Chicken Tikka Masala Recipe — Homemade Paste and Sizzler Char

This chicken tikka masala recipe starts with the paste.

My curry education — which you can read about on the Curry Recipes hub — began with a Vesta packet and took thirty-odd years to arrive at the real thing. CTM came somewhere in the middle: the dish that Britain adopted as its own, argued over, and ate in enormous quantities every Friday night for decades.

The debate about its origins is entertaining. Glasgow claims it — a chef at the Shish Mahal is said to have added tomato soup and cream to tikka chicken in the 1970s to please a customer who wanted more sauce. India points out that similar dishes existed long before then. Robin Cook called it "a true British national dish" in 2001, which annoyed a great many people and settled nothing. Either way, the result is one of the finest things you can do with a piece of chicken.

The TFC version of this chicken tikka masala recipe is built on homemade tikka masala paste. The chicken goes onto the sizzler first — proper char, proper flavour, before it ever sees the sauce. Scaled for one, cooked at Casa Adora.

Chicken Tikka Masala Recipe — The Marinade

The marinade does the heavy lifting. At least two hours; overnight if possible.

Ingredients — marinade:

• 200g chicken thighs, boneless and skinless, cut into chunks
• 2 tbsp homemade tikka masala paste
• 2 tbsp Greek yoghurt
• Juice of ½ lemon
• Pinch of salt

Combine everything, mix well, cover and refrigerate. The paste and yoghurt tenderise the chicken; the lemon lifts it.

The Sauce

Ingredients — sauce:

• 1 tbsp ghee
• ½ small onion, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, grated
• 1cm fresh ginger, grated
• 1 tbsp homemade tikka masala paste
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 150ml passata
• 50ml double cream
• Pinch of sugar
• Salt to taste
• Fresh coriander to serve

How to Cook This Chicken Tikka Masala Recipe

Serves 1

Method:

1 — Char the chicken. Heat the sizzler until smoking. Lay the marinated chicken pieces on it and cook until properly charred on the outside and just cooked through — 8 to 10 minutes, turning once or twice. Set aside.

2 — Build the sauce. Heat the ghee in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Fry the onion until soft and golden — about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger, stir for one minute. Add the tikka masala paste and tomato purée, stir for 2 minutes.

3 — Simmer. Add the passata and simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened and darkened slightly.

4 — Combine. Add the charred chicken to the sauce. Stir in the double cream. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.

5 — Taste and adjust. A pinch of sugar balances the tomato. Salt to taste.

Serve with rice or naan — the Rice Recipes collection has both basmati and jasmine covered. Fresh coriander if you have it.

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This chicken tikka masala recipe is part of my Curry Recipes collection and my Chicken Recipes collection. It also features in my Rice Recipes hub.
Find more recipes and food adventures here.
Wonky photos, proper chicken, genuine adventures — The Flexible Chef