Flame On Indian Campfire Dinner!

14Sep11

I have been trying to get the most out of the end of the summer these last few weeks. This has led my friends and I to go out to one of the local beaches on a very regular basis. The other day we hatched a plan to make dinner together every Sunday night, and since we had the idea on the beach we also though it would be a good idea to cook out on the beach as well.

We decided on an indian theme. I was assigned making the curry/tandoori chicken, we also had people bring naan and biryani rice. We set up a camp fire out on a point in a small bay, by using the rocks on the beach we made a ring around the pit which we used to cook on.

For the chicken I made two different dishes. I got chicken legs which I put in a tandoori marinade and some cubed chicken breast which I placed in a butter chicken marinade. The breasts were placed on skewers and grilled over the fire, we put the legs in a grill cage ($9 at Can-tire, great investment). The meat was tender and delicious!

I got both of these recipes from the Epicurious application for my iPhone. You should also be able to find them on the Epicurious website (www.epicurious.com) 

You Will Need for Tandoori Chicken

1 pint nonfat plain yogurt

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup heavy cream

4 garlic cloves, mashed

1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin

1 tablespoon garam masala

1 tablespoon salt

3 tablespoons Hungarian paprika

1 2-inch piece of ginger-grated

1/2 cup olive oil

2 tablespoons black pepper

3 tablespoons tomato paste

Chicken

This recipe makes a lot of sauce so pretty much just get as much chicken as you need and toss it in. Whatever you have left over you can cook and use as extra sauce (that is what we did and it was fantastic. It all got eaten).

Add all ingredients (except the chicken) together and mix. Make deep slits in each piece of chicken, remove the skin and place in the sauce. Cover, or bag like I did, and place in the fridge over night.

Once we got to the beach we put the chicken legs in a grill cage and cooked them over the fire. We put the sauce in a cast iron skillet on the rocks surrounding the fire which cooked it up and made it not only warm and delicious, but also salmonella free.Hoorah!

You Will Need for Grilled Butter Chicken

1 cup chopped onion

3 tablespoons chopped garlic

2 tablespoons chopped&peeled fresh ginger

1 1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoons salt

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

1 1/2 tablespoons ground coriander

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1/2 teaspoon cayenne (or to taste)

2 large chicken breasts, de-boned and diced

Puree the onion, garlic, ginger, salt and vinegar. A suggestion from the recipe is to also put in 1 small green Serrano chilli in the puree.

In a wide bowl mix the puree with yogurt, coriander, oil, turmeric, and cayenne. After you have a smooth consistency add in the chicken and make sure it is well coated then cover the bowl in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 16 hours or so. Bring it out of the fridge a half hour before grilling.

I kept mine in small ziplock bags for the transportation of the meats.

We then put the chicken cubes on skewers and placed over the fire until they were fully cooked.

We also had naan cooking on a flat buttered rock. It was fantastic!!

At the end of the evening my friend and I spun some fire poi. Overall, a very successful evening.

Filed under: Culinary Exploration, Good Ideas   |  3 Comments
Tags: Campfire, camping, Curry, dinner, Fire, Indian, poi, tandoori