When I make it I use regular, plain ol’ Plain Yogurt - like Dannon or some other common brand. Sometimes it tastes correct, sometimes it doesn’t - and sometimes I add a little brown sugar to balance out the bit of sour when it doesn’t taste correct
Should I be using a specific yogurt? I have checked the various Tikka paste jars and online and I am not seeing that a specific yogurt is called for - is there a preferred brand? Or are there tricks about how you work with the yogurt to get it to consistently turn out good?
I can’t speak to chicken tikka masala specifically, but a lot of Indian recipes I’ve tried recommend a Greek-style yogurt as opposed to the more common breakfast-type. The Greek-style is thicker (more like sour cream consistency) and has a bit more “punch” to the flavor. There’s at least one brand (whose name escapes me for the moment; sorry) that seems to be pretty common in major supermarkets. It’s usually at the fringes of the display case, either high up or at one end, or both.
I know that stuff - it’s call Fage or something like that, right? Does it have a more sour flavor? If so, that’s the issue I am already facing - sometimes the sauce is more sour vs. the balance taste at a restaurant. Hence the occasional doctoring with brown sugar…I got the idea because sometimes I’ve seen folks add a bit of sugar to a spaghetti sauce to balance the bite of the tomatoes…seems to work when I do it to a sour-leaning Tikka…
Yes, you must use a Greek yoghurt. Also, are you marinating the chicken in a yoghurt/curry sauce mixture before cooking? This makes the chicken way more tender. I also find putting the pieces of chicken on a skewer and grilling them, after marinating, to taste very nice, with the rest of the sauce cooked on a hob.
If you have to add sugar to a curry, you’re doing something wrong! Are you making your own tikka sauce? I used to make my own following the curryhouse.co.uk recipes, but after visiting the site again, I see the tikka sauce recipe is now behind a paywall.
I disagree. Chicken tikka masala (and Korma, and other recipes) is incredibly sweet, at least in every one of the dozens of curry houses to which I accompanied my ex, who always ordered CTM. I can’t see how they would achieve that level of sweetness without sugar - unless they were getting it out of a catering jar, but I’d imagine that would have added sugar too. Jaggery is a standard Indian cooking ingredient.
Thanks everyone - good stuff. Especially you, **jjimm **- that recipe is incredibly…um…validating? I mean it tells me that I wasn’t off in my quest and my approach was actually okay.
I will clearly have to try to Greek yogurt - that type of recommendation is what I was trying to learn about in the OP. I get my Tikka paste in a jar - one of the more common brands that I can find at a reasonably well-stocked market close by.
Thanks again - and if anyone has other comments, I appreciate hearing them…
Are you using Patak’s brand of sauces? If so, are you purchasing tikka paste, or tikka masala sauce? Because chicken tikka is marinated, dry chicken, while chicken tikka masala is a curry (i.e. chicken in a sauce), and they sell different products to make each dish.
This recipe is excellent, although I recommend reading the reviews and making modifications accordingly, e.g. use garam masala in the sauce as well as the marinade. It does not include sugar. It uses regular yoghurt (as does Ramsay, I see), but I think I will give it a try with greek yoghurt based on comments in this thread.
News to me. The only sweet I’ve encountered is imparted by the tomato and the garahm masala (which does contain cinnamon, star anise, and green cardamom in my recipe).
I think the point with brown sugar is that it is “in the realm of the possible” if you will. Let’s face it, a good CTM is a grab bag - the only constant is the sauce and that I serve it with rice. I will vary the meat (Shrimp Tikka Masala can be great, as can Pork) and I vary the veggies based on what I have in my fridge. So I assume that the flavor will vary from batch to batch (and I don’t measure much, which doesn’t help ;)). So knowing that using a bit of brown sugar for balance is not completely out of line is good…
I have never ever had a sweet chicken tikka masala, neither from a curry house, nor from one made at home or bought in. Korma is sweet, but surely that’s imparted by the coconut milk (and solids?) used in the recipe?
Same here. The only sugar I see in Indian recipes is from Gujarati (Western Indian) cuisine, which is a distinguishing feature of their regional food.
Anyhow, I just use regular ol’ Dannon-brand All Natural Plain yogurt if I make yogurt-based Indian dishes, and it tastes fine to me. I haven’t made Tikka Masala in ages, but I use a mix of yogurt and heavy cream for the sauce base.
I adapted several recipes from around the interwebs, and what I did is as follows:
Marinated for 1 hour 500 g diced chicken breast
in several glugs of lemon juice
and 1 tbsp tikka paste
smeared all over the chicken pieces
Then, I roughly chopped 4 small onions
and fried them in a little oil with 1 tbsp ginger
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp my friend Jasvinder’s mum’s secret recipe garam masala
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 small dried chillis
1 tsp sugar
Heated the oven as hot as it would go and put the chicken pieces in it on a baking tray.
To the frying onion mixture I added 1 small carton (400 ml) passata (crushed tomatoes)
1 tbsp tomato paste
And simmered for a while.
Turned the chicken pieces when the edges were starting to blacken.
Whizzed the mixture in a blender and added it to a wok (karai/balti if you have one). Crushed 10 curry leaves
and stirred them in.
Took the chicken pieces out of the oven and dumped them in a small bowl, and mixed them up with 8 tbsps Greek yogurt
Reheated the curry mixture on a low heat, then poured in the yogurt and chicken, stirred it in, added salt to taste, and heated until simmering.
Just had a bowl. It’s pretty damned authentic-tasting, with deviations from the restaurant norm being merely: thicker sauce; much spicier than normal; not as sweet (;)).
Greek or Balkan yogurt for sure. Spices according to taste. NEVER any sugar - not even in Gujurati recipes (I work there and know that from our cook).
One tip I have found very useful when cooking with any type of yogurt is always to stir in a little corn starch before heating (approx. one level teaspoon per cup of yogurt) and the yogurt will never separate into “curds” in the finished dish.
