The Marinade That Does the Work

Walk into any Sylheti kitchen on a Friday afternoon and you will usually find a bowl of yogurt doing something useful. In Bangladeshi home cooking, yogurt is not just a cooling side for a curry — it is a tenderiser, a carrier of spice and a guarantee that grilled meat stays juicy rather than turning to sawdust over hot coals. This is the principle behind a proper chicken tikka: thick yogurt, plenty of ginger and garlic, and a spice mix that is generous but balanced.

Chicken tikka sits comfortably between the restaurant grill and the home barbecue. It is quick enough for a weeknight under the oven grill, yet impressive enough to anchor a summer gathering. The method below is written for roughly a kilo of chicken and will comfortably feed four to six people as part of a larger spread.

What You Need

• 1 kg boneless chicken thigh fillets, cut into 4–5 cm chunks. Thigh is far more forgiving than breast and stays succulent. If you insist on breast, brine it for 30 minutes first.
• 250 g full-fat yogurt, ideally strained or Greek-style. Thin, watery yogurt will slide straight off the meat.
• 2 tbsp ginger paste and 2 tbsp garlic paste — freshly made if possible, blitzed with a splash of water.
• 2 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder for colour, plus ½ tsp ordinary chilli powder if you want real heat.
• 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, ½ tsp turmeric, 1 tsp garam masala, ½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper.
• 1½ tsp fine salt — do not be shy here; the marinade has to season the meat all the way through.
• 2 tbsp mustard oil, the pungent heart of so much Bangladeshi cooking, plus 1 tbsp lemon juice.
• 1 tbsp gram flour or cornflour to help the marinade cling and form a light crust.
• 2 green chillies, finely chopped, and a small handful of coriander stalks, blitzed in. Optional but traditional: a pinch of red food colouring, which is how you get that unmistakable tandoori glow.

Building and Resting the Marinade

Start by straining the yogurt through a fine sieve or a piece of muslin for 20 minutes if it looks loose. Tip it into a large bowl, then whisk in the ginger, garlic, all the ground spices, salt, mustard oil, lemon juice and flour until you have a thick, even paste with no dry pockets of powder.

Prick the chicken all over with a fork or make two or three shallow slashes in each piece. This is not about tenderness — it is about giving the marinade somewhere to sit. Add the chicken to the bowl and work it in with your hands for a full minute, massaging the paste into every surface. Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours, and ideally overnight. Anything beyond 24 hours and the yogurt starts to break the meat down into a mushy texture, so set a limit.

Take the bowl out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Cold meat on a hot grill cooks unevenly, and the yogurt will seize rather than coat.

Cooking for Smoke and Char

Thread the chunks onto metal skewers, leaving a small gap between pieces so the heat can circulate. If you are using wooden skewers, soak them for half an hour first.

Charcoal gives the best result. Light the coals and wait until they are covered in grey ash with a steady, glowing heat — around 200–220°C. Grill the skewers for 6–8 minutes per side, turning only when each face is properly marked. Resist the urge to move them about; contact with the bars is what builds the crust.

No barbecue? A ridged griddle pan over high heat works beautifully, and an oven grill set to its highest setting is a perfectly respectable third option. In both cases, line the tray with foil for easy cleaning and position the shelf close to the heat. Baste once halfway through with a little melted butter or ghee, which keeps the surface glossy and encourages browning. The chicken is ready when the internal temperature reaches 75°C and the juices run clear.

Let the skewers rest for five minutes under a loose tent of foil before serving. This is the step most people skip, and it is the one that keeps the meat juicy.

Serving It the Sylheti Way

Chicken tikka is at home on a plate of sliced red onion, cucumber, tomato and a squeeze of lemon, with a slick of mint yogurt and tamarind chutney alongside. Warm naan, paratha or plain boiled rice all work. For a fuller Bangladeshi table, add a simple dal, a dry bhorta of potato or aubergine, and a bowl of plain yogurt with salt and coriander.

Leftovers are excellent cold in a wrap with chilli sauce, or chopped through a salad of chickpeas and onion. They will keep for three days in the fridge.

Getting It Right Every Time

• Do not overcrowd the grill. If the pieces are touching, they steam rather than char.
• Shake off excess marinade before the skewers go on. Dripping yogurt burns and turns bitter.
• Keep the heat high but not furious. A raging fire blackens the outside before the centre cooks.
• Taste the marinade before the chicken goes in. It should be a touch saltier than you think — the meat will absorb it.
• Rest the meat. Five minutes makes a visible difference.

Once you have made this a few times, you will stop measuring and start cooking by feel, which is exactly how it is done in a Sylheti kitchen. The yogurt, ginger and mustard oil will tell you when the balance is right.