I set out on an adventure to make my own Tikka Masala earlier this year, and have been getting requests from folks smelling it to get the recipe.

First….

The Marinade. This is fairly standard from any recipe you’ll look up.

1 cup Plain Yogurt
2 TBS Lemon Juice
1 TBS Garam Masala
2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Ceyenne pepper
2 tsp black pepper
2 tsp ginger

Mix that up and marinate your chicken for several hours. I like to get it going first thing in the morning. Now, I’m always using 2 lbs of frozen chicken, and as it thaws, it naturally thins out that marinade, so if yours is more fresh or pre-thawed, you might want to thin it a bit with some water.

Once ready, take that chicken and cook it on the grill. You don’t want to really char the chicken, just cooked all the way through. Then dice it up and set aside. I assume you could even do this a day in advance if you wanted.

PART II

The Sauce. This is where we go a little off the standard. Most recipes, first of all, don’t have enough sauce for our taste.

~2 TBS butter
1/2 onion minced
3 cloves garlic

Sautee the onion and garlic in the butter.

Add a quart of tomato sauce. If you haven’t seen, my homemade sauce makes a fantastic starting point. I’ve come to like the Kirkland brand as an alternative as well.

Stir well, then stir in the following:

2 TBS Garam Masala
1 TBS Cumin
2 tsp Coriander
2 tsp Curry Powder
1 tsp paprika

Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes, then add…
*Sriracha to taste*
The precooked chicken. Stir well and bring back to a simmer.

Stir in 1-2 cups of cream while simmering, to get the desired consistency you want.

Serve with rice.

You can easily make your own naan by using some Rhodes roll dough, just let it rise and punch it down into the shape and bake per package directions.

Things have been difficult so far this year. It’s time to get back into the swing of things. While I have some of the regularly scheduled insanity on the way, I first have a slew of recipes to get out of the way.

First being our own tomato sauce, since most the recipes to follow will utilize it.

This is an easy, if time consuming recipe.

25 lbs tomatoes. Personally, I like Roma. We grew about half our own last year, hoping to do better than that this year.

Just wash and quarter those and throw them into a nice big stock pot with the following:

1 cup of olive oil
3\4 cup of red wine
1\3 cup of herbs. You can use what you like, We used Rosemary and Basil in ours.
Head of garlic, broken into cloves
2 large bell peppers
1 large onion
Couple of Bay Leaves

Take a potato masher and just crush all that together, then bring it to a boil and simmer it down until a good amount of the juice is gone. The house will smell divine.

Now, if you want to be all traditional like you can run this mixture through a tomato strainer…personally…god made blenders to make such jobs easier. So, strain or blender it into a separate bowl.

Once it’s all strained/blendered simmer some more if you are too runny, or can/preserve it via your most comfortable method.

There you have a fantastic base to make into pasta, pizza, or other sauce.