Kashmiri chili powder - Adds heat, smokiness, AND color to the dish. You can use ½ the amount of another chili powder but the resulting color may not be as vibrant. Garam masala - Adds warming and nutty flavors of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves. Black salt (Kala namak) - Adds a tangy and tart flavor. Turmeric powder - Adds earthiness. Cumin powder - Adds nuttiness and warmth. Asafetida - Mimics the taste of onion/garlic and is quite pungent. Sea salt - Helps season the chicken and brings out the flavor of the other spices. Sugar - Helps balance the heat in the dish. Dried methi leaves - Adds a bitterness and earthiness to the chicken. Fresh mint leaves - Adds freshness and herbaceousness. You can use dried mint leaves in this recipe too.
The exact quantities of each of these spices are listed down below. However, if you don’t have time to gather these ingredients, you can go to an Indian or Middle Eastern grocery store and buy Tandoori Chicken Masala, which is essentially a blend of these spices, to use instead. However, if you don’t have a blender or if you are strapped on time, you can easily buy pre-processed ginger garlic paste from the Indian grocery store. You want ~1.5 tablespoons of ginger garlic paste for 1 inch (8 grams) of ginger and 3 cloves (13 grams) of garlic. For our tandoori chicken tikka kebabs, the marinated chicken will be placed in a wide bowl that can be closed with a lid or foil. The hot smoking coal will be placed in the center of the bowl and closed so that the smoke can be trapped with the chicken. As a result, the chicken will have a smoky aroma and taste that is reminiscent of cooking the chicken in a charcoal tandoor.
