Chicken Tikka

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As with most chicken dishes that are adapted from Asian recipes, this is a compromise but is a very good one. Of course you can always replace the tikka curry paste with your own home made version.

But even if you don't, this is a still great way to cook a whole chicken on the barbecue and I doubt if too many of your diners will spot the difference, unless they happen to be around four years old, that is. All the choosiest food critics are in that age group.

Here's what you need

• 1 chicken
• 1 oven roasting bag
• 80g (say a third of a cup) tikka curry paste
• 125ml yoghurt (half a cup)
• 2 cloves of garlic crushed with a little salt
• 1tsp ground coriander seeds
• 1tsp cumin
• 1 'thumb' of fresh ginger, grated (that's about 2.5cms or 1 inch)
• chopped coriander leaves to taste, I use lots

Put all the ingredients in the roasting bag and turn to thoroughly coat the chicken. Marinade this for at least 8 hours in the refrigerator, turning to re-coat the chook from time to time. Take the bag out of the fridge half an hour before you intend to cook the chicken.

Fire up the barbie and make sure it's up to temperature. Put the chicken on a rack in a roasting tray and cook it using indirect heat with the lid closed for about 90 minutes, or until thoroughly cooked. Allow to stand, covered, for a further 10 minutes before carving.

Discard the marinade. I'm going to repeat that - discard the marinade.

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