Chicken Tikka Masala Wraps: 28 Days of Super Bowl Recipes

Media Day, the day that if your team is not actually playing in the Super Bowl, you get sick of the Super Bowl.

Exhibit A: Tom Brady impersonator at Media Day garners loads of attention.

Exhibit B: Someone (in this case Jim Herrmann, Giants linebackers coach who I am always worried I’m going to misspell his name) compares football to chess, which if you’ve ever played chess, know is nothing like football. No, nothing like it. Nope.

Exhibit C: An old story is warmed over (skinny Tom Brady at the draft) by someone in no way playing in the Super Bowl (Steve Mariucci) in which they inject themselves into the story.  Mariucci believes that if he had drafted Tom Brady for the 49ers, he’d still be coaching today. In related news, a butterfly flapped its wings in Brazil earlier today.

Exhibit D: From the New York Times article on Antrel Rolle’s Media Day:

In the meta world of media day, one of the journalists thought to ask Rolle if he felt the questions asked had been intelligent.

“There’s been a lot of great questions, a lot of insight and a lot of redundant questions,” Rolle said. “It is what it is.”

Sunday cannot come soon enough.

(Mostly because we’re all getting tired of Peyton Manning about now.)

Chicken Tikka Masala Wraps

There are few things my husband likes more than chicken tikka masala, so when the first weekend without Steeler football came around this postseason, I knew I needed to make something a little special to cheer him up for watching a black and gold-less football game. When we had visited Harrod’s in London last fall, I had seen some beautiful chicken tikka masala wrapped in kubus bread in their great hall of food and knew immediately I wanted to try to make them some point this season for the living room-gating. Kubus bread is a sort of pita flat bread from the Middle East, but I found that using lavish, pita and naan are good substitutes. With this batch, I did a mix of lavish wraps (easier to serve and handle at a party) and chicken tikka masala served with naan for people to scoop and wrap as they please.

The chicken tikka itself is delicious, so if you want to skip the whole hullabaloo of making masala sauce and wraps, just make chicken tikka kebabs instead. There is nothing quite like the mix of spices that flavor tikka and masala, so don’t worry if it’s the first time you’ve ever bought garam masala to make a dish. After you figure out how easy and great it is to cook with the spice mixture, you’re going to go through the whole bottle in no time.

You will need:

Chicken Tikka

2-2 1/2 pounds boneless chicken, trimmed and skin removed
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 tablespoon fresh ginger (About an inch or so of ginger, grated with a microplane or minced will due)
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons garam masala
6-8 ounces of plain yogurt

Masala

2 tablespoons butter
1 large onion, diced (Why there is a second onion in the picture, I do not know.)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger (About an inch or so of ginger, grated with a microplane or minced will due)
26-28 ounces diced or crushed tomatoes
1 teaspoon or so of kosher salt
2 tablespoons garam masala
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
cilantro, small bunch of leaves, finely chopped
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

2 packages lavish, naan, pita or combination of whatever flat bread you like

In a large bowl, combine the ingredients for the tikka marinade; crushed garlic, grated ginger, lemon juice, ground coriander, cumin, garam masala and yogurt together.

Make a few shallow cuts in the chicken to let the marinade get down in the meat and cover completely in the yogurt and spice sauce.

Cover and refridgerate for at least 2-3 hours, but preferably overnight.

When ready to make the wraps:

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.

Saute the onions until translucent and add the garlic.

Let the garlic cook for a few minutes and then add the crushed tomatoes.

Turn on the broiler in the oven.

Once the tomatoes have cooked down a bit, stir in the salt and the garam masala.

While the malasa sauce is cooking down, remove the chicken from the marinade and broil for 5-7 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the meat. You want a nice char on the chicken and the juices to run clear from the meat when cut. Set aside.

When the sauce has thicken a bit (should take about 5-10 minutes), stir in the heavy cream and cook down again another 10 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken.

If you are adding cayenne, toss it in now. (Don’t over do it though, as the cayenne will open up as the sauce simmers and will get hotter after a few minutes.)

Chop the chicken into small pieces and add to the masala sauce. Cook until thickened.

Add a small handle of chopped cilantro.

Remove from heat.

Cut lavish pieces in half.

Evenly spoon a small amount of the chicken tikka masala across one end of the lavish and wrap.

Keep the wraps warm in a 200º oven until ready to serve.

OR!

Serve in a bowl with cut up pieces of naan or pita for people to make their own mini-wraps.

Either way is great.

Make sure to keep a few wraps in the kitchen for yourself, because these babies go fast and you’re going to want to make sure you get a wrap or two for yourself!