How I Got Forced Into Catering Indian Food!

I actually got forced into catering Indian food. Crocodile Catering (my business) had this contract with a local company to cater breakfast, lunch and dinner for 12 days straight for 350 people! My client  set up the catering menus with different themes for each day: wild west barbeque day, sports day, Italian day, etc.

We catered lunch the first day and the calls started coming in. We want Indian food catering! And only Indian food! Turns out all the engineers working on this big project were predominantly of Indian descent. So all the menus had to change to Indian catering!

Now I didn’t know much about Indian food catering at the time, so it was time to learn on the fly. So I studied up that night and the next day I served them up my first batch of chicken tikka masala, basmati rice, cucumber raita and garlic naan bread. Rave reviews! The next 11 days was a total crash-course on Indian catering, cooking and I became a huge fan of Indian cooking!

Indian catering is now a huge seller. Indian food is a favorite of mine because it combines the unique combination of fire, funk, salt, and herbaceous that I find totally addictive.

Today I am making perhaps the ultimate Indian comfort food, Chicken Tikka Masala. And it is really quite easy to make!

I cut all-natural chicken thighs into cubes and marinate them overnight  in yogurt, lemon juice, cumin, coriander and copious amounts of ginger and garlic. The next morning, we fry them up on a hot flat top grill to achieve a nice, crispy brown crust.

Now on to the sauce. I fry up aromatics- ginger, garlic, onion, jalapeno- then I add sweet California tomatoes, coriander, cumin, cayenne and my house blend of garam masala. The sauce is then pureed with a splash of organic half & half and I add cubes of house-roasted veggies. In goes those crispy chicken cubes for a one hour simmer.

I spoon this steaming stew on top of basmati rice and hit it with sprigs of fresh cilantro.

Bon appetit boys and girls!