Chicken Tikka and Cheesecake

I decided to clean out the freezer today. Among the frozen stash were several packs of ground beef (good for a quick burger or mapo tofu), some frozen strawberries (margatira time!), 2 half used bags of edamame and lots of chicken.

After reorganizing most of the stuff, I pulled some of the chicken out to use for dinner. And as luck would have it, we had two small containers of plain yogurt in the fridge. I looked through a few recipes I had on hand and found one for Chicken Tikka.

I had all the ingredients so dinner was planned. It was so easy to put together and I'm sure we'll make it again. The flavors were bright and well balanced and the chicken stayed juicy and tender. Next time I will make up some kind of yogurt sauce or spicy sauce to dip it in.

For dessert, cheese cake with fresh blueberry sauce.

Chicken Tikka

¾ teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted
2 cups whole-milk yogurt
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (1½”) piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 ½ teaspoons salt
¾ teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon black pepper ¼ teaspoon cayenne
5 lb skinless boneless chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes

Purée all ingredients except chicken in a blender until spices are well ground.

Put chicken in a large bowl, or divide between 2 large sealable plastic bags, and add yogurt mixture, stirring or turning to coat. Marinate chicken, covered and chilled (turning occasionally if using bags), at least 4 hours. (You can marinate the chicken for up to 24 hours if you like)

You can skewer the chicken and grill it or use an iron skillet grill pan to cook the pieces individually. Heat turning over once, until browned in spots and just cooked through, 9 to 12 minutes total.

Chicken Shawarma

Looking through the fridge this weekend I found a jar of tahini paste that was about half full. Hmm....what can I do with this? I already made some hummus with it and wanted to try something new.

A quick search on the Internet came up with a few temptations but the one that caught my eye was a Chicken Shawarama recipe with a garlic-tahini sauce. It was on Food TV so I figured it was a pretty reliable recipe, right? Uh, well almost.

The recipe actually had two parts, one for the marinade for the chicken and the other for the garlic-tahini sauce. I noticed the following disclaimer at the bottom of the page: "This recipe was provided by professional chefs and has been scaled down from a bulk recipe provided by a restaurant. The Food Network Kitchens chefs have not tested this recipe, in the proportions indicated, and therefore, we cannot make any representation as to the results." That should have told me to look at some more recipes before I went any further, but I didn't because I also read the recipe's one review that mentioned the marinade needed more garlic. Well that seems like an an easy fix. Guess I'll give it a try. The marinade smelled wonderful and went together very quickly. I placed the chicken in a bag poured in the marinade and set in in the fridge to marinate overnight. So far so good.

But when I went to make the sauce, something wasn't right. In fact, it was downright awful! The recipe called for three cups of water to be added to a mixture of tahini, garlic and lemon juice. And having never made this before, I decided to follow the recipe.

How can I describe the result? Imagine if you will a frothy thin watered down greul with a faint hint of sesame. Yeah, it was bad.

After tossing that mess down the drain, I did what I should have done earlier, check some more recipes. And sure enough, I found several that were vastly different from the Food TV version. Using a combination of a few recipes I made a sauce that was pretty tasty.

Here's my garlic-tahini sauce recipe. I have no idea if it's even remotely authentic so if anyone has a better version, I'd love to have a copy.

Garlic-Tahini sauce
1 cup tahini sauce
2 tbsp. garlic powder
8 oz plain lowfat yogurt
1 tsp. parsley flakes
salt to taste
water, as needed

Combine the tahini, garlic powder, yogurt and parsley in a bowl and whisk to blend. Add salt to taste. Add water as needed to get a spoonable consistency.