UFC 84: Fight Food

Penne with Chicken Tikka Masala
Had the fellas over for UFC 84 (great fight card) and decided to make some curry. I've made curry in the past and it's hella complex, so I basically realized f it - I'm not Indian, so I don't need to toast and grind 10 different spices. That actually may have screwed my curry up as the curry was flavorful, but not as good as I wanted it to be. I tossed it with pasta, since it seemed to make sense - tomato based curry and pasta. It worked well, but again the curry definitely needs to be tweaked. This recipe is based off the America's Test Kitchen Recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala. Again, it's an approximation of the recipe that I would make now, since the actual Test Kitchen recipe didn't taste so great - chicken was really tasty, but sauce was more like a creamy tomato sauce with a little spice.

Ingredients - Marinade
2 tsp Ground Cumin
2 tsp Ground Coriander
2 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Salt and Pepper
2 pounds organic chicken thighs
2 Minced Garlic Cloves
1 Tblsp Grated Fresh Ginger (peeled- about 2 medium pieces of ginger for the sauce and marinade)
1 cup Whole Milk Yogurt
1 tblsp Vegetable Oil

Ingredients - Sauce
1 medium onion finely minced
1 tsp of tomato paste
2 Minced Garlic Cloves
2 Tblsp Grated Fresh Ginger (peeled)
2 serrano chiles finely minced
2 Tblsp of garam masala (make sure this has chiles - the brand I bought was National and didn't have Chiles...tasted more like Pakistani food, than Indian food)
1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 tsp of sugar
1 cup of heavy cream
2 cups cilantro leaves sliced

1) Rinse and dry the chicken - remove skin and fat. Combine cayenne pepper, cumin, coriander, pinch salt and pepper and sprinkle over the chicken.
2) Combine the rest of the marinade ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside for 1 hour in the fridge.
3) After 1 hour, remove the chicken from the fridge. Set oven to broil. After 15 minutes, dip the chicken in the yogurt marinade. Shake of the excess marinade and place the chicken on tray in the oven. Once it gets brown on all sides (20 minutes), remove from heat and pull apart chicken meat after 15 minutes.
4) Set some water in a large pot to boil
5) Over medium heat in separate saute pan, cook onions until soft and golden (8 minutes) in a large sauce pan.
6) Add tomato paste and cook another 5 minutes
7) Add chiles, ginger, garlic, and garam masala and cook for 1 minute.
8) Add crushed tomatoes and sugar and cook for 15 minutes.
9) Cook pasta in the large pot with boiling water. As usual cook pasta 2 minutes before done and taste (or feel) until it's just under al dente.
10) Cut heat on the curry sauce to simmer, stir the cream into the sauce and add shredded chicken. Taste. If it needs more Indian flavor, add more garam masala. If it needs more heat, add extra chiles or cayenne pepper. Sweeter, add more sugar. Remember to always taste and tweak.
11) Add pasta to the sauce and a little pasta cooking water to loosen the sauce. Add the cilantro leaves.

Crispy Chicken Skin
With the excess chicken skin, I made crispy chicken skin which as our buddy Pat mentioned was so wrong, yet so tasty. Basically, dry the chicken skins and salt and pepper them and toss them on a tray in a 400 degree oven. Make sure to keep an eye on them, since they will burn before you know it. Turn after one side is very crispy 10-15 minutes. Once it's crispy all over, remove from the oven and salt and pepper again. This is basically like chicharron (pork rinds, but for chicken)...crispy, salty, and fatty. Like potato chips on chicken steroids.