Chicken kebabs for a houseful

All recipes Copyright Anna Vaught.

Chicken drumstick kebabs for a household.

Fiddle with the spices below: you may like more or less chilli.

If you'd like to view last night's tea with its recipe, then take a look at "keema mattar", which is on the menus section of www.calcuttascarlet.com This is a simple minced lamb curry with peas and mint. You could add a little salad to it, of just finely chopped cucumber and carrot, dressed with some hot sunflower oil in which you have popped (in a frying pan) a dessertspoonful of brown mustard seeds.

For tea tonight -- for a household (by which I mean four children and two adults), we're having Tangri kabab -- a kind of chicken kebab. I'll probably have chopped up carrots and cucumber on the table, some hot lime or mango pickle, some lemons to squeeze over and maybe some pitta breads because I don't have any chapati or roti in the house and may be too lazy to make them today. I do think you want a bit of starch on the table, though. If you look at my www.calcuttascarlet.com site and go to the menu section, you'll see my simple naan bread recipe to follow. And it's a lazy lazy recipe, for which I apologise.

You can allow, say, three drumsticks per person. I say three, but my seven year old ate five in one go last week. In India, these would be skinned. Up to you. Right: you make slashes in the sides of the drumsticks with a sharp wieldy knife. The cuts you make should go deep, right down to the bone so that when these drumsticks are marinating, the flavours permeate properly.

In a big bowl combine about six tablespoons of natural yoghurt (not the low fat kind, ideally!), three cloves of crushed garlic, a finely chopped nut of fresh ginger, a dessertspoon of ground cumin, maybe a teaspoon of cayenne pepper or the same (I'd like more!) of flaked red chilli, a dessertspoon of ground coriander, a good pinch of sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and, if you want a little more colour, perhaps a teaspoon of turmeric. You could also add a about a tablespoon of lemon or lime juice. I experimented once with orange juice: you can always try.
Now, mix this lot well and then put the chicken in. I'd mix it and massage it in with my hands. I'm assuming that if you're happy to chew on a drumstick, you're not squeamish about this task. When the mixture is well rubbed into the meat, leave in the fridge --please: health and safety tells you that you gotta wash and dry your hands before you touch the fridge door!!!!-- for 12 hours or so or even up to 24 (see: you can do this in advance).

Later, put the chicken into a pre-heated hot oven, having sprinkled it with sunflower or groundnut oil first. Bake for about 25 minutes, turning half way through. And if you have any leftover juices and oil in the pan, leave them in the pan (removing any burnt bits) and then, next day, roast some little cubes of potato in them. These will be deeply savoury. Actually, now I come to think about this, I have recently converted the afore-mentioned potatoes into a salad, through adding handfuls of mint and torn-up greens from the garden. Get all the greenery ready first and then toss in the sizzling potatoes with maybe a bit more sea salt and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Spritz with lemon or lime juice, too.

You could make these kebab part of a larger Indian banquet for summer.