Murghi Tikka Kebabs

Last weekend Bailey's oldest friend Justin was coming to visit for a fun night out to a pub crawl and a punk rock show. So we decided we had to make something boyish and a bit badass for dinner.

Seeing as we are currently enjoying ownership of our second hand copy of Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery and we are also loving The Curry Guy's Great Curry Recipes blog, and we are especially loving The Rib Man's Holy Fuck Hot Sauce, some big old kebabs seemed like quite a good option.

This meal was a bit of a joint effort although Bailey did the lion's share and he did a fantastic job. We used The Curry Guy's Stove Top Naan recipe (seeing as we don't have a tandoor. So unfair) and Madhur Jaffrey's Murghi Tikka recipe to marinate the chicken (with loads of veggies for me).

I had a bit of a panic with the naans, I'm not sure what I did wrong but my dough turned out super sloppy and looked nothing like in The Curry Guy's video so I added about 100g extra flour. I've included this in the recipe below anyway! Oh and if any of you spot my mistake please let me know...

Anyway the dinner still turned out great and Bailey said the chicken worked well although my veg could have done with a bit longer in the oven - I think next time we should put the veg kebabs in for a bit on their own, if we do both together again that is.

What was excellent was the fact that The Curry Guy's naan breads were not only ace but there was so much dough (even though I only made half of the recipe) that we had kebabs again at 3am when we got in from our night out. Fantastic for sure.

Recipe:

For the Naan Breads
550g plain flour
25g yeast
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
150ml milk
150ml Greek yogurt
2 eggs
Butter, to serve

For the Kebabs
2 chicken breasts
1 aubergine
1 courgette
1 onion
1 pepper
A handful of mushrooms
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 lemon
6 tbsp natural yogurt
1 inch cube fresh ginger
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp garam masala
2-3 drops Holy Fuck
2 tsp yellow food colouring
1/2 tsp red food colouring
5 fat green chillis

Start by whipping up the naan breads as far in advance as possible. The Curry Guy says 24 hours earlier is best, we did it about 6 hours. Heat the milk up until hand hot before mixing the yeast, sugar and salt in. Cover and put to one side for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.

Beat the eggs and yogurt together.

Add the eggs and yogurt mix to the flour and mix well. Then add the milky yeast mixture and knead the dough for about ten minutes before leaving to rise for at least 1 hour.

You can then get on with marinating the chicken and veg for the kebabs. Chop up the chicken and veg into nice bitesize chunks. Place them on a plate and sprinkle with the salt and the lemon juice, turning to ensure full coverage. Leave to rest for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, put the yogurt in a bowl. Chop the ginger and garlic up finely. To the yogurt, add the ginger, garlic, cumin, cayenne, garam masala and Holy Fuck and stir well.

Coat the chicken evenly with the food colouring using a pastry brush.

Pour the yogurt mixture onto the chicken and veggies using a seive to ensure none of the bits get onto the food. Cover and refrigerate until ready to cook.

To make the naans, take off golf ball-sized chunks of dough and flatten out using a rolling pin or hands. Bailey came up with quite a good "pulling" action. Place the naan dough in a hot, dry frying pan until all lovely and blistered before flipping over and repeating the process. Keep warm while you sort the kebabs out. Spread with a nice knob of butter to serve.

Preheat the oven to the hottest temperature. Thread the chicken and veggies onto metal kebab skewers and top each one with a whole green chilli. Place the veggie kebabs in the oven for a good 10 minutes, before popping the chicken ones in for a further ten minutes. Serve with the naan breads, as much Holy Fuck or Mr Vikkis hot sauce as you dare and some lovely mint yogurt raita dip!