I Hope This Chicken is Cooked Before the Cock Crows

From While my sautoir gently sweats — Blog by John Dryzga

August 3, 2009

Everything took more time than normal yesterday. The frittata I made for brunch seemed to take forever to prepare. I’m usually pretty quick in the knife skills department, but I seemed to be moving in slow motion. What were suppose to be quick shopping trips turned into shopping treks and the day slipped quickly by. We came home, did a few chores, then we sat down to relax. I preceded to relax too much and quickly fell asleep.

I eventually awoke and stumbled to get my wallet. I needed to go across the street to the grocery store to pick up some garam masala for the chicken tikka masala I was making for dinner. That’s when I realized it was already after seven and dinner would be a long way off.

True to form, the A & P across the street did not have the needed spice mix. I had to walk over to the ShopRite about half a mile away. Luckily, the did have the needed spice mixture. I had to pick up a few other items just to make the walk seem more useful. I finally made it home and began dinner preparation in earnest.

I got my mise en place all set up and started up the grill to cook the chicken I had marinating in the refrigerator. I re-read the recipe and saw that I had a lot of simmering time coming up. A big oops! I didn’t do a thorough enough job getting the marinade off of the chicken thighs and they stuck like glue to the grill. I was able to pry them off and get the other side cooked with some elbow grease and expletives.

The second side of the chicken grilled up fine and released its death grip on the barbecue without as much fuss as the first side. It was pretty smooth sailing after this. Getting everything prepped ahead of time prevented dinner from becoming breakfast. In the end, it was a tasty dinner. I don’t know if it was the lateness of the hour or the tastiness of the food. When we eat the leftovers, I’ll let you know.

A link to Grace Parisi’s recipe in Food & Wine is here: http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/chicken-tikka-masala