What Is Tandoori Cooking? The Clay Oven Explained

Tandoori cooking uses a tandoor, a cylindrical clay oven fired by charcoal or wood that reaches between 500 and 900°F. Meat is lowered in on vertical skewers and bread is slapped onto the inner wall. The food cooks by radiant heat from the clay, convection from rising hot air, direct contact for bread, and smoke from marinade dripping onto the coals.

A thick-walled clay cylinder with a fire at the bottom, kept hot continuously during service. The clay absorbs heat and radiates it inward from all sides, so food suspended in the middle cooks from every direction at once.

Mainly because of the smoke. Fat and marinade drip from the skewers onto the coals directly below, flare, and send smoke back up through the food, so the meat is effectively smoked by its own drippings throughout cooking. No home oven can reproduce that.

Partly from Kashmiri chili and paprika, which give a deep red at little heat. The bright, uniform red often seen in restaurants is usually food coloring, which adds nothing to the flavor. A natural, uneven, slightly duller red is the better sign.

The marinade and method are the same. Tandoori chicken is bone-in, usually larger pieces or a half bird. Chicken tikka is boneless cubes. Chicken tikka masala is those boneless pieces added to a creamy tomato sauce.

You can make the marinade perfectly, but not true tandoori cooking. A domestic oven reaches about half a tandoor's temperature and has no clay radiating inward and nothing burning below to produce smoke. A covered charcoal grill run very hot is the closest approximation.

It's among the lighter options on an Indian menu. No oil is added, the marinade is yogurt-based, and fat drips away into the fire rather than remaining in a pan. Cooking is also fast, so the meat stays juicy.

Typically between 500 and 900°F depending on the oven and how it's fired, which is roughly double what a domestic oven can manage.

No. Tandoori describes the oven, not the seasoning. Tandoori roti is plain unleavened bread and malai tikka is a mild cream-and-cashew marinade, both are tandoori. Heat depends entirely on the marinade.

Minced and spiced meat molded by hand directly onto a flat metal skewer and cooked in the tandoor. Unlike boti kebab, which uses cubes of whole meat, seekh kebab holds together through the binding of the mince and the spices rather than by being threaded on.