Easy chicken tikka masala recipe – celebrating #nationalcurryweek with a little help from The Spice Tailor

chicken tikka masala

I love a curry. Poppadoms, naan, that minty dip thing that I never know the name of that you always get in a tiny pot when you order takeaway – I love it all. As it’s National Curry Week then it would be positively remiss of me not to whip up a delicious spicy feast.

Fortunately, I recently discovered The Spice Tailor curry sauces, so rather than having to spend ages grinding things in a mortar and pestle or trekking to a specialist supermarket for spices I can have a chicken tikka masala ready in about 15 minutes – a proper one that doesn’t taste like it’s full of sugar and just came out of a jar.

Now what I could do is use the sauces as a base, from which to create my own unusual curry recipe, but actually I’m way too lazy for that. Besides, the whole point for me of a product like this is that you don’t need to use any kind of initiative to get a great tasting dinner, as everything is done for you. Of course you can chuck in a few extra vegetables if you like – courgettes and tomatoes are a favourite for me – but the flavours really are already there and let’s be honest, time is better spent at around 6pm cracking open a bottle of wine. (One thing I do sometimes do, if I’m stretching out a sauce for more people, is to add some coconut milk. This makes things go a bit further and adds a lovely creamy layer to the taste.)

The Spice Tailor tikka masala sauce comes as three sachets and literally all you need to add is a splash of oil and some chicken.

First up, you heat some oil in a frying pan, and cook the spices for just 20 seconds. The spice mix includes fenugreek, black and green cardamom, clove, cinnamon and guntoor red chilli. They smell AMAZING. Seriously, I opened the sachet about half an hour ago to take the picture and the whole house smells delicious.

chicken tikka masala recipe

Next step is to add your meat and gently brown. Then add the base sauce and simmer for a couple of minutes. Chuck in a few extras here if you fancy them.

Add the main sauce and any more delicate ingredients (like fish) and bring to the boil. Cook then for 3-6 minutes until your meat is cooked through.

Chicken tikka masala recipe

Meanwhile cook up some rice, naan and whatever else you fancy to go with it. I really love my chicken tikka masala with a big blob of The Spice Tailor’s mint leaf chutni mixed into some natural yogurt.

The Spice Tailor mint leaf chutni

Then there’s only one step left – tuck in and enjoy!

Chicken tikka masala recipe

The Spice Tailor sent me their range of sauces so that I could create this post for National Curry Week but I was genuinely a fan before this – they are amazing!

 

Follow:

2 Comments

  1. Danielle Vedmore
    16 October, 2014 / 8:50 pm

    Yum! I love Tikka masala – a firm family favourite. Have not tried this brand before. Will have to kepp an eye out for it – looks delicious!

  2. 17 October, 2014 / 4:06 am

    We have some lovely Indian restaurants around St Paul and Minneapolis, but to find easy ingredients to use to make at home when you don’t know bubkiss about cooking Indian food is impossible. Tell them to send those spice blends to us in the US!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.