
Tandoori chicken is made in a tandoor. I do not have a tandoor. This is, therefore, simply grilled chicken with Indian spices. But let me keep talking about tandoori chicken for a little bit longer anyway.
Tandoori chicken has come to be identified, both outside and inside India, with a particular look (red: usually achieved with food colouring) but all it literally means is “chicken cooked in a tandoor”. Some of the best tandoori chicken I’ve had has not looked anything like what we usually think of when we think of tandoori chicken. This un-tandoori chicken, on the other hand, does. I’ve not used red food colouring (now banned in Delhi and environs) to achieve this resemblance: I’ve instead used copious amounts of deggi/Kashmiri chilli powder, which is very mild and generally used to impart colour; it does also have a mildly smoky flavour (I’m not entirely shallow).