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Get ready to cook

Chicken Tikka Masala
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Hi. Today, I’m going to be cooking chicken tikka masala, which, along with fish and chips, is probably Britain’s most popular dish. I’m going to take you through all the steps and show you all the ingredients. And then hopefully at the end of it, we’ll have a delicious curry. OK, so to begin with, let’s look at the ingredients. We have paprika, garam masala, cumin, some oil, some chilli, cardamom. This is a paste made of ginger and garlic. You can make this at home. Or you can just finely chop your garlic, whichever you prefer. And this is tandoori masala at the end.
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OK, so we’re going to mix all of those together with some yoghurt, make a nice paste, and then we’re going to put the chicken in. So here I have 500 grams of chicken. And I’m just going to cut this into bite-sized pieces.
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That’s the chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces. Next up, we need some lemon juice.
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I’m going to squeeze the lemon. So we have some nice, fresh lemon juice. And then now that that’s done, we have a bowl here. I’m using a metal bowl. Use a metal bowl or a glass bowl, because some of the colours in chicken tikka masala can stain plastic and things. So you want to avoid that. OK, so I’m adding the lemon juice. I’m adding in all of the spices.
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And you can see that’s a lovely mix already, looking like that. And last, we add the oil. OK, we’re going to mix all that up to make, as I say, a nice paste. Then the next ingredient is some plain yoghurt. One small tub of plain yoghurt is all you need for this. And then we’re going to mix that up, which gives us a lovely pink colour now, orangey-pink. And then the next step is the easiest one of all. We put the chicken into the paste.
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OK, I’m going to mix that through. Make sure all the chicken is completely covered and coated. That’s looking good.
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We have to wait a little. If you really want good chicken tikka masala, then you want to marinate this. You want to leave it in the fridge for at least a couple of hours. You can even leave it overnight and really let the flavours go through. So I’m going to leave you. And I’ll be back in a couple of hours when this is ready. And then we’ll start with the next step.

In the last step you heard chicken tikka masala described as ‘Britain’s national dish’. In these two steps, Neil is going to show you how to cook it.

In this video, Neil shows you the ingredients you’ll need and prepares the masala marinade.

Here are the ingredients he uses:

  • 500g of chicken breast*
  • a small tub of plain yoghurt
  • a lemon
  • oil
  • paprika
  • garam masala
  • cumin
  • chilli
  • cardamom
  • tandoori masala
  • garlic and ginger paste

Utensils:

  • a sharp knife
  • a chopping board
  • a metal or glass mixing bowl
  • a lemon juicer
*A note about chicken:
When we buy chicken we sometime buy a whole chicken, for example if we’re going to make a roast chicken dinner. It’s best to buy a free range chicken, one that has been able to walk around in open space and not been kept in a cage, although they are a little more expensive.
If we don’t buy a whole chicken we can buy chicken breasts, which are white meat or chicken thighs which are dark meat. Meat from other animals, like beef, lamb and pork, are red meat.
You might also like chicken wings or chicken drumsticks (the lower part of the leg) – but not many people in the UK buy or eat chicken’s feet.

What do you think?

  • Are any of the ingredients new to you? Is it easy to buy them where you live?
This article is from the free online

Exploring English: Food and Culture

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