Hi all,

Most recipes and videos I have seen online start with a yogurt based marinade for the chicken. The chicken is then “seared”, removed from the pan, rest of sauce built up and chicken returned to finish cooking.

My issue here is that you cannot really sear wet stuff in a pan. So that chicken, covered in yogurt marinade will not really sear (even if you shake off the excess). You basically get a braising conditions in the pan. This probably DOES work in a grill as the marinade simply drips into the coals and burns but not in a pan.

So the question is:

  • Wouldn’t it be better to dry rub the chicken so it could be seared and simply use the yogurt (and rest of wet ingredients for the marinade) as a deglazing liquid afterwards?
  • Jhex@lemmy.worldOP
    3·
    2 days ago

    Ok here are the results!

    So first, just using a dry rub with the chicken worked out really well. I would still do the traditional recipe if I am grilling the chicken but, if working it in a pan, I would definitely repeat the dry rub approach. It did deepen the flavour of the spices so the overall dish ended up hotter (spicier) than before but we loved it

    For those who mentioned watery yogurt, how dare you?!?! hahaha just kidding. That was not a problem, my yogurt is thick and creamy but the marinade has other liquid ingredients that dilute it; more over, yogurt won’t stay creamy and thick when heated anyway so it worked well as a deglazing liquid

    Here are some pics of the process:

    Searing the chicken, kept the searing light

    Seared chicken, as you can see, light sear

    Cross cut of chicken, still raw inside as planned

    After chicken, onions

    Then garlic and ginger

    Finally the yogurt (with lemon juice, tomato paste, etc)

    And once reduced, adding the butter and heavy cream

    And that’s the sauce, once homogeneous, I returned the chicken and simmered it until cooked which took about 6 mins extra

    PS: thanks so much to all for your feedback. I have posted similar questions in the past (in Reddit way back when) and other communities but this is the first community that engaged.

    Looking forward to sharing more questions and pics with you all