This week on Simply Ming I'm joined by Simon Majumdar, world traveler, food writer, and one of the toughest food critics in the world.

Bond.

Cheers.

- My name is Majumdar, Simon Majumdar.

MING: Double-O-zero.

He's going to show us his secret how to make the best chicken tikka masala.

Now, everybody thinks that this is an Indian dish-- it isn't.

MING: And then I'm going to take this same chicken and make my mom's chicken curry apple stew.

MING: She always did the chicken curry just with basic diced-up chicken and curry.

I'm adding some more aromatics, especially apples, because I like the sweetness of it.

We're cooking at home right here, right now, on Simply Ming.

♪ ♪ MING: Simon, welcome.

Hello, my friend, thank you.

MING: Welcome to my kitchen-- so great to see you.

I'm honored to be here.

You've had so many amazing chefs in here.

MING: Yeah, and we have yet another one.

I can't wait to try your chicken tikka masala.

But I'm going to make you a version of a vesper.

Oh, James Bond.

MING: There you go, Casino Royale.

All right, so do me a favor-- fill me ice to here.

Oh, yep.

MING: Dump those glasses, and make me two lemon flags, if you don't mind.

So... Ooh, lemon flags.

MING: So this is a gin-based drink, right?

So just a good, delicious dry gin is what you definitely want.

Then we're going to add a little bit of a quinine liqueur.

So kind of a bitterness to this.

Which, by the way, was developed to help people prevent malaria-- did you know what?

MING: That...

I did know that.

That's why they did that.

Same with the gin and tonic.

MING: Interesting.

Created to stop soldiers in India getting malaria.

MING: This is a Muscat grape with orange blossom.

It smells beautiful.

MING: And then this is one of the amazing French liqueurs made from 130 different herbs and spices.

Two bar spoons of that, and then just a little bit of lemon bitter.

And then, yeah, two lemon flags would be great.

And that's it, and then we're going to get this nice and super cold.

Actually, give me a little bit more ice, please, Simon.

Of course.

MING: Just a touch.

I want this really cold.

There we go.

Good?

MING: Good.

So I'm a big do this 88 times, because that's good feng shui.

Some people say, you know, 100 times, some say 59-- every bartender is different.

I like 88.

70... Wow, lots of shape.

So here's the key with... when you're making a good... if you do this just for a second, and you smell it, all the oil comes out.

So that really helps your drink.

MING: Love it.

All right, here we go.

Oh, that looks beautiful-- look at the color.

MING: Nice and clear.

All right, my friend.

I love that...

I love that... yeah, you know how to do it, right?

Get that little gap, gap it in, I like it, boom.

There you go.

MING: All right, Bond, cheers.

My name is Majumdar, Simon Majumdar.

MING: Double-O-zero.

Very... oh, wow, that's wonderful.

That is gorgeous.

MING: All right.

Wow.

MING: We could sit here and drink, or we should probably cook.

I should probably do some cooking.

MING: Let's go cook-- come on, over here.

All right, Simon, your dish?

Chicken tikka masala.

MING: Awesome.

Can I do some prep?

Yep, you can.

I want you to chop up those onions, medium dice, and I want you to blend into a puree this garlic and this beautiful ginger while I work on these chilies.

Now, everybody thinks that this is an Indian dish.

MING: Well, yeah, it's in every Indian restaurant.

It isn't-- it was created in Glasgow by a man called Ali Aslam, and he basically... and it's an amazing story.

MING: And he's not Indian?

He's Pakistani.

But he was making chicken tikka, which everybody knows is an Indian dish.

You cook it in that tandoor oven.

So I'm just chopping up these green chilies.

Now, if anyone's watching at home, don't do what I'm doing-- wear gloves when you're taking the seeds out of your chilies, otherwise you'll regret it.

MING: Oh, interesting.

So you don't want it that spicy.

You don't want... you want to take out the seeds, because that's where all the fire is.

What you want is just the fruitiness of these beautiful serrano chilies.

So he... people were complaining that his dish was dry, his chicken tikka.

So he made a sauce, believe it or not, with a can of tomato soup.

MING: No.

And some spices.

This is back in the '70s.

MING: Which, by the way, back then, the Brits were not getting a lot of accolades for fantastic food in the '70s.

The best food ever was Indian food.

It really is-- still is.

He says, being Indian.

So I'm just roughly chopping these, because we're going to blend this sauce.

MING: I love the layers of flavor I see in front of me.

Well, what you're going to do, and I think that's the key-- all Indian food is about rough layers of flavor.

I always have a saying when I'm doing Indian food-- no flavor left behind.

MING: All right, so can I get this going?

Yep, so that's great.

So we'll get this heat turned up.

I'm just going to put a little bit of canola oil in there.

You can use ghee, which is that wonderful spi.. quite a bit of oil.

So don't worry too much about that.

Let's get those... Before we do that, though, we're going to flavor.

So here I have coriander seed.

I have green cardamom, and I have clove.

And what we're going to do, we're just getting a little bit of heat under this.

And we're going to put these in.

And once they start popping, that's when we're ready to add the onions.

MING: Ah, so you're flavoring the oil with that-- love it.

So again, everything we do is a layer of flavor.

MING: Beautiful.

So once these begin to sizzle, and they're doing now, we can get the onions in there.

We're pretty much good with the chilies.

That's going to be plenty of chile.

You can cut down the amount of chile depending on, you know... MING: Well... You know what we call this?

MING: I love...

I love spicy.

I did the stupidest thing.

I went to an Indian restaurant in London, and I said, "Tell the chef to make the spiciest vindaloo chicken they can make.

That's very unwise.

MING: It was so stupid.

I put my finger in it, I tasted it, it was...

I'm like, "There's no way I can eat this."

And I look, and the two Indian chefs were looking out the window, and they're like, "Let's see if this Chinese guy's going to eat all this."

So out of pride, I killed it.

Two days, I was destroyed.

Destroyed.

So now if you could make up a puree of the ginger and the garlic.

You know, when you tell that to an Indian restaurant in London, they consider that a challenge.

MING: And guess what-- India won.

(laughter) China got destroyed.

So we're just going to cook these down for about four to five minutes, get them nice and soft.

MING: So why are you pureeing versus just mincing this?

Because we're going to blend it down.

I find it releases more of its flavor, because you're getting the water content out of it.

MING: Got it.

Super puree?

That'll be fine.

MING: Good.

So half of that can go in here, and then we can marinate the chicken.

So we've got this cooking down.

We'll add in our... MING: So half of this?

About half of that, that's perfect.

Now, the rest of it, can I ask you to put it on our beautiful chicken?

Now, we've got chicken thighs.

I always use chicken thighs.

Chicken breasts to me should never be sold anywhere ever.

The least flavored ingredient in the world.

So, you know, in our family we always had octopus for Christmas-- you know why?

MING: Why?

Everyone gets a leg.

MING: (laughs) That's almost funny.

It is almost funny.

So... but now we've got to do some spices, which are not funny, because they are very serious things.

MING: So what do we have here?

So we have sugar and salt.

MING: Right.

We have coriander, cumin, red chile powder, ginger, cinnamon, and turmeric.

Be careful you don't get this on your clothes, because you'll never... you'll never...

So we're just going to mix those together on the plate here.

And that's going to be our mix, almost like a garam masala.

So that just means, like, hot mix of spices.

So we can mix it up.

You don't have to be too clever with it.

MING: Embarrassingly, I've never been to India.

Oh.

MING: I know.

It will change your life.

Every... well, every dish has its own masala.

So we're going to put about half of this onto our chicken.

MING: Awesome.

So again, I'm going to ask you now to do some work while I do that.

MING: More work?

I know.

MING: It's okay.

So we want it nice and spicy.

We call this in England... we call it Johnny Cash food.

You know why?

MING: Why?

Tomorrow you'll get a burning ring of fire.

MING: (laughs) So if you could add that yogurt on top of those spices, and then these spices are going to go into here.

So we're echoing those spices in there.

MING: So this is plain yogurt?

This is plain, whole fat-- none of your low-fat nonsense.

You've got to have that beautiful whole yogurt.

You know what you've got to do?

You've got to... so your nose will tell you when the spices have cooked through.

MING: Are you going to caramelize or light caramelize?

I'm just going to let this cook down for about four to six minutes.

MING: Four to six.

How long do you normally marinate your chicken for?

This is for about two hours.

Pop it in the fridge.

You can do it overnight.

MING: Right.

But just for about two hours, you're going to get a great flavor.

MING: Smells great, too.

Also, when you're making this dish, you could do this with salmon.

MING: Right.

Just for about 20 minutes in the same spices, and then add that to the sauce.

Instead, you could do it with turkey, you could do it with all kinds of things.

MING: Big mushrooms, too.

Absolutely-- I do it with cauliflower, carrots, and mushrooms, and it makes... so we have one more thing to add-- those chilies that I chopped up, those beautiful serranos, we'll just sprinkle those in.

We're going to cook this down now for about five or six minutes.

MING: Awesome.

And then we're going to add our next ingredients.

But let's get that chicken in the fridge.

MING: In the fridge.

About two hours.

MING: Stick around.

Chicken tikka masala.

So you can see now, after about six, seven, eight minutes, you're just going to cook it down.

It's a curry jam.

It's beautiful for everything.

We're just going to add in our tomatoes.

MING: Canned tomatoes.

San Marzanos, Napoli tomatoes.

Absolutely-- if you can't find good fresh tomatoes, just really good chopped canned tomatoes will work well.

MING: There's not an Italian chef in the world that would use fresh tomatoes for a sauce-- always canned.

So intense, so full of flavor, picked at the right time.

Chicken stock, all of this chicken stock.

MING: Both of them.

Yep.

And we're going to cook this down for about five or six minutes, just to reduce that chicken stock by about half.

MING: Okay.

High heat, get some heat under that.

And what I like to do then is to let it chill down a little bit, not go cold, because it's easier to... MING: So that's reduced by about ten, 15%.

So I'm going to get you to put this through the blender over there.

MING: Okay.

And I am going to go and get some chicken tikka.

Now, I have been prewarming in here.

So do be careful.

Hot pan behind.

MING: Okay.

And you can see what I've done here is I've put some... now, you... what is it... you Americans, you say "uh-loo-min-um"?

"Ah-lu-mi-ni-um" foil.

MING: It's not "Ah-lu-mi-ni-um."

Aluminum foil.

"Ah-lu-mi-ni-um?"

"Ah-lu-mi-ni-um," we say in England.

MING: The whole thing about him being a harsh critic?

No, he just doesn't have a clue how to speak English.

Why don't you guys know how to speak English?

You guys created English.

Hold on, I'm going to need this.

So I'm going to spread this out.

Can you see... MING: "Aluminumim."

Okay.

Can you see the color that this has taken on with the turmeric?

So we're going to make chicken tikka-- wonderful dish in its own right.

Where are my towels?

MING: Super smooth, right?

Super smooth.

MING: Okay.

This is going back on the top shelf of this oven.

And this is a great way to... this is a great dish to serve anyway on its own.

I think that might not need sieving, but if you want to put it through... MING: Oh, you tell me.

I mean, it looks pretty good to me, but we'll sieve it.

It's here.

Why not?

All right, that looks nice and smooth.

Yeah, you're probably right.

You probably didn't have to pass that, right?

I mean, that blender's so good that it's going to be smooth enough.

But I tend to do this when I'm at home, just because I like the real creaminess of the texture.

MING: Right.

And that chicken's going to be in there probably for about 12 minutes.

You don't want to make it dry, but you want to get a little bit of color on it, because it was chicken tikka, which is a dish that's served on its own.

MING: Awesome.

And, you know, you want to make sure you've created chicken tikka.

MING: So you're emulating the tandoori oven.

That's what I'm trying to do.

So it's a high heat grill.

We'll keep an eye on it.

A little bit of this.

This is not too bad-- this is lovely.

Oh, and look-- that's beautiful.

That's what you're looking for, that really creamy sort of... so just this little bit of extra effort is going to give you a fantastic end result.

MING: Awesome.

All right, we've got chicken in the oven.

In about ten more minutes, we get to put this together.

I can't wait-- stick around.

Wonderful stuff.

Okay, so we're going to put a tiny bit of butter in here.

This is going to give some extra richness to the dish-- that's nice.

I'm going to ask you to pour all of that sauce.

See how smooth and beautiful that is?

I'm talking about me, of course.

MING: (laughs) You are smooth-- the beautiful is very subjective.

We're going to let that cook down a little bit.

MING: Okay.

And we're going to add even more.

This...

I did warn you, though-- this is not a healthy dish.

So a little bit of butter, a little bit of cream.

MING: Well, didn't you say just... You were talking to me about, just do 20,000 steps a day.

Well, that's what I do every day.

MING: And you can eat anything you want.

Simon, I think your chicken's looking awesome.

Oh, yes.

If you could get that out for me, that will be great.

MING: Oh, look at that.

See, that's what we've done.

We've recreated chicken tikka.

Sometimes you have to steal a little bit from the tray and give it a try.

MING: I may just have to.

You may just have to.

MING: Since I have an asbestos mouth, it doesn't matter.

Oh, my god.

You don't even need it.

Okay, so if you want to drop that in there... and you see what I did?

I created this little boat.

So we want all the juices as well.

It's like... it's still chicken flavor.

MING: Wow, look at that.

Yeah, with this aluminum foil.

Aluminum foil.

"Ah-lu-mi-ni-um" foil.

From now on everyone has to say "ah-lu-mi-ni-um."

MING: It's not "ah-lu-mi-ni-um," dude.

That would be a good trivia card, though.

And we're just going to let this cook for two or three minutes, just to let that sauce thicken up a tiny bit.

But already you can see now.

MING: Smells so good.

And you could cook this down to the thickness that you like.

Sometimes I'll cook it down until it's really quite dry and creamy.

Sometimes I like it more soupy like this.

So it's really up to you.

So we're just going to cook that through.

While I'm going to do that, let's serve it with some bread.

So I'm going to get you to just rub it with a little butter, and put it in the residual heat of the oven.

So just to warm through.

You don't want it to go crispy.

You want it to be nice and fluffy, your naan bread.

MING: Okay.

Fluffy naan.

MING: Just on the grill?

Just in there under the broiler, but just in the heat of the oven.

And then if you could do that, and while you're doing that, I'm just going to chop up a little bit of cilantro.

MING: Perfect.

For our garnish.

Just a little bit.

We don't need a lot.

You've got plenty of cilantro.

And the cilantro is really optional.

Some people have that enzyme where they can't eat cilantro.

MING: Right.

I used to hate it.

I used to, like a lot of people out there, tastes like soap, right?

Until I was ten years old at my umpteenth Chinese banquet, and every dish had cilantro everywhere, and my parents finally said, "Well, you can go home hungry, or start eating cilantro."

And once you eat enough of it, I turned the corner.

Yep.

MING: Now it's my favorite herb, and the most consumed herb in the world.

It is, absolutely.

MING: Because everyone in Asia, southeast Asia in particular, Indians use it, and then everyone in Latino countries uses it.

So that's why it's the number one herb.

All right, so this is going to go for two or three minutes.

We have naans heating up.

Then, finally, we get to put this together.

We get to eat it together.

MING: Thank God.

Two minutes.

So cook it down about five or six minutes.

Look at that texture-- what you want really is just for it to coat.

And you could cook it down further if you want, but I like this texture, because you get to really get in and get messy with it.

So I'm going to take this over here.

MING: Got a little rice here.

Set this up here.

I'm going to ask you to put a little rice on the side there.

MING: Okay, and you have a little sachet-- so what was in that?

I always put spices... so this is the same spices, cardamom, clove, that we had in there.

And I always put it in a bag, because it's easier then.

No one bites into it.

And this is basmati rice.

I know you like to cook with jasmine rice.

MING: I like basmati, too.

But you've got to really cover it so the sauce will cover all of that beautiful...

I get very excited about this.

MING: I love that little spice pack.

I really can smell that.

It just adds a little flavor to it.

It's almost like a pulao rice that you're doing there.

MING: Almost done?

Yeah, one more spoon, I think.

I love my rice.

MING: Look how long basmati is.

It's a beautiful long grain rice.

This is gorgeous.

And then we're just going to put in this chicken tikka masala on the... Oh, I'm getting very excited by this.

MING: This looks so good.

I have the naan here, too.

Excellent, we've got the naan.

We've got lots of chicken bits.

MING: It's got a little color on it-- that's all right?

That's what we want.

Again, it would normally be cooked in a tandoori oven.

MING: Right.

We'll just put a bit more chicken in there.

MING: Oh, my God.

My mouth is literally watering.

Finish it off.

A little cilantro.

MING: Wow.

And there we go.

But... MING: That looks like the real deal.

I know we're going to eat this... MING: On the table, right.

...at your famous table.

But they key is hot naan.

MING: Dip and go?

Just got to get in there.

It's very hot naan.

MING: It is very hot naan.

Dip that in, tell me what you think.

MING: That's the best chicken tikka masala I've ever had in my life.

Dude, you're the best.

All right, stick around, though, right, because I'm going to make my version of my mom's curry chicken apple.

Oh, I can't wait to try it.

MING: Don't go away.

♪ ♪ Your chicken tikka masala looks so good!

So I'm doing a riff off a chicken curry, but I'm using madras curry powder.

Okay.

MING: So for the home cook, if you buy them fresh, they're good.

They're good.

MING: They're really good.

Buy a good one, and don't keep it for too long.

MING: So we're going to do a pressure cooker.

If you can just mince me some onions.

So it's onions.

This is my mom's version.

She always did the chicken curry just with basic diced-up chicken and curry.

I'm adding some more aromatics, especially apples, because I like the sweetness of it.

Oh!

MING: And what I have going on here is this pressure cooker can sear, so we're just searing the chicken first, right?

Getting some good color on it.

And then we're going to add this back with all our aromatics, and then we'll be able to cook it for about 35 minutes pressure cooked, and it's done.

All right, so I'll do an onion as well here.

And by the way, guys, when you're cooking at home, it doesn't matter the exact shape and size, right?

As long as it's cut up and good for your mouth feel.

So in the same pot, yeah, pop it in there.

so this has the chicken fat.

And by the way, when I seared this chicken, all I added was salt and pepper, no fat.

Because you know how much fat comes off the chicken.

Wonderful-- and chicken fat, I mean...

Whole cuisines are built on chicken fat.

I adore it.

MING: Yeah, I actually like it more than ghee.

Oh, well, them's fighting words when you go into an Indian household.

MING: Ghee is basically clarified butter.

And I've had people say, "Oh, ghee is so much better, so much less fattening than... that's baloney.

It's 100% fat, just like oil, just like olive oil.

It's delicious, and it's got beautiful, nutty flavor with ghee.

Like a buffalo milk.

MING: So dice me up that, sir.

Same kind of dice?

MING: Same kind of dice.

So we're going to add onions first, then we're going to just put a bunch of garlic, ginger, bell peppers, apples, and that's going to really build the flavors.

Kind of like your dish, Simon-- you really build layer on layer on layer on layer.

Remember my saying?

MING: Which one?

No flavor left behind.

MING: No flavor left behind.

That's right, I forgot.

All right, so garlic in.

And before we add the vegetables and fruit that have a lot of juice, we're going to actually cook the curry powder a little bit, right?

Yeah, always toast it off just a little.

MING: So this... A little rough chop on the ginger as well.

So do you cook a lot at home?

People don't know that I cook.

They see me judge.

MING: Right.

So when I'm traveling and I cook a lot of dinners, I work a lot with this fantastic nonprofit called Convoy of Hope.

they're the first people, when you go to a... you know, you have a disaster in the U.S., they were the first people in Houston, first people in Florida, helping to feed everyone.

They're a good... that enough?

MING: That's perfect, but you've got to do a second one.

Oh, really, you want both of them?

MING: I do.

So garlic, ginger, onions, now the curry powder.

We want to really cook the curry powder in with the aromatics, all right?

So this is going...

I'm going to let this go for probably about two, three more minutes.

And then when we come back, we're going to add the other aromatics, the apple, the peppers, the chicken back, and then chicken stock.

This dish will be done in 30 minutes.

Stick around.

All right, Simon, see that?

So at about eight minutes or so, you get the nice, soft onion.

You can smell the curry, right?

Smells beautiful.

Absolutely.

MING: You can...

I'll take all those bell peppers now, please-- dump those in.

And I'm going to add two apples.

And here's the way I like to dice an apple.

I take off the four sides, because I don't want all the skin.

And then once you square an apple off, you can get two good whacks on each side.

And that's how you can do kind of a rough dice.

Like that, right?

Then I just stack the big pieces.

And, again, it doesn't matter how perfect it is, because it's all going to... the apples are basically going to melt away.

They're going to break down.

MING: They're going to melt and break down, exactly.

All right, I used to always...

I still do.

when I make chicken stock, I'll put a couple apples in it, just to get it a little bit sweeter.

Layer of flavor in there.

MING: Yep.

All right, just a little bit more seasoning.

I seasoned it well in the beginning, right?

So now we have all those great aromatics.

and we're done-- we have all this chicken that we did.

And like you, there's going to be a little bit of chicken fat and juice.

So, of course, that gets all put in.

And then hand me that chicken stock, please, Simon.

So mix this well.

In all pressure cookers, you're never going to want to go more than two-thirds full.

There's a line on it.

It can just be dangerous.

So you never want to fill it higher than that.

All right, that's about perfect there.

So now, mix it well.

And again, it's so important that the aromatics are highly seasoned, because chicken stock has no seasoning.

Then just take the pressure cooker lid.

This is what I love.

And then all you do is set it to pressure cook for 40 minutes, and go.

That's so easy.

MING: 40 minutes.

Chicken apple curry.

Wow.

MING: It may be as good as his, maybe.

(steam hissing) All right, Simon, so you release the pressure there.

Yes.

MING: Let that out.

We have some house rice.

This is 50-50 brown and white.

If you could just give me a nice pile there.

I can actually smell aromatic steam.

MING: I love that.

And I love pressure cookers, because this is the safety valve-- I cannot open it.

I love using it.

But, yeah, I just... this is the most important thing of pressure cookers, is it cooks it twice as fast, which is great for the home cook.

You've just got to be careful with it.

All right, the red thing's down.

You open this up.

Oh, yeah.

Look at that.

This is going to fall of the bone.

The chicken's just broken down beautifully.

Look at the color.

We're going to eat very well.

MING: Chicken fat and all, of course.

That's why we use thighs-- fat has flavor.

Look at this-- falling apart.

I think we're in business there.

Look at that.

Wow.

MING: Maybe just a little bit of just ripped cilantro.

Rough on top, like you.

Smooth on top, thank you very much.

MING: (laughs) Very smooth up top.

I had a shave this morning.

That looks beautiful.

MING: Let's go eat two chicken dishes.

Follow me.

My friend, it's chicken time.

A little rose cider.

Thought it would be nice, because we've got a little heat here.

Oh, that's good-- I like that.

MING: So I'm going to serve you a little rice.

Can I serve you a little of mine?

MING: Oh, please, please.

A little rice and a little curry.

You've got to get it together.

Get a bit more of that with the char on it.

MING: Fantastic-- I'm so excited.

Let's do this again, make sure it was that delicious, which I already know.

Food always tastes better eaten by hand, I think.

MING: Oh, my God.

That is fantastic.

Oh, wow.

The sweetness in this.

MING: That's the best chicken tikka masala I've ever had in my life.

Oh, this was a lot of fun.

Thank you.

MING: Simon, you are the best.

And your book is called Fed, Red... Fed, White, and Blue.

All about me becoming an American citizen.

MING: Fed, White, and Blue.

American citizen.

You travel the country, you eat, and you write, and you talk.

You're the best.

I talk too much, but thank you.

MING: Cheers.

Thank you as always for watching, and as always, peace and good eating.