A few weeks ago my sisters and my mom and I went to Boston to stay with our very close family friends Abha and Mriganka. Abha is an incredible cook who seems to effortlessly throw together fabulous Indian meals in an instant, so we asked her to share some of her secrets. This is the first of a couple different recipes she made with us.



She found it all rather hilarious that we were trying to write down "amounts" and "ingredients" so we could recreate this in the future- and as so many instinctively great cooks do, she insisted that it was no big deal, everything is easy, just a little of this and a little of that and it's all done. Of course, if you look at this ingredient list it looks rather extensive, but she assures us that you can leave out or substitute any number of these spices and still yield a tasty result. In the meantime I'd like to say that I'm going to hew as closely to the painstakingly transcribed recipe as possible in the future, as the version we made together was fabulous- and once you've slogged through the spices, actually pretty quick and easy to make. But truth be told I have already made this again and I'd say I left out around 3 things at least, with much the same result.

Something about the marinade makes the chicken really tender and moist, so even if you get a crispy browned outside, the inside comes out perfect. She made a more complicated yogurt recipe to serve on the side, which I'll share in a future post- but I have included an easy little trick of my own which gets you a yummy yogurt sauce with essentially no additional effort.


Abha's Marinated Indian Chicken

Ingredients:

• 2 onions
• 1-in piece ginger
• 3-4 garlic cloves
• olive oil
• ½ tsp of cinnamon
• Large pinch of nutmeg
• ½ tsp of cayenne
• Small pinch of mace (optional)
• 1½ tbsp whole cumin seeds
• 5 whole cardamom pods
• 15 peppercorns
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 2 tbsp red wine or red wine vinegar (optional)
• 2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breast tenders
• 1 pint thick plain yogurt (I used 2% Fage)
  
• 2-3 lemons
  

Method:

• Puree 1 onion, garlic, ginger, and 1 "glug" of olive oil together in blender or food processor until finely chopped.
• Add all spices and seasonings (everything except vinegar) and 2 more "glugs" oil and puree again.
• Put about 2-3 Tblsp of the marinade, juice of 1/2 lemon, and about 1/2 tsp of salt in the yogurt. Stir and set aside in fridge until serving time.
  
• Add vinegar to remaining marinade and coat chicken with it. Put it in a bowl. Leave in the fridge for anywhere between 1 and 24 hours.
• Put foil on a broiler pan and drizzle with olive oil. Arrange marinated chicken on foil and drizzle more oil on top.
• Broil on high heat about 8 minutes on one side, then flip and cook another 5 minutes or so until cooked through.
• Serve with lemon wedges and thinly sliced red onion, and the yogurt sauce on the side.
  
• If you have a BBQ you can make this on the BBQ if you prefer.