Tandoori chicken

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (September 2007)

Tandoori chicken is a popular dish in Punjabi cuisine.

Wikibooks Cookbook has an article on

Tandoori masala

Tandoori Chicken is a chicken dish that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. The chicken is marinated in yogurt, and seasoned with tandoori masala. It is traditionally moderately hot, but the heat is toned down to a "mild" taste level in most Western nations. Cayenne pepper or red chili powder, or other spices give it the red colour. Higher amount of Turmeric produces a yellow-orange colour. In some modern versions red and yellow food colouring is used instead and sometimes in addition to the tandoori spice mixture (Tandoori masala). It is traditionally cooked at high temperatures in an earthen oven (tandoor), but can also be prepared on a traditional grill. This dish is also popular among Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu speaking Indian states like West Bengal & Andra Pradesh. In Pakistan it is taken with Naan and in Bangladesh they are taken with rice.

[edit] History

While some consider the origin of Tandoori chicken akin to the tandoor or clay ovens used by others, Tandoor cooked chicken actually dates back to the Mughal peroid. This delicacy was a main course of the enormous Indian feasts of that day. Other stories of its origins have arisen, such as the one below:

A man named Kundan Lal Gujral ran a restaurant called Moti Mahal in Peshawar before the partition of India. Trying out new recipes to keep his patrons interested, Gujral tried cooking chicken in tandoors (clay ovens) used by locals until then to cook naans (bread). The tandoors are bell-shaped ovens, set into the earth and fired with wood or charcoal reaching temperatures of about 900 degrees. Gujral was able to cook the tender chickens in these ovens making them succulent inside and crispy outside.

After the partition in 1947, Punjab was partitioned with the Eastern portion joining India and the Western, Pakistan. Peshawar became part of Pakistan and Gujral found himself one among many refugees fleeing the rioting and upheaval by moving to India. He moved his restaurant to Delhi in a place called Daryagunj.

The Tandoori chicken at Moti Mahal so impressed the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru that he made it a regular at official banquets. Visiting dignitaries that enjoyed Tandoori Chicken included American Presidents Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, Soviet leaders Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, the King of Nepal, and the Shah of Iran. The fame of Tandoori Chicken led to many derivatives like Chicken Tikka Masala and Butter Chicken, commonly found in menus in Indian restaurants all over the world.