Tandoori Chicken

They are fundamentally different. Tandoori chicken is a dry dish: chicken marinated in yogurt and spices then cooked at high heat in a clay tandoor or oven. No sauce, no gravy — the goal is charred smokiness on the outside and juicy meat inside. Butter chicken is a sauce dish: seared or tandoori-cooked chicken simmered in a creamy tomato-butter sauce. The connection between them is historical — the story is that leftover tandoori chicken was thrown into a tomato gravy and became butter chicken. Tandoori is a grill dish eaten with onion and lime; butter chicken is a curry eaten with rice or naan.

Two reliable approaches. First, very high oven heat: preheat to 230°C and use a wire rack so hot air circulates all around the chicken. Finish under the grill/broiler for 3 to 5 minutes until genuinely charred — black in spots. The Maillard reaction at high heat produces flavour compounds close to what the tandoor achieves. Second, dhungar charcoal smoking: after cooking, place live charcoal in a small metal cup in the centre of the platter, pour 2 to 3 drops of ghee over it, cover tightly with foil for 3 minutes. The smoke penetrates the meat and replicates the clay-oven smokiness remarkably closely. Charcoal grilling is the most accurate substitute of all.

Four rules. First, use bone-in thighs and drumsticks only — not breast. Thigh meat can handle high heat without drying; breast cannot. Second, use thick yogurt — Greek or strained. Thin yogurt runs off the chicken before it can protect the meat. The coating should be visible and thick before the chicken goes into the oven. Third, score deeply to the bone — 3 to 4 cuts per piece. Shallow scoring does very little. Fourth, do not overcook: pull at 75°C internal temperature (165°F). Every extra 10 minutes at high heat costs significant juiciness.

The colour comes from Kashmiri chilli powder, a variety of dried chilli grown in Kashmir that is deep red and relatively mild. It provides the colour without excessive heat. The more you use, the redder the result. Restaurants often add 1 to 2 drops of red food colouring for a more vivid appearance, but this is optional. Without food colouring, a properly made tandoori will be dark orange to reddish-brown — entirely correct and authentic. Substitute for Kashmiri chilli powder: 3 parts mild sweet paprika to 1 part cayenne gets close to both the colour and the heat level.

Minimum: 2 hours. Best: 6 to 12 hours (overnight). Upper limit: 48 hours — beyond that the lactic acid in yogurt breaks down the muscle fibres too far and the meat develops an unpleasant soft, mushy texture. For a short marinade: score deeply to compensate — the same penetration achieved in 3 hours without scoring happens in 1 hour with deep scoring. Take the chicken out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Cold chicken going straight into a hot oven cooks unevenly: the outside overcooks before the bone-adjacent meat reaches temperature.