Tandoori Chicken Drumsticks
One of life’s little pleasures is having a lie-on in bed on a Saturday morning. If I get to lie-on until 9am, I’m doing very well! Another pleasure is watching cookery shows on Saturday morning while having a leisurely breakfast and lots of coffee. Recently, I watched Simon Hopkinson, The Good Cook on BBC1 which is straight after Saturday Kitchen. This is a really good show as he has a very personable style and gives you the confidence to give his recipes a try.
On this particular morning, Simon was showing how to make tandoori chicken drumsticks. They looked yummy and I said across to Hubbie, “I know what we’re having for dinner tomorrow!” One aspect of the show I like is that you can scan the ingredients at the end of the recipe, right on screen! How very technologically modern! Hubbie was ordered to pause and rewind while I found an app for my phone to scan the ingredients and recipe. BRILLIANT! Off to the shops I went for drumsticks, yoghurt and tandoori spice mix. No tandoori spice mix so tandoori paste it had to be.
I chopped off the end of the drumsticks, not really knowing why except that Simon said to. I slashed the flesh. I mixed tandoori paste and yoghurt until I liked the look of it and it resembled Simon’s. I slathered the drumsticks in the mix and into a container they went to marinate. Check recipe, OOPS! I totally didn’t rub the drumsticks in salt and lemon and leave for an hour. Idiot! Open the container, added lemon and salt, quick stir, back in fridge. Fingers crossed the chicken would be ok and the yoghurt mixture wouldn’t turn into some nightmarish mess.
The next day and all was well. I grilled the drumsticks until they were cooked with a lovely charred finish. They were absolutely YUMMY! So, later in the week I decided to make them again. After all, I had the yoghurt and am on a no waste mission at the moment. The results were not as good as the first time and here’s why:
- I didn’t chop of the end of the drumsticks and the end become an UGLY bit of bone that was literally hanging off the rest of the drumstick. Not good! I now know why Simon says to chop off the ends!
- I cooked the drumsticks in the oven and then grilled them until charred. I preferred just grilling them as they had dried out a bit
Will I make this recipe again? ABSOLUTELY! It’s easy – once you follow the recipe! And it’s very moreish. Great for a gathering as you won’t be left with any but if you are, you’ll be delighted as you’ll have the most flavoursome meat for wraps, sambos and salads!
If you would like to give the recipe a try, here’s a link to it on the BBC Food Recipes website! And if you like what you see, Simon’s book, The Good Cook is also available to buy from Amazon and all good bookstores.
Enjoy!
Xx Paula
8 comments on “Tandoori Chicken Drumsticks”
Leave a Reply
Irish Food Bloggers Association
Irish Food Bloggers Association
Member of the Irish Food Bloggers Association
Salt, Pepper and a Dollop of Cream 
Great recipe. The color on that chicken is amazing.
Thanks! I love it and have a pot of yoghurt ready for this weekend to make it again ;). Xx Paula
That’s what I made for dinner last night, but using a slightly different recipe. I loved it!
Oooh, I’d be interested to hear what you did differently! It’s so yummy and so simple to make. Me thinks I’ll be having this tonight myself 😉 Xx Paula
The main difference was not using a spice mix, but actually combining all the individaul spices. So you can learn exactly what goes in the spice mix. And lime jiuce instead of lemon. All in all it might not make any difference in terms of lavour at all. 😛
I’d LOVE to make the mix myself. Buying a jar of paste wasn’t ideal as I too like to know what I’m eating, even more now with all the latest food scares! Thankfully, we don’t eat much processed food, only salami and the odd cured ham!
I’ll be posting it on my blog later next week, but here is the recipe I used: http://www.indiansimmer.com/2010/06/tandoori-chicken-with-cucumber-raita.html
hope you like it!
Fantastic! Thanks so much for sharing! I’ll definitely mix my own from now on! Xx Paula