Chicken tikka
boneless chicken pieces cooked in a tandoor, normally marinaded in garlic, ginger, garam masala and yoghurt
Chicken tikka is a chicken dish in South Asia and amongst the South Asian diaspora. It derives from Mughal cuisine, as the Mughals brought the tandoor oven from Central Asia and the Persian habit of marinating meat in yoghurt, combined with the Indian habit of cooking with spices. The dish gave rise to the British chicken tikka masala.
History
The English word "tikka" is borrowed from Hindi टिक्का tikkā "small pieces of meat", itself a borrowing from Classical Persian تکه tikka, "pieces".
Chicken tikka was created in the reign of the Mughal Emperor Babur (r. 1526–1530) by marinating pieces of chicken meat in yoghurt and spices, and then grilling them in a tandoor oven.
Dish
Chicken tikka consists of small pieces of boneless chicken baked after marinating in Indian spices and dahi (yogurt). It is flavourful and tender, essentially a boneless version of tandoori chicken.
The pieces are brushed with ghee (clarified butter) at intervals, while being continuously fanned, to increase flavour. It is typically eaten with green coriander and tamarind chutney, served with onion rings and lemon, or used in preparing chicken tikka masala.
“Chicken tikka” enters the record as boneless chicken pieces cooked in a tandoor, normally marinaded in garlic, ginger, garam masala and yoghurt. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chicken, tikka and boneless can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chicken tikka” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.