Yogurt-Marinated Chicken

This isn't so much a recipe as a family of recipes, a technique for better chicken, or maybe just a string of ideas. That said, I'm going to give you the spice blend I started making this with, then in variations we'll talk all about the myriad different ways you can prepare this dish once you have the basic idea.

You might have heard of buttermilk fried chicken and thought that the buttermilk must be part of the batter. But in fact the buttermilk is what you brine the chicken in, and while it does sometimes become a part of the coating, that's not its primary function. Chicken soaked in buttermilk becomes more tender and more resistant to overcooking.

You might have read the preceding paragraph and thought, "Why is he talking about buttermilk? I thought this was yogurt chicken." And you'd be right, except that while American cooks have figured out that buttermilk marination is a good way to preserve moisture in chicken, many of them don't know that the same is true of yogurt. But unlike buttermilk, which is usually discarded after the chicken has finished marinating, yogurt can continue to work for you through to the final product, adding both flavor and crust to the meat.

You Will Need:

• Yogurt
• Chicken
• Salt
• Oil
• Spices

Yogurt

I hear you. You're saying, "I don't like yogurt." Rest easy; I don't particularly like it either. The end result will not taste like yogurt. All the whey goes away and the yogurt turns into a crust, a bit like batter but low-carb and low fat. It tenderizes and moisturizes, and it serves as a carrier for the spices you use. You have to use it.

Indian cooks use regular yogurt as part of many marinades, but I recommend using Greek yogurt. There's less moisture, so it won't steam your chicken if you can't cook it on the grill, and it clings to the chicken better. Non-fat is absolutely fine here too, though you can use full or low-fat if you've got it and want to. Do you make your own yogurt? Use that, by all means, though you might want to strain it a little first.

Chicken

This is one of those recipes where any kind of chicken will work depending on what you're going for. To make kebabs, slices of breast meat work great; cut them across the grain of the meat into about half-inch thick slices. But you can also use chunks or either white or dark meat.

If you're cooking whole breasts, you'll have less contact with the yogurt so you might want to let things marinate a bit longer, maybe overnight rather than an hour. Whole thighs or drumsticks will already have some resilience, so no need to marinate them extra. Wings? I've never tried it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. Make sure you get the marinade under the skin, if there is skin. Cooking a whole bird might be possible, but it would be a very different recipe. I'd recommend starting smaller.

Salt

Yes, you'll need salt. The yogurt needs some salt so it can act as a brine. Also, if you don't season your meat, you make the ghost of Julia Child cry.

Oil

You should use a little cooking spray on whatever you cook the chicken, at least. If you're aiming for low-fat, cook boneless, skinless breasts with nonfat yogurt and it'll work just fine, but if you're able to handle a little fat, adding a little oil to the marinade helps it brown nicely.

Spices

Here's where the variations abound, so for this particular recipe, as I promised in the Spice Cabinet entry on cardamom, we'll be using cardamom and fenugreek powder, plus a little garam masala to round out the flavors. Meet me in the variations section for other options.

You Will Also Need:

A Bowl

You'll need to marinate the chicken in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, more is definitely better. As I said, if you're using whole breasts you might want to go overnight. Do you need to do it in a bowl? No, you could easily do it in a plastic bag. But you might still need some kind of bowl to mix the marinade in.

A grill?

Okay, so this recipe is great on the grill. You get nice char, smoky flavor, and it looks more authentic. But you don't need a grill. If you've got an oven which will make it to 450, crank that baby up to 450.

However, if you don't use a grill, you may find that the chicken gives off a lot of moisture. Don't worry, that's not chicken juice you're losing; it's mostly yogurt whey. But you don't want your chicken sitting and braising in that liquid; it ruins the browning and washes some of the crust away. So if you can elevate your chicken, either on an oven-safe wire rack or on skewers, you'll be much happier.

Can you fake it without a rack? Yes. I would still recommend skewers if you're doing it kabob-style, but if you're cooking pieces, try elevating them with rings of rolled aluminum foil. Anything to keep the chicken above water, so to speak.

Let's Marinate!

Start with the marinade. A thigh or drumstick takes about 2 tablespoons of Greek yogurt, a breast about 3. If you're doing kabobs, 5-6 tablespoons per pound of meat is a rough guide. You can always add a little more without sacrificing any flavor. Basically, you want enough yogurt to coat all the pieces of chicken.

Add a teaspoon of cardamom, a teaspoon of fenugreek, and a tablespoon of garam masala. Give or take. I probably add more than that. Then salt. Use as much as you would use if you were just cooking the chicken; unlike most marinades the yogurt will nearly all end up in the final result, so any salt you add will end up there too. Don't be shy, but don't go overboard either. Just your usual amount of salt to taste.

If you want to add oil, a tablespoon or two here will do no one any harm. If you're using full-fat yogurt you probably don't have to add the oil.

Add the chicken, in whatever form it takes, and massage the yogurt mixture into the chicken until everything's coated. Refrigerate. 30 minutes is minimum. An hour is better. Overnight is totally possible. The beauty of yogurt is that it's not like an acid. It won't denature the protein if you leave it too long. When you take the chicken out, make sure it's still coated in the yogurt.

Then fire up your grill, or crank your oven to 450, and cook your chicken until it's 165 for white meat, 175 for dark meat. You want to cook it fairly high because you want the crust to brown, and the marinate/brine you did should keep that high heat from drying anything out. I promise, you'll think you've overcooked your kabobs, but they'll come out juicy.

That's pretty much it. Serve kabobs over rice or salad or in pitas, serve pieces any way you would normally serve chicken.

Variations

Okay, that was tandoori chicken for white people. If you were really making it, it would involve more spices and either red food coloring or red chiles. But that's the tip of the iceberg.

Any other assortment of Indian spices is amazing here. I made a Chicken Cafreal with mint, fenugreek leaves, and cilantro, using yogurt as the base. I've made this with straight up curry powder. If you can find something called "tandoori paste" in your supermarket (I've seen it occasionally in the international section) you can add that to the yogurt.

But why stop there? Add some lemon juice, garlic, oregano, cumin, and dill, and you've got yourself Greek chicken. Move a little further west in the Mediterranean and go for an Italian blend and you can have this with pasta. Chuck in some herbs de Provence and it's suddenly French.

And that's not all. Suppose, instead of just relying on the yogurt to do the crust work for you, you added a little cornstarch to the equation? Suppose you deep-fried them instead of oven-roasting? Suppose you brought us all the way full-circle and used yogurt instead of buttermilk to make Southern fried chicken? I won't tell anyone. It can be our little secret.

That's the versatility of this recipe. Once you know about using a yogurt marinade, you can make low-fat, low-carb chicken parm, or add some lime juice and chipotle to make the juiciest chicken fajitas you've ever had. And unless you tell anyone you put yogurt in it, they'll never know. "How do you get your chicken so juicy?" they'll all exclaim, as you share a secret little smile with your refrigerator.

In all likelihood that's just a commercial for something in the '50s, but still, this is a trick worth knowing. Now go out and cook one for the Gipper! This is cookable.