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tandoori roasted butterflied chicken with roast potatoes, flatbread and yoghurt
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4.50 from 18 votes

30 Minute Steam Oven Tandoori Roast Chicken

Welcome to your new 30 minute midweek dinner saviour: a butterflied chicken rubbed with tandoori spices, lemon and yoghurt and cooked in the steam oven until juicy and golden.
Prep Time15 minutes
Cook Time30 minutes
Resting Time10 minutes
Total Time55 minutes
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Indian
Keyword: steam oven tandoori chicken, tandoori chicken, tandoori roast chicken
Servings: 4
Calories: 435kcal

Ingredients

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 430°F/220°C, combination steam setting. If your oven has variable steam settings, choose 30% (if not, don’t worry! Just set to combi steam at the correct temperature and the oven will figure out the humidity for you).
  • Mix all ingredients except the chicken together in a small bowl. Cut deep slashes into the breasts and thighs of the chicken (this helps it cook faster, but also absorbs the marinade more easily), then rub the marinade all over both sides of the chicken and into the slashes.
  • Set the chicken, breast side up and legs splayed as in the pictures, on a rack over a baking dish or pan, so air can circulate all around the meat.
  • Put the tray in the preheated oven until the chicken is cooked through and the marinade is a dark golden color, about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to rest in a warm place for 5-10 minutes before carving and serving. If any cooking juices have collected in the pan, pour these over the chicken as you serve.      

Notes

  1. This recipe is a variation on my popular Steam Oven Roast Chicken with lemon and herbs. It’s a great way to show how variable the method is; while the flavors are different the cooking remains very similar. You can apply the same process to all sorts of spice rubs and aromatics to make different chicken dinners using your steam oven.
  2. The tandoori style marinade on the chicken is easy to mix up and provides amazing flavor to the meat in a short time. If you don’t have all the dry spices to hand, use about 2 tbs of a decent tandoori spice blend instead. If you have time to prepare ahead, marinating the seasoned chicken in the fridge for several hours will make it even more delicious.
  3. It might seem like the cooking temperature I’ve given is very high. It’s correct – to get decent browning of the skin in the short time it takes to cook the chicken, you need a hot oven. Time-wise, if your chicken is significantly smaller or larger than the weight I’ve given, adjust your cooking time to suit.
  4. The easiest way to tell if the meat's done is with a probe thermometer - a good instant-read one is invaluable, especially if your steam oven doesn’t have a meat probe accessory. The cooked temperature should read 73-75°C (162-167°F) in the thickest part of the thigh joint. Make sure the probe is touching meat, not bone, as that’ll throw off your reading.
  5. I like to serve this with Indian roti bread, cucumber and yoghurt, cilantro/coriander and some roasted cubed potatoes mixed with mustard seeds and salt. I put the potatoes in a different pan on a second oven rack under the chicken, cooking them while the chicken roasts. 

Nutrition

Calories: 435kcal | Carbohydrates: 5g | Protein: 37g | Fat: 30g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Trans Fat: 1g | Cholesterol: 144mg | Sodium: 722mg | Potassium: 476mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 763IU | Vitamin C: 18mg | Calcium: 55mg | Iron: 3mg