Basic Brick Oven Tandoor Recipe

This recipe is loosely adapted from Ranjit Rai's Tandoor cookbook; an indispensible reference for those wanting to tandoor in the oven.

8 medium or 10 small lamb chops or 8 to 10 chicken parts or one small baby (see below).

Marinade

2/3 cup sour cream or yogurt

3 Tbsp White Vinegar

3 Tbsp Finely Chopped Ginger

2 Tbsp Finely Chopped Garlic

3 Tbsp Finely Chopped Jalapenos or Serrano Peppers

6 Tbsp Finely Chopped Cilantro

1 Tbsp Curry Powder (Garam Masala)

2 Tsp Cumin

3 Tsp Tumeric

3 Tsp Brown Sugar (or 1/4 cup crushed pineapple)

4 Tsp Salt

1/4 Cup Veg or Peanut Oil

We used to chop the ingredients with a knife but then found it easier to just chunk up the ginger and then dump all the ingredients (except the oil) into the Vita Mix (although a food processor would work just as well). Don't stress about getting the measurements exact; it'll taste fine no matter what you do.

After chopping or processing the ingredients, heat the oil in a frying pan and when hot, add all of the remaining (chopped or processed) marinade ingredients and fry for several minutes. Yum, fried yogurt!! Cool the marinade for a few minutes.

Marinate the lamb for up to eight hours (the original recipe calls for eight hours but we never have the time or foresight and usually marinate for about four hours). If we have a lot of food we use one of the Ziploc “Big Bags” for marinating. It just slays me that the bag contains the following warning:

Ignore the warning. Babies marinate just fine in the bag.

Before cooking we take the marinating meat out of the fridge about an hour ahead of time to allow it to become less cold in the interior. (The oven cooks fast.) This is not recommended by the USDA as it opens the possibility that germs will grow and you will become incredibly sick and die or at best feel like you just woke up Monday morning after a slumber party with Lindsay Lohan. We don't care. In the distant past, I had an Insta-read thermometer with two sets of internal meat temps printed on the sleeve. One set of temps said "USDA recommended temperatures". Then right next to those temps were another set of temps at least 10 degrees colder with the caption "Recommended by many chefs". The ones made nowadays only have the USDA temps (thanks lawyers).

Right before cooking, clean and oil the skewers and skewer the meat, keeping the skewer close to the bone where possible. The skewer transfers (a bunch of) heat to the meat and the area next to the bone is most likely to be undercooked without the help of the skewer. Two parallel skewers work better than one as it guarantees that when you flip the meat top becomes bottom and vice versa.

In order to allow the skewer to heat up and transfer heat to the interior of the meat, it is important not to press the meat together on the skewer. In other words leave about a one-half to one inch gap between each piece of meat on the skewer (leave more space than shown above). The meat grips the skewer better if you slide it on and then LEAVE IT ALONE. If you continue to screw with it, the meat becomes less "grippy". Use your left over firebricks to hold the skewers above the oven floor. One or two bricks in back and one or two in front.

Cook, flip as necessary to get even cooking, until burnt areas appear. The original recipe calls for 10 minutes initially and then let stand outside the oven for 5 minutes while you baste with ghee (clarified butter). After a 5 minute rest you put the meat back into the oven for another 5 minutes for lamb or another 10 minutes for chicken. Remember to use hand protection. Don’t grab the skewer with a bare hand! Times are variable depending on the size of your chunks. Do NOT part your chicken into big pieces like this.

Smaller cuts of meat cook more evenly. I removed several baby jokes here as they were beyond the pale but I’m sure you get the idea.