Spicy yoghurt roasted chicken thighs

This is another beautifully balanced dish with a lovely combination of spices and flavours. It is a bit like Tandoori chicken but much more subtle without losing flavours. One of the great features of this dish is that subject to your tastes and preferences, simply by changing up what you serve the chicken with, you can end up with Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern or a dish from the sub-continent! How good and versatile is that!!??

 Quick preparation and easy to cook – Martha loves cooking this dish for our family. The original recipe that I came across had skin on thighs but I prefer skinless and you will still get beautifully browned chicken thighs to serve!

 The base recipe was in the Dish magazine a couple of years ago and I have very slightly tweaked it. A recommendation is to make the yoghurt mix half again or double the size – use what the recipe states for the cooking of the chicken and save the balance for use as a sauce – simply gently heat the balance in a pot for around 5 minutes stirring regularly

 Ingredients

 1/2 cup thick plain yoghurt

1 heaped tsp each smoked paprika and ground cumin – recipe says 1tsp but I like to be generous with flavour!

3/4 tsp ground turmeric

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

3 tbs olive oil

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs/ approx. 1 kg

Salt and cracked pepper

Lemon wedges to serve

Cooking instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees fan bake
2. Whisk the yoghurt with all the remaining ingredients (apart from the chicken) in a large bowl and season generously with the salt and pepper – if you have made extra, put this aside
3. Add the chicken thighs and turn to fully coat in the yoghurt mixture. Place on a lined oven baking tray, leaving a little space between each one so they roast but don’t steam
4. Roast for around 40 minutes until browned and fully cooked – cooking time will depend on the size of the chicken thighs
5. While chicken is cooking, gently cook the spare yoghurt mix, stirring regularly
6. Add the sauce and serve with lemon wedges

To serve

 Couple of options:

• With quinoa or quinoa/rice and a green vegetable such as broccolini
• With couscous tossed with currants, chopped coriander and roasted almonds
• With basmati rice and yoghurt combined with crushed garlic and chopped mint

 Serves 4