The Tandoor Site

Cooking: Meats

Meat Recipes

Boti Kebabs - cubed lamb kebabs

Raan Masaledar - whole leg of lamb

Shish (or Seekh) Kebabs - miced lamb kebabs

Tandoori Chicken (whole)

Boti Kebabs

Cubed lamb kebabs

I used lamb rather than mutton for this recipe. Cooking time should be less than 10 minutes in the tandoor.

Ingredients

• 1 kg mutton (cut into 2 cm cubes)
• 6 level tbsp curd
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• salt to taste
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 3 level tbsp tomato paste
• 2 tsp dry English mustard

Grind together

• 1 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• ½ tsp cloves
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 10 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp garam masala
• ½ tsp mace
• 2 cm sq piece ginger

Method

1. Add the tomato paste, curd, mustard, salt, '/4 cup oil, lemon juice to ground masalas and mix to a smooth paste.
2. Remove any fat from meat pieces.
3. Stab pieces with point of sharp knife, then place them in a glass bowl.
4. Pour marinade over meat.
5. Mix well, cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours or preferably overnight. The meat will take 30—40 minutes to cook, so light your charcoal fire accordingly.

Raan Masaledar

Whole leg of lamb in spicy yoghurt sauce

From "Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery" ISBN 0-563-16491-3

Sorry, not a Tandoor recipe, but a fantastic, lavish recipe which is great served with Naan from the Tandoor.

You need to buy a 5 lb (2kg) leg of lamb. Get the butcher to remove the H bone and to make a deep pocket to hold a stuffing. (You will not actually stuff the leg but most butchers seem to understand 'stuffing' better than they do 'spice paste'.) Also, ask the butcher to cut the protruding leg bone as close to the end of the meat as possible. This is to enable you to fit it into your baking pan easily. Ask the butcher to remove all the fat on the outside of the leg as well as the parchment like skin. (You could, of course, do this yourself.)

For baking, you need a pan large enough to hold the leg easily and about 2—2 ½ inches (5—6cm) deep to hold the sauce. Ideally, the pan should have a lid but you can use aluminium foil instead. Pyrex and stainless steel baking pans are best as they do not affect the taste of the sauce.

Serves 4—6:

• A 5 lb (2.25kg) leg of lamb, trimmed (see above)

For the sauce:

• 2 oz (50g) blanched almonds
• ½ lb (225g) onions, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 8 cloves garlic, peeled
• Four 1 inch (2.5cm) cubes of ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 4 fresh hot green chillies, coarsely chopped
• 20 fl oz (570m1) plain yoghurt
• 2 tablespoons ground cumin seeds
• 4 teaspoons ground coriander seeds
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 3 ½ teaspoons salt
• ½ teaspoon garam masala
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
• ½ teaspoon whole cloves
• 16 cardamom pods
• A 2 inch (5cm) stick of cinnamon
• 10 black peppercorns

For garnishing:

• 4 tablespoons sultanas oz (iog) blanched, split or slivered almonds

Make sure that all the fat has been trimmed from the outside of the leg and that most of the fell (parchment-like white skin) has been pulled off. Put the leg in a baking dish made, preferably, of pyrex or stainless steel.

Put the 2 oz (50g) almonds, onions, garlic, ginger, green chillies, and 3 tablespoons of the yoghurt into the container of a food processor or blender and blend until you have a paste.

Put the remaining yoghurt into a bowl. Beat lightly with a fork or a whisk until it is smooth and creamy. Add the paste from the processor, the cumin, coriander, cayenne, salt, and garam masala. Mix.

Push some of the spice paste into all the openings in the lamb. Be quite generous about this. Spread the paste evenly on the underside of the leg (the side that originally had less fat). Now, using a small, sharp, pointed knife (such as a paring knife), make deep slashes in the meat and push in the spice paste with your fingers. Turn the leg over so its outer side (the side that was once covered with fat) is on top. Spread a very thick layer of paste over it. Again, make deep slashes with the knife and push the spice paste into the slashes. Pour all the remaining spice paste over and around the meat. Cover with plastic cling film and refrigerate for 24 hours.

Take the baking dish with the meat out of the refrigerator and let the meat come to room temperature. Remove the cling film. Heat the oil in a small frying pan over a medium flame. When hot, put in the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon and peppercorns. When the cloves swell — this just takes a few seconds — pour the hot oil and spices over the leg of lamb.

Preheat oven to gas mark 6, 4000F (2000C).

Cover the baking dish tightly either with its own lid or with a large piece of aluminium foil. Bake, covered, for 1 hour 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake uncovered for 45 minutes. Baste 3—4 times with the sauce during this period. Scatter, or arrange in a pattern, the sultanas and the ½ oz (15g) almonds over the top of the leg and bake for another 5—6 minutes. Remove the baking dish from the oven and let it sit in a warm place for 15 minutes. Take the leg out of the pan and set it on a warm platter. Spoon off all the fat from the top of the sauce. Use a slotted spoon and fish out all the whole spices in the sauce. Discard the spices. Pour the sauce around the leg.

Shish Kebabs

Minced Lamb Kebabs

When I prepare the Boti Kebabs I tend to buy a whole leg of lamb and cut it up so as to get nice big cubes of meat. I'm left with a lot of scraps of meat and fat that aren't big enough to stick on a kebab. I mince these up and use them for this recipe.

I'm sure that more skilled tandoorist than I could cook these in the Tandoor. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to get them to stick to the skewers so I cook these on a conventional barbecue while cooking the accompanying Naan in the Tandoor.

These kebabs are very tasty and aromatic and also pretty easy to make. I think they're great.

Ingredients

• 1 lb miced lamb
• 1 egg
• 1 small red chilli
• 2 oz breadcrumbs
• 5 cloves of garlic
• handful of mint leaves
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp coriander seeds

Method

Put the lamb in a bowl and add the egg, finely chopped chilli, breadcrumbs, finely chopped garlic and mint leaves, garam masala and salt. Roast the cloves, cumin, cinnamon and coriander until fragrant, grind and add to the mixture. Combine well and rest in the fridge for an hour or more to allow the flavour to develop. You may need to add a little water if the mixture doesn't stick together firmly when pressed into a ball.

Form the kebabs by squeezing the mixure around skewers. Cook over a medium charcoal fire for about ten minutes. Serve with Naan.

Whole Tandoori Chicken

This is a fun one. I haven't yet worked out the best way to do this. The problem is how best to put the whole chicken into the tandoor so that it is suspended at the right height above the coals and can be retrieved when it is cooked. My first attempt was to slide the chicken onto a thick skewer then to slide a small swede on after it to hold it in place.

Unfortunately, after 10 minutes in the tandoor the swede was cooked through and too soft to serve its purpose. I retrieved the chicken from the bottom of the tandoor using welding gloves (an essential tandoor accessory!) and barbecue tongs. I gave up on using a skewer for the chicken and decided instead to use two much smaller skewers and some stiff wire to suspend the chicken in the oven. This was successful enough to allow me to complete the cooking of the chicken.

I would appreaciate someone who knows what they're doing telling me how I should be getting my whole chicken into the tandoor. Email me piersjthompson@hotmail.com if you know how.

Ingredients

• 1 chicken (3/4 to 1 kg approx)

Marinade

• 2 onions (medium, chopped)
• 3/4 tsp cumin seeds
• 4 cloves garlic (chopped)
• 3/4 tsp coriander seeds (ground)
• 3 cm sq piece ginger (chopped)
• 2 chillis (green)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1/4 cup oil

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients for the marinade and grind to a smooth paste or blend in a blender.
2. Prick chicken all over with a fork and place in a bowl.
3. Pour marinade over chicken.
4. Cover and refrigerate for 2 to3 hours (overnight would be better).
5. An hour before serving, light your tandoor.
6. Skew the chicken on to a skewer and place it in the tandoor when it is hot enough.
7. Cook until chicken gets well browned.