It all kinda reminds of me curry...but this was Tikka Masala!

I was in the mood for curry but didn't want curry.  We usually make green curry but something less soupy sounded better.  I don't usually make Indian food but since I was craving it, I decided to make it. It was a bigger process than I had expected but it was still pretty easy.  There are 2 steps to making tikka masala: the marinade and the sauce.  

For the marinade:

plain yogurt

lemon juice

cumin

red pepper

black pepper

cinnamon

salt

I cut the chicken into pieces and discarded the fat.  All of the ingredients were mixed together and I added the chicken.  This sat in the fridge for a few hours.  

For the sauce:

butter

garlic

jalapeno

coriander

cumin

paprika

garam masala

salt

tomato sauce

cream

To finish the dish, the butter is melted and then jalapenos and garlic are added to the pan.  Once it's been cooking for about a minute, the spices are added to the pan along with the tomato sauce.  

Allow this to simmer for 15 minutes and then add in the cream.  This will cause the sauce to thicken in about 5 minutes or so.  

In a different pan, I added the chicken and let it cook through.  Once it was done, I removed it from the pan and added some sliced carrots and mushrooms.  These weren't part of the recipe but I thought they sounded good so I decided to add them.  I also had some potatoes so I cut those into chunks and boiled them separately, then added them to the mix. 

Once these were both softened and cooked through, everything was added to the pan and allowed to combine.  I let it go to a simmer just to make sure it was all heated through and the flavors had come together.

 For the final product, I added some yogurt that had been mixed with lemon juice and some garlic powder.  I served the chicken on top of quinoa and with bread.

The veggies did an awesome job of soaking up the sauce.  It was really similar to a stew but Indian.  It came out a lot spicier than I thought, maybe because I decided to add a lot of spice to it since the jalapeno didn't seem that spicy at first.  Don't let it fool you though b/c after cooking for a while the spice definitely comes out.  Luckily, we had extra yogurt so that calmed it down some and the bread and quinoa also helped.  This dish hit the spot!  It's great for a cold day due to the heat.  It has great flavor and gets even better when leftover.  I'm pretty sure it got better each day.