No matter which part of the world you are in, you must have come across one or other Asian restaurant selling tandoor cooked food. Variety of tandoor cooked food is countless ranging from numerous vegetarian to non vegetarian options. In Asian restaurants, some varieties of flat breads are also cooked on tandoor and the taste is to die for.

Tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven which has a bed for charcoal fire on which coal is allowed to burn for several hours. Usually the vegetables or meats are marinated overnight and then arranged on long skewers and cooked in tandoor with one end resting on a charcoal bed. The smoky flavor which gets absorbed in marinated food by cooking on charcoal is what gives it an edge over normally cooked food.

With the current pandemic going on and the never ending craving for tandoor food and unable to order it at home because of safety concerns we tried to give it a shot at home. We came out with this flavorful smokey baby potato dish and the flavors were far better than the restaurant served dish that too without using the traditional tandoor available at home. This forms a great appetizer for small get-togethers at home.

Ingredients

Marination

• 1 Cup hung curd
• 20 baby Potatoes
• 2 Capsicum diced in 1 inch squares
• 1 big Onion diced in 1 inch squares
• 2 Tomato diced in 1 inch squares (seeds removed)
• 1-2 tablespoon Mustard Oil
• 1 teaspoon Kasuri Methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
• 1 tablespoon Paprika powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Garam masala powder (Indian hot mixed spice blend)
• 1 teaspoon Coriander powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Amchoor powder(dry raw mango powder)
• 1/4 teaspoon Turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon Ginger Garlic paste
• 1 teaspoon roasted Cumin powder
• 1 tablespoon roasted Chana powdered( replace with Sattu / Roasted gram flour powder)
• Salt to taste
• 1.5 teaspoon kabab masala
• 1 big Onion sliced for caramelization
• 1 tablespoon butter for onion caramelization

Other Ingredients

• 2 small Charcoal piece
• 1 teaspoon Ghee (Clarified Butter)
• 2-3 tablespoon salted Butter

Instructions

Preparation for Marination:

1. Hang the curd in muslin cloth for 2-3 hours so that all the water is drained out.

2. It is time to caramelize the onions. Put a pan on medium flame and add butter and sliced onions. Sauté them till it becomes brown. Wait for it to cool down and grind to a smooth paste.

3. Meanwhile the curd is getting drained out of water, boil water in a pan and add baby potatoes in it and boil them till they are 80 percent cooked. They should get pricked with fork but with little efforts only.

4. Add red chili powder, roasted cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric, roasted gram flour, ginger garlic paste, mustard oil, amchoor powder, salt, kasuri methi, garam masala powder, caramelized onion paste, kabab masala in hung curd.

5. Remove the skin from potatoes once cooled. Add them to marination along with capsicum, tomato and onions. Coat all of these well in marination.

6. Now its time to infuse smokey flavor in marinated veggies. With the help of tongs burn two piece of coal on burner and transfer it to a small steel bowl. now add 1 tablespoon ghee on burning coal. and put in the bowl of marination and cover with lid. Let the smoke get absorbed by the marinated vegetables. Do this only for 5 minutes. Over doing it may cause bitter flavor.

7. Now transfer this content to airtight box and keep in fridge for 4-5 hours. This will help in even coating and absorption of flavors.

Grilling:

1. Heat up the griller pan or grill toaster and spread some butter on it.
2. Arrange the marinated vegetables on skewers or toothpick as you like.

3. Put them on hot grill pan and apply some melted butter on top with help of brush.

4. Let it grill for some 2-3 minutes from each side till you see light golden color on grilled vegetables at all sides as shown in pic below. This color should come on each side of vegetables.

5. After golden color on each side you dish is ready and you can enjoy this with tandoori dip or green coriander and mint chutney. Tandoori Dip recipe will be posted shortly on my blog, so stay tuned.

Tandoori Masala

I ordered my tandoori masala (Nawab’s secret) from amazon. While this can be made at home but its just that authentic tandoori masala is blend of so many spices that it becomes little tough job to collect them all and follow the process to prepare the masala. This can be stored for a long time and has long shelf life and can be used in flavoring kebabs too.

Additional Tips & Tricks

• Please use little thick curd for marination otherwise it wont coat well on vegetables.
• Do not infuse charcoal smoke in dish for more than 5 minutes. It will make taste bitter and burnt if over-smoked.