Tandoori Chicken Whole Legs | Restaurant style Tandoori Chicken Style
Tandoori Chicken Whole Legs is a soft, succulent dish made by roasting chicken that is marinated with yoghurt and a mix of spices. Restaurant style Tandoori Chicken can be prepared at home by bake and broil and infusing smoky flavors. Its fiery red orange colour is attributed to the liberal amounts of red chili powder ,smoked paprika and the tandoori red food color .
Ingredients
- 500 gm chicken whole legs
- ½ cup hung curd
- Juice of 2-3 limes
- 1 tsp chopped ginger
- ½ tbsp chopped garlic
- 2 chopped green chilies
- 2 tsp coriander powder
- ¼ tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp Kashmiri red chili powder
- ½ tsp smoked paprika powder
- ½ tbsp roasted besan gram flour
- 1-2 tsp of tandoori masala powder
- 1 tsp of kasoori methi leaves
- Salt to taste
- 1 tbsp of regular cooking oil+ more for basting
- 1 tbsp of mustard oil
- A pinch of tandoori colour powder
For Smoky flavor(Dhungar)
- 1 tbsp of soft butter or ghee
- 3-4 cloves
- 1 tsp of cumin seeds
- 1-2 coal pieces 3-4 if the size is small
Instructions
Prepare Chicken parts before Marinating.
- Trim off the fats, skin or membranes from the whole legs
- Make diagonal flat slashes in each chicken whole leg
How to marinate Tandoori Chicken Legs
a) First Marinade – Ingredients and Method:
- Rub the chicken legs with lime juice, salt, turmeric powder, coriander powder, smoked paprika, Kashmiri chili powder and tandoori masala powder .
- Cover and keep aside for 20 minutes
b) Second Marinade - Ingredients and Method
- Blend with curd, garlic, ginger, green chilies, kasoori methi, roasted gram flour (besan) along with the remaining spice powders that is tandoori masala powder Kashmiri chili powder, smoked paprika powder, coriander powder, salt and turmeric powder .
- Transfer to a bowl. Add a pinch of tandoori food color.
- Now nicely mix this marinade with the chicken whole legs.
- Add mustard oil .
- Cover with cling wrap and ideally keep aside for half an hour.
- Then keep in the fridge of 3-4 hours or overnight for best results
Roasting:
- Line a baking tray with foil and grease it with butter or oil.
- Preheat the oven at 200 ° C for 10 minutes.
- Transfer the chicken along with marinade onto the tray. Add some more oil.
- Roast for 15 minutes at 200°C.
- Then reduce temperature to 180° and roast for 30 minutes.
- In between, flip the chicken and baste with oil on both sides to ensure that the whole legs remain moist. This also helps in evenly roasting.
Infusing Smoky flavor to Tandoori Chicken
- In a small metallic stainless steel bowl, keep cloves and cumin powder
- Transfer the chicken along with its liquids into a wide bowl.
- Keep the small metallic bowl in the wide bowl of chicken.
- Place live charcoal in the metallic bowl. At once add the butter or ghee.
- Cover the bowl of chicken so that the fumes don’t escape.
- Keep covered for 15 minutes.
Broiling the chicken to give a Restaurant style look:
- Transfer back the chicken and its liquids back onto the baking tray.
- hange the oven settings to broil mode (260-290° C and broil for around 5-10 minutes or more till liquids dry and chicken looks charred and crispy. In between, baste with oil and flip to the other side. You could also heat each whole leg over the gas flame rotating it to further add on a charred look effect.
What to eat with
- Squeeze some lime juice on the Tandoori chicken. Enjoy with flavored rice, naan or roti and boondi raita yoghurt mint dip or chaachch.
Notes
- You may use olive oil , butter or refined oil for the second marinade and basting.
- Basting ensures that the chicken remains moist, hence do not omit this step
- Oven temperature and duration may vary from oven to oven.