Tandoori Shrimp and Chicken with Mint Sauce

Tandoori is a firm favourite at home. I usually make chicken tandoori, but this morning the shrimp caught my attention at the grocery store - since I'm making the paste for chicken tandoori, I thought why not add in some shrimp as well!

The truth is, it's been awhile since I baked some tandoori at home and my eldest who can eat tandoori everyday (no kidding!) was asking me two evenings ago if I was going to make some soon! So what's a mom to do? Bake some tandoori, of course!

And so it was a carbo-free lunch this afternoon - I did not get any naan bread to go along with the meat and the kids did not mind. The tandoori fan had four pieces!

I made mint sauce to go along with it - I added some yogurt to the original recipe and it was perfect. Honestly, I can have spoonfuls of the sauce on its own! Here, I diced some cucumber and tomatoes and used the mint sauce as dressing.

The tandoori chicken recipe was taken from a famous Malaysian food blogger site, Mat Gebu. I have translated the recipe into English below:

Chicken Tandoori

Ingredient A

500 grams chicken pieces

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon tumeric powder

Ingredient B

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 1/4 teaspoon coriander powder

1/4 teaspoon cumin powder

1/2 teaspoon paprika

red colouring (optional)

Ingredient C

1 inch ginger

3 cloves garlic

1 red chillie

1/2 tablespoon cooking oil

slices of lime

Method:

In a large bowl, add lemon juice, salt and tumeric powder to chicken pieces. Marinate for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile pound Ingredient C with mortar and pestle and add them to a bowl filled with Ingredient B. Mix B and C together. Add B and C mixture to the bowl of chicken and marinate further for 30 minutes.

Put them on the oven grill and brush some cooking oil. Bake at 200C until done.

Serve with lime slices.

Mint Sauce

1 cup packed fresh mint leaves (250ml
1 shallot finely chopped
1 small fresh red Thai Chile,coarsely chopped,seeded (1 to 1 ½ teaspoons) (5to7ml)
1 large garlic clove, chopped
¼ cup fresh lime juice (60ml)
2 tablespoons water (30ml)
2 teaspoons sugar (10ml)
¾ teaspoon ground cumin (4ml)
¾ teaspoon salt (4ml)

Strip mint from stem and add to blender with chopped shallots, garlic, chili, sugar, water, cumin, salt and squeeze in lime juice. Blend and pour into a bowl for dipping.

is best eaten the day it is made (the colour will turn overnight). Keep chilled, covered.

Makes about ½ cup (125ml)