Chicken Tikka Masala

Do you guys find it weirdly satisfying to cut chicken with scissors? I love that clean snip. Weird, but true.

This chicken was destined for chicken tikka masala, my absolute favoritest Indian dish. I wish I could say I spent days perfecting the sauce, but who am I kidding. I used this fine version available in jars at your local market: Patak's Chicken Tikka Masala sauce.

Mmmm! Raw chicken cubes!

We had a bit of a miscommunication rice snafu. I sent Sean out for white rice when I found out he'd polished off the Trader Joe's jasmine rice I kept in the freezer. He came back with "boil in a bag" rice, which takes an unacceptable 10 MINUTES! We usually buy the microwavable kind that is done and scorching before you turn around.

Of course, Sean didn't realize this and waited to start the rice until the chicken was done. Then he dumped all four bags of rice in there, which is just odd-looking, and then we had to negotiate what to do with them. Do you put them in the colander? No, the rice will fall through the cracks. Eventually, we figured out we'd just have to open them one at a time over the plates, but it was chaos there for a second.

But don't worry, it all turned out okay, as it so often does.

So good. If you've never had tikka masala sauce and it scares you a little, just imagine a spicy, exotic pasta sauce. The consistency is similar, but it tastes completely unique. This sauce was very mild, which was good for me, but not lacking kick. The only thing missing was fresh Naan.