Garam Masala Tuesdays: Chicken Tikka Pizza

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If you love chicken tikka, and you love pizza- this is totally your kind of Pizza.

I made it last week for V and me, using some leftover pizza dough I had and both of us really devoured it!

Now, V is not a pizza person. He is mostly a dal roti person, but for this pizza he changed his mind. He actually was sad when it got over and even though he knew there was no more pizza left he was talking about how he felt like having this pizza the next day. He still talks about it. And while writing this post, I wish I had some pizza dough so that I could make this again now.

You do need to take out some time to make this pizza. Well, any pizza for that matter.

The pizza dough recipe I use requires a rest overnight and since I always get fantastic results with it, when I want a really good pizza crust I prefer to use that recipe. Plus, you need to marinate the chicken and keep it for atleast 4 hours. The sauce is a breeze to make if you have canned tomato paste- it will require a little more effort if you try making your own.

But while it takes time- most of it is just resting time. The dough kneads in ten minutes and then you just need to let it rest overnight. The marinade is ready in two minutes- but you have to wait for at least 4 hours for the chicken to soften, before grilling. If you plan the pre-prep properly- that is if you already have some pizza dough in your freezer that you take out the night before and put in your refrigerator, and marinate the chicken the night before while you thaw your pizza dough base, making the pizza the next day won’t require too much effort or too much time in the kitchen.

Either way, whether you think it takes a lot of time or not- this pizza is totally worth it.

And the pizza sauce makes plenty. You can use it for future pizzas.

Chicken Tikka Pizza

Recipe Type: Appetizer, dinner, main course
Cuisine: Indian, fusion, italian
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 3 pizzas
The pizza dough requires overnight rest. I generally have some in the freezer, so when I let the dough thaw overnight, I marinate the chicken along with it. Next day the dough is ready and the chicken is ready to grill. The sauce makes more than required for two pizza bases. But it’s good to have on hand for further pizza making days.
Ingredients
  • For the chicken tikka:
  • 440 gm chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup yogurt, whisked
  • 2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
  • 1 tbsp roasted cumin powder
  • 1/2 tsp garam masala (if using store bought you might need a little more)
  • 1 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
  • salt, to taste
  • 1 tsp mustard oil (or use vegetable oil)
  • 1 tbsp gram flour (besan)
  • 1 1/2 tsp coriander powder
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • For the Chicken Tikka Pizza sauce:
  • 2 tbsp butter
  • 2 inch stick cinnamon
  • 3-4 green cardamoms, crushed slightly
  • 1 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi seeds)
  • 1 1/2 tbsp ginger garlic paste
  • salt, to taste
  • 2 tsp red chilli powder
  • 1 can tomato paste
  • 3-4 green chillies, finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
  • 1 tbsp roasted cumin powder
  • 1 cup water
  • For the topping:
  • 2 tbsp melted butter or olive oil
  • cornmeal or semolina flour for dusting
  • 1 tbsp slivered garlic (optional)
  • few sprigs Coriander or mint leaves to top
  • Freshly grated Mozzarella cheese, as much as you like
  • For the dough, check this recipe(you would need to make this one day ahead)
Instructions
For the chicken:
  1. Marinate the chicken with the lemon juice, yogurt, ginger garlic paste, roasted cumin powder, garam masala, red chilli powder, oil, gram flour, coriander and onion powder. Let marinate overnight or for atleast 4 hours. Broil on high for 8-10 minutes, turning over once. Or grill till cooked. Once cooled, shred the chicken into smaller pieces.
  2. For the sauce:
  3. Heat the butter in a saucepan. Add the cinnamon stick, green cardamoms, fenugreek seeds and let sizzle. Add in the ginger garlic paste, and chilli powder and fry the paste for a few seconds. Add in the green chillies, tomato paste, salt to taste and fry for a minutes. Add in the water, salt and the roasted cumin powder. Cook till the oil separates. Take off heat. Let cool.
  4. Making the Pizza:
  5. Follow the instruction for the pizza dough. Two hours before you are ready to bake your pizza, remove your pizza dough balls from the refrigerator. And let rest on a lightly floured surface while you grill your chicken and make the sauce.
  6. Preheat oven to the highest setting on your oven. Mine goes to 550F. If you have a pizza stone, place it in the oven. I do not have one, and I use the back of my sheet pan. You do not have to preheat your sheet pan. Dust your sheet pan or peel with cornmeal or semolina flour.
  7. Roll out your pizza dough. Add some melted butter or olive oil on top of your rolled out pizza. You can add slivered garlic if you like. Slather 2-3 tbsp of pizza sauce. Top generously with the chicken tikka. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cheese has melted and crust has cooked. Sprinkle chopped coriander or mint leaves. Let cool a little and serve.

 

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Vegan Chocolate Cake

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275 meters swimming, 16km bike riding over our hilly town and a 5K run. Finally, completed my first triathalon!

Now, the embarrassing part- I was one of the lasts to finish. While my swimming and run timings were pretty decent, everyone dusted me off in the cycling round. Do understand, for me, the cycling part was the toughest. I only started cycling a month and half back, after more than a decade of not getting on a cycle. And it was a real task for me to do uphill cycling, which was almost 50% of the whole route. One of the roads we biked on is actually called Mountain road (not even Hill road- its called mountain!). So it wasn’t easy for me. And that’s why it took me a lot of time. And the wind didn’t help either when climbing uphill on the cycle.

Anyway, the idea this time for my first triathlon was to complete it. Next time I’ll probably think of actually competing!

To celebrate my completion of the triathlon, I decided to bake a cake.

A few weeks back, one of my juniors from college had messaged me on Facebook asking for good eggless cake recipes. This other friend of mine had tried this eggless cake recipe from Passionate About Baking (originally published by Barbara from barbarabakes.com) and had highly recommended it. Before trying this recipe, I tried another one that I had copied from one of my mom’s recipe books. While that recipe produced a really moist and spongy cake, I had baked in a bundt pan and while removing it, it broke at several places. Also, it wasn’t as chocolatey as I wanted it to be.

Since I knew this recipe was tried and tested, for my next attempt at baking eggless cakes, I decided to use Barbara’s recipe. Plus, this one was vegan as well.

 While I followed the recipe to a T, I made a few changes. One of them- instead of using 2 9 inch round pans, I used a Bundt pan. In spite of my last bundt cake tragedy, I decided to bake it in a bundt pan and this time I made sure to grease and flour the tin well. And it cam out beautifully.

I also added a few chopped walnuts to the batter. And next time would probably add a few chocolate chips as well.

I didn’t frost it like Barbara or Deeba, keeping it simple.

This cake is very simple to make. It doesn’t require any beating of butter with sugar. Heck, there is no butter in the recipe. Nor does it require too much work. While the oven is pre-heating, you mix your dry ingredients and wet ingredients in two different bowls. Mix them together till just combined. Add any chopped walnuts and chocolate chips if you like and pour the  batter into the prepared tin. Meanwhile the oven has preheated and you just pop it in the oven and bake for 35-40 min (it took mine 45 minutes- probably because of the different pan). I had some problem with the mixing- a tiny part of it didn’t mix, and that’s why you see a portion of white on the cake. That aside the cake was spot on- moist, chocolatey and spongy.

Vegan Chocolate Cake

Recipe Type: Dessert, eggless, vegan, vegetarian, chocolate cake
Author: from BarbaraBakes.com
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 1 bundt cake
Ingredients
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar*
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used KA Double-Dutch Dark Cocoa)
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda*
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups hot water*
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • *I used Barbar’s suggestions and made the following high altitude adjustments: Decreased the sugar by 2 tablespoons, used 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda and 2 1/4 cup hot water.
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350º with rack in the center. Spray and flour a bundt pan really well, making sure you get all the nooks and corners. Or you could use two greased 9×2 inch round cake pans.
  2. Whisk the dry ingredients except instant coffee together in a large mixing bowl. I suggest sifting all the dry ingredients except the sugar in the large bowl and then whisking in the sugar.
  3. Combine the wet ingredients- water, oil, vinegar, instant coffee, and vanilla in a large measuring cup.
  4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and whisk just until combined, a few lumps are OK.
  5. Pour batter into the well greased and floured bundt pan, or divide batter between pans.
  6. Bake until a tester comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. For me, it took 45 minutes.
  7. Let the cake cool in pan for 10 minutes. Run a skewer or knife around the edges to loosen the cake. Do not forget to run the knife/skewer around the center of the bundt pan. Invert on wire rack. If you have greased and floured well, the cake should pop out immediately. Let the cake cool completely before cutting yourself a slice.Yo could do a chocolate ganache glaze, if you like or just keep it simple

 

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Cherry Tomato Gratin

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If anyone is wondering what’s happening to my past post recipes and they look a little incomplete- you might be right in thinking so. There is some problem with the easy recipe plugin I have and some of the text and all the pictures under the recipe part of my posts are somehow not showing … Read More →