Go Anywhere Tandoori

Three magic ingredients: A hot, still July day at the Cotswold Water Park with family, my favourite toy, and tandoori chicken kebabs.

My favourite toy is of course my ‘Go-Anywhere Weber’. A delightful invention designed to be portable, functional, and to outlive whoever is lucky enough to have one. I could rant on for ages about the design details, but that will have to be another time.

The traditional barbeque of fatty, mealy sausages served with bread and ketchup barely skims the surface of what it is possible to create over a bed of white hot charcoal.

I only had an hour to prepare for this before we left the house, racing against the clock as usual as we had to pick up Kitty’s friend Ruby at a pre-arranged location en route. I marinated some diced chicken breast and capsicum in some Pataks tandoori paste mixed with a dash of natural yogurt, pre-soaked a bunch of bamboo skewers in water (wrapped in foil and wet kitchen paper to keep them moist), chopped up some tomatoes, lettuce, lemons and coriander leaves, and bundled the lot into a cool box with a bit of extra yogurt in a pot. I also packed some good quality chipolata pork sausages that would take about the same amount of time to cook as the chicken.

Normally I’d have gone the unleavened bread route, but without the luxury of time, I took two packs of pitta breads for the kebabs and a few soft rolls for the chipolatas.

The great thing about the Go Anywhere Weber is that you can pack the charcoal inside it, (I put it in a carrier bag), with fire lighters or tinder to make the journey from the car to your picnic spot all the easier. I always use good quality lumpwood charcoal. It burns without smoking, gets super hot in about 30 minutes, and burns for up to an hour or so. Pyro Junior (Luca) then gets to play with it after I have finished all the cooking.

After the fire was lit, I had plenty of time to sit comfortably and mindlessly skewer the marinated chicken and capsicum pieces while I waited for the fire to mature. The chipolatas and kebabs took about 10 minutes to cook and then I warmed the pitta breads over the coals.

Sunday 27 July 2008

Tandoori Chicken