why I don't have the tomato product there now. It's like I'm looking at Brad but I'm thinking about how my cousin grew up thinking about the tomato and he's hanging around so I'm putting him in. about half a cup of tomato puree, it has to be redder than that, although of course, I'm going to use a full cup of tomato. I know, I think I put too much water in that onion, that's why it wasn't like cooking it.

Well, you know, having a red sauce, I feel like that's the key, wow, bitter, I mean, how is that better? If I were trying to make this dish I would say I would use half the amount of onion, it's less water. and I would fry it hard even before adding the spices. The sauce is boiling. I have some ideas about it. We can go ahead and start roasting some chicken. I'll season it lightly with salt. I'm roasting the chicken. Because I actually experienced a decent amount of charring in the chicken I tried today, I really wanted to recreate that effect using the grill here, yes there is half a teaspoon of Kashmiri chili powder which FL is quite spicy so I did that.

I don't use that much, but maybe you're thinking there should have been more, yeah, yeah, like a lot more, yeah, okay, okay, good to know, oh my god, we're falling apart. I just sprinkled on a little more of this mild chili powder. on the chicken okay I'm just doing it for color just because I looked so stupid right now chickens off the grill I'm just doing it like a really rough cut so I'm just going to throw the chicken in here I mean use a splash of water just to thin this out of the touch I just want to heat this up again I feel like it's too thick it just feels like it's going to have too much texture I mean the

taste

like I don't hate it but I'm not into I love it not at all, it would be a bit bold, this is version one.

I just like it in my mind. I'm listening to the time finished. Look, it's not what I wanted, it's not what anyone wanted, this

taste

s very tinkly to me. the original dish was very pleasantly harmonious and balanced at this point, things stick out like a sore thumb. I'm really not that happy about this at all. a little bitter I need more silkiness for this sauce. Okay, I wonder. If maybe it has a little bit of dairy in it, I'll try some things tomorrow. I'll add a little buttermilk. You know, add a little yogurt. Ingredients. I'd say it's about 72% flavor.

I'd say 65. That's being a little harsh, I'd say I'm at 75, this isn't like coq au van, you know what I'm saying, I think we're like we're on the right room technique. I want to give myself 85 for technical appearance. Look, I mean, this looks pretty sad, but it's a red sauce with chicken. I'll give it an 88 for appearance, the sauce might be a slightly different consistency, but overall I think this is the general essence of the dish. I'm at an 80 overall, I'm actually feeling a little generous, this made me do some thinking, all of that means I have one more chance to try this tomorrow morning and a lot will depend on that, I mean, it's gravy.

It's just not super spicy when I smelled it, I definitely had that feeling that it was okay, I definitely need a little bit of cinnamon in the sauce, like I was missing that yesterday, there's definitely a distinct flavor to the chicken, you know, I still feel very good with yogurt. The feeling that there is more marinade clinging to this chicken. I want to stick with a thicker marinade and I want to keep more of it on the chicken when it goes on the grill. The presence of a thin thread of onion would be something interesting from the standpoint of perhaps changing the way I approach my sauce.

Oh okay, I think I'm finding chunks of onion here now, that's huge, so yesterday I had a lot of trouble with my sauce and a part. I think it's due to the fact that I'm not very comfortable with the whole technique of mixing onion with water to make a puree. I like the idea of ​​simply cooking the thinly sliced ​​onion before proceeding to add our spices. I use mustard. Seeds yesterday and I don't want to do that today. I think it was a mistake. I also used fenugreek yesterday, which I like. I try. I don't know.

Bitter maple is something that will add bitterness to this. Don't know. It's not really like you know I've been going back and forth on whether I think there's any kind of dairy being added to it, whether it's buttermilk with yogurt. I think I'll take a small amount of my next pass in the sauce and try adding. a couple of those things, okay, I have a piece of cilantro. Well, today we have a bit of an aggressive schedule, so to get fully into the game, I'll be watching the montage of Joe Esposito, you're the best in The Karate Kid.

He's guaranteed to cheer me up under no circumstances, never doubt that you're the one and you can have the dream that we're going to stick some chicken in a marinade ASAP. I think I still want to add garlic and ginger to my chicken marinade, no time. for more 80s montages, okay, as much as we want to make them, yes, I'll stick with yogurt, hot chili powder, another teaspoon of our milder chili powder, his karate kid always helps me out. This Ralph Macchio generally helps me, whatnice guy. I love Ralph Macchio, man, okay, I feel good, I got some color. concentration here the chicken goes into the marinade, let's think about our spices for our sauce.

I'm going to get my cardamom out of this. I just don't like to try it coriander and cumin, black pepper or adding a little bit of everything you have. Never let yourself down poetry, the quarter teaspoon of turmeric again. I really want to control the bitterness of the garam masala and then we'll put a touch of cinnamon on top. I'm going to use a little bit more of my chili mixture, so today I'm going to thinly slice the onion and then I'm also going to do a couple cloves of crushed garlic. I'm sweating the onion and garlic, then the spices and ginger, get it going, I just want to develop the flavor a little bit and then the tomatoes.

Come in, we have a very different type of spice profile today it's a little warmer color wise. I do not hate it. I definitely feel better with the results I'm getting today. I'm going to keep it low. Yesterday I'm going to roast some chicken. I felt like he just didn't have much personality. It needed a little more spice and a little more fire. I just feel so much better that the chili has abstained from that yogurt. I think we're good here before we continue, there is a question about is this sauce running out, is it some type of dairy, this is what I would like to do.

I want to take a small amount of sauce and I would like to combine it with have cream buttermilk a little bit of yogurt this is heavy cream oh wow it was never going to stink was it so buttermilk? It's like low fat milk that's just been cultured a little too sour this is yogurt, but I don't like how it doesn't incorporate the sauce adds flavor before adding any additional richness from all of these. I'm leaning on maybe just a little bit of heavy cream and also a little bit of water, so this is asafoetida. Priya refers to this ingredient as the ingredient that makes all our Indian food really taste like India, it has an interesting flavour, a bit bitter, a bit like umami and a bit of a kick.

I don't know, it's like a little final ajuna that says quoi and I'm going to say calm, okay, so I'm just cutting the chicken and I'll finish it in the sauce and just cook everything together for a few minutes. I'm feeling pretty good, another cilantro, okay, so this is the second version of Honestly, I almost wish I could serve this to Priya right now. I feel pretty good about the sum of my techniques and ingredients so far, so I don't really see the need to change. I want to reduce the spiciness of the chili a little, but I really like the color.

I feel good about sweating the onion, just from the standpoint of getting this. You know, this is what I was testing in the original. dish and I think with the addition of the heavy cream I'm going to hedge my bets and say it's there in the original dish, maybe not much, but I feel like it's part of what's building up that richness in the dish and it's also what which helps balance the tomato ingredients. I'm going to give myself 86% flavor. I'm getting to 91, technique 88, appearance 95, sorry Jeremy, that all adds up to a 90. I have one more chance to do this before.

I have to serve something to Priya. I'm going to make a couple of adjustments, but there probably won't be much change here, so we get to the next best and last chance. I'm going to start by preparing the marinade for the chicken. to our spice base for our sauce and then we talked about just toning down the chili powder a little bit. I'll do a teaspoon of the mild, still let's go down to 3/4 of the chili powder Marion hash so our spices stick with a thin slices of whole onion the graphics over my left shoulder there could be oil in this instead of ghee but mangy as if it couldn't be beat in flavor the onions are jammy spice mix goes in ginger it arrived in time to roast that chicken the chicken doesn't take off like any marinade, in fact, I want to leave some of it.

I like the color we're getting overall. I'm going to add a splash of water, so I definitely did that with the last one. of them in my splash of cream too yeah, with that I like a look I like the consistency how you do it Alone, great, I almost forgot our pinch, the secret weapon, okay, nobody touch the rest of this, tonight is dinner . It will ruin your cilantro cuts, this is as they say. I really hope I didn't ruin it. I'm dying to know who he is for me. This has always seemed like an authentic dish to me.

It has an incredible flavor. for me, but we'll see what it's like next to each other, so how do you feel? I feel good, who do you think made this dish and what do you think the dish is? I have maintained from the beginning that I believe it is chicken tikka masala. and I've also maintained from the beginning that I'm not really sure who made the dish. My best guess based on some sort of video presence in the world is uh, hello, welcome, I don't know, we'll find out, oh my gosh. It's truly an honor to have you on the show.

Well, thank you, thank you. This is the first time maybe I know. Wow, no, it's okay, they look similar. Oh, yours is definitely a little looser, yeah, and the chicken pieces are bigger, so there we are. I'll try the original first, so now let's try Chris's chicken textures better. Did you hear that? We all heard that very close, very close, so I'm dying to know what spice you have in you. Did you use yogurt? I used yogurt in the marinade for the chicken and I used cream and my marinade sauce after putting the spices is an old curry sauce technique you keep putting a spoonful of yogurt you mix it until it disappears it helps thicken the sauce and gives it a little a little bit of acidity, yeah, we can probably give it a little bit of sweetness too because yeah, it caramelizes, it gives it a nice texture.

India, yes, oh, and I added a pinch of asafoetida. Do you even know what vegetables and beans were meant for? difficult to digest, that was this purpose initially, I understood it because it is a digestive, but okay, and you are using the initial cooking fat that you are sweating the onions in? It's that ghee. I used oil, olive oil, would you use heat? Please key for the chicken. I ordered it for a yogurt, garlic and ginger marinade, a chili powder mix, did you put lemon in it? I don't look like a lemon, okay, so there are two Sailors.

I remember one time James Beard came to our house for dinner and I waited, he took a bite of the tandoori chicken and told Mara nods that he could taste it well, so the first one is lemon juice and salt, leave it for 20 minutes, it's okay, and the second one is your onion, garlic, ginger mixture and you can put yogurt in the second one if you want. I like it and you can put cream on the second highlighter, but that's fine, but I could tell by the texture of one of the other ones. I like your chicken.

I like the texture of your chicken better than this, so whatever you do, do it, yeah, okay, great. How did you actually cook it? So I grilled it because I felt like that was the best way to get those kind of little toasty nubs. Yes Yes. Why is this made in a pan? No, no, I roasted it and put it in some kind of pan. lapel and twisted, that's so fascinating that you actually take the time to string it on. Your chicken was left for you, but yours tastes wonderful, okay, I really like the texture of yours, it's very nice, thank you, you did a great job.

Oh, honestly, this is yes. Well now it's the part, yeah I'm a little nervous because we're going to win a judge, Chris, what are the first grade ingredients? You have an excellent score because you are choosing the ingredients correctly, 90, that is wonderful, yes, they are almost there. all there, oh my god, I'm not going to be on a roll, I'm not going to be able to stop smiling, so I'm not going to fight the next cut, erase the taste, I think mine tastes a little better, it's okay, but the texture of your chicken is better than this ok 87 yes ok ok it's still in the game technique I thought they were very yes I think it could be you know it was a big shining moment for rude things like a technique 95 yes 95 and a look, I think also very both very good he's pretty good they look very appetizing so we give him 1990 94 audience okay, this might be the best score I've ever gotten.

I'm going crazy, what scores have you gotten on others? I don't know, just Dan. I would remember all I remember is the pain and the misery, the sweat, okay, your final score is 92. Well, honestly, I'm excited. 92% is incredible, it was very good. You could easily sell this on the streets of London. I may come to the point that I'm so cancelled. I know, honestly, I'm still a little speechless. I can't thank you enough for coming here. You did fantastic, thank you incredible. I'm speechless, they got me right on this one, call it the power of Joe Esposito.

Call it the power of Ralph Macchio or the fact that I wore my lucky socks today to have done as well as I did, it really is like a bright spot, you know, this is huge and honestly, we'll never forget it. It was pretty amazing to me, what are you doing? By the way, are you sure you have enough onion? Yes, exactly, are you sure you have enough onion? But yeah, I'm so distracted by the ungodly amount of onion and that frying pan that I can't. Really think about anything and how much sumac is there. I know it's great, okay, yeah, we're not delivering less.