Cooking Chicken Tikka Masala - session #2

Last session...

Notes on this session...

• The grilling of the chicken came out great. Lots of seared edges.
• I used dark chicken meat instead of white meat. I noticed that cubing this kind of meat is better for producing pieces that have lots of small edges, great for getting seared.
• I cut up the chicken pieces a lot smaller than I usually do. 
• I like the smaller size. It makes it easier to pick up with a piece of Naan bread.
• The grilling of the jalapeños was great too. Lots of searing.
• I used 1/2 cup olive oil to cook the onions, garlic, jalapeños, and soak up the spices. I think I should use butter or glee next time instead. I used olive oil without really thinking about it. I'm just so used to using it that I didn't even consider using something else.
• I recalled a technique that I learned from a friend (Indian cooking tradition) who taught me that when adding spices you should add them to the oil because oil carries the spice to the rest of the food. So the oil is like the blood stream of the food. (Cool, so spices are fat soluble.)
• It worked out great. The spices + oil made a paste that reminded me of the look of real Indian cooking.
• This time I made sure to boil off the water from the tomatoes/onions before adding the cream.
• So I had to change the recipe. I couldn't go straight to pressure cooking after adding the tomato/onion sauce because pressure cooking doesn't boil off water and I need to boil off water. So I sautéed for a while until I thought enough water had boiled off before switching to pressure cooking. I thought it was good but it may have deserved more boiling. [1]
• I think this is the best tikka masala I've done. I think the jalapeños were responsible for a big part of the heat. I liked it a lot.

[1] I'm reminded of other instances of converting recipes to the instant pot where there is a step that water needs to boil off. Pressure cooking can't do that so something else has to be done to make sure that there isn't too much water.