Yeah, Nicole! We live the same life! Jagerbomb. Jagerbombs. Jagerbombs. Do you spend substantial grocery store time asking yourself, “Should I really buy that thing, or should I make it from scratch?” How do you factor time, enjoyment, and budget into your food choices? Am I making this sound like a prescription drug commercial with way too many unnerving side effects? You will poop your pants. Today I’m gonna make a homemade version of Trader Joe’s chicken tikka masala, and see if I can beat the brand in a blindfolded taste test scored by my coworkers. Will I beat the brand? Move over, Trader Joe’s, it’s Trader Josh’s turn. Was that good? Did we like that one? I put some jazz hands into it. So today we have chosen Trader Joe’s chicken tikka masala to take on because I believe that to be the best, you gotta beat the best, and Trader Joe’s Indian food is like the Cadillac car of frozen microwaveable TV dinners, and they have a huge, huge cult following. The chicken tikka masala, I grew up eating it, it is super super delicious. However, it is still a frozen meal, so there are ways, definitely, that we can beat it from scratch. We’re starting with a couple things, we’re gonna be toasting our spices fresh, we’re gonna be using chicken thigh, which to me is the king of bird meat. So we’re gonna start today by making the jeera rice. So jeera is the Hindi word for cumin seed. We have these fresh cumin seeds right here, these are super, ah, lovely, I mean really really fragrant, and we’re gonna take some ghee, that’s clarified butter, we’re gonna add it to a sauce pot right here, then we’re gonna toss our cumin seeds in there. Again, like I said, where we can beat Trader Joe’s, this is like conspiracy theory stuff, where we’re gonna beat ’em is in the trenches. No, it’s in the fresh preparation, it’s in the toasting of the spices, it’s in the love that we’re adding here. We’re gonna let this heat up, when those cumin seeds start sputtering, we’re gonna get the rice in there. I’m gonna take a couple bay leaves and also get those in there, toasting up. I’m not gonna pretend to be like an expert on Indian cookery, a lot of my knowledge is stuff I’ve gained online, so this is kind of adapting a recipe from legendary Indian cook Madhur Jaffrey, and actress, fascinating career she had, you should really look it up. We have chicken thighs right here. So we’re gonna add this in there, so, the way a lot of people, when they make chicken tikka masala, they’ll, what’s this whisk for? All right, so I’m gonna add the rice into that ghee, this is basmati rice that has been soaked for about half an hour in water, and then drained. Basmati has got the super long grains. We’re also gonna add salt to that. So we got the chicken in there, I’m gonna get it, there’s a little bit of fresh black pepper. Lemme get a very quick marinade on it, and then I’m gonna do juice of a whole lemon, acid is really fantastic because it tends to tenderize meat, which is also the case with yogurt, so we’re taking some full fat Indian-style yogurt right here, we’re gonna add that to our marinade, along with some oil, just to kinda get things loosened up in there. Then we’re adding our salt, and then fresh ground ginger, I think the best part of Indian cookery is there are just so many aromatics and spices going in there, and all this stuff, you can taste it in the final product, you know? Whoo! So we got that rice toasting up, so we’re adding spices to our chicken here. This is chili powder, and then we got paprika, and then turmeric, mostly for color, and then we have some ground cumin right here, that’s gonna carry a long way, cumin is my single favorite spice in the entire world, unless I’ve said that it was another spice in a previous episode, then just kinda deal with it. And then we have garam masala here. Garam masala, masala is the Hindi word for spice, and garam masala is a blend of mace and clove and cumin and a ton of super warm spices in there, so that’s also gonna be a big, big flavor booster in there. So, we got our rice toasted in here. Whoo, I wish you had smellovision. Really, Josh? An earnest “smellovision” line in 2021? from 1998. All right, so now we’re gonna take some water, it’s a two-one ratio with the soaked basmati and the water. And we’re just gonna add that in there, and then when this comes up to a boil, we are going to cover that. And just let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Because we pre-soaked the rice, this is actually a great tip, when you pre-soak the rice you only gotta cook it for like 10 minutes, so it actually decreases your prep time a fair amount. Now… I don’t gotta touch this anymore, I can cover it. That means I can massage chicken with my bare hands, what a good day! I’m gonna bare hand this chicken. Oh, that feels nice. It’s unnerving how much I love playing with raw meat. But it’s not. It’s comforting. But really, if you massage it in there, you kind of get the salt working into the chicken meat, and all that acid in that’s gonna help tenderize. Now all we’re gonna do is let this chicken marinate for 40 minutes, mostly to cut out time. If I was really trying to make this as delicious as possible, I might let it go a full day before. That said, I’m trying to beat the brand, so I’m trying to, it cuts down on time, keep this about an hour, and we’re gonna do it. Why would I whisk the chicken? Trevor, what does this do? It does nothing! All right, now we have to take the very simple step of making our masala sauce, and then also grilling up this chicken at the same time. So I’m gonna get some oil heating in this pan, we got about a quarter cup in there. Big key on cooking any food for me is toasting up the aromatics and spices. So we’re gonna get some onions working in there, and then we’re also gonna get our spices in here, so we have coriander, we got cumin, we got chili powder, as I’m clapping together like the cymbal-playing monkey that’s in my head, and we’re gonna get some salt in there. And then, simply take this, I’m gonna stir that up a little bit, and it’s already smelling good, we’re on, we’re doing good, guys. And now what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna take some fresh ginger and we’re gonna stir fry that along with that, and there’s no room to palm heel strike, so we’re trying to go over this burning hot grill pan, kinda do it like Donkey Kong. There it is. Smash up your garlics. Ya, ya! And then make that into a paste, and then we’re gonna take that, we’re just gonna add that in there. You can fish the garlics out or you can just eat ’em. So we’re gonna stir fry that for another couple minutes. Now we gotta get our chicken on, so we got a grill pan heating up here, now we gotta get a nice smokey flavor from this grill pan. That is a lie that Rachael Ray has been telling for years. What would make this smokey? It’s just a pan with less surface area than a cast-iron, however, it does kinda mimic the uneven charring that you’re gonna get on a grill, so who’s really mad about what? Sorry, lost my head there for a sec. We’re gonna take a couple chicken thighs, we have to work in batches here. Gonna get those into our hot grill pan, and then we want to get a really nice char on this, it’s like I said, it’s typically made with pre-cooked tender chicken. There we go. And so we’re gonna try and get this nice and charred, and then all that marinade’s gonna sorta caramelize on there, all that yogurt, all that lemon juice, and then that is gonna add a lovely profile to our sauce. So, we got those onions browned there with the garlic, now what we’re gonna do, is we’re actually gonna start stir frying some yogurt into there. So this is coming directly from Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe, and then you’re gonna sorta like caramelize that yogurt into this pan, which is a really interesting technique that I never would’ve thought of, but, I’ve made this before, and it’s really fantastic. And get some nice browning in the sugars of that yogurt, and that’s actually gonna add a huge flavor base, and that’s how we beat Trader Joe’s. So now we’re gonna take our fresh tomatoes, we’re gonna add those in there. Anytime you’re using fresh tomatoes in a sauce recipe, you really want to get those heated, and then bash ’em up. I would say palm heel strike directly into a hot pan… You guys think I can do it? Why? Why are you afraid of success? So now we’re gonna take tomato paste, tomato paste is just gonna sorta like beef up that tomato flavor in there. Totally optional step on that one. And then I’m gonna caramelize that tomato paste just a little bit in here. So you really wanna create an intensely flavored paste in here. Gimme a flavor bomb. Does anyone remember the jagerbombs YouTube video? Jagerbombs. That means nothing to you. Yeah, Nicole! We live the same life! Jagerbombs. Jagerbombs. Jagerbombs. All right, so let’s take that chicken stock in there. Keep mashing at it, ’cause we do want this to be a somewhat smooth sauce. Just a little bit of texture in there. There we go, and the rest of that stock. So now we’re gonna simmer this for about 15 minutes, so we can keep grilling this chicken. All right, so we got our sauce bubbling away, that’s good, you wanna keep moving that, and then we’re gonna go ahead and flip this chicken, wow, you see those lovely grill marks? That’s all that smokey flavor, Rachael Ray! But it actually does look really good, it’s getting nice and charred, and all that marinade is really sorta caramelizing, so all that flavor, that’s gonna get in there, that’s gonna get in your mouth hole, and then finally, Trader Joe’s, you will be defeated. Okay, that’s great, chicken gotta cook for about another five minutes, sauce gotta bubble away. Phew. It’s so easy. This dish. Simple. All right, so we grilled up the rest of that chicken, that is looking super super caramelized, and god dang it, I wanna eat it right out of the pot. And now we have our tikka masala sauce simmer away, all we’re gonna do is we’re gonna add heavy whipping cream to that, and then a fair amount of ghee, because fat really carries spices in a dish, and acid. That’s just gonna be absolutely gorgeous. Yes sir. Really trying to beat Trader Joe’s here, so I’m just gonna take some butter and put it in the rice. This is how you win in cooking, you bribe people with butter, that’s why restaurant food tastes so much better than the food you make at home, ’cause they got a lot of butter in it. Or just a lot of oil, whatever fat. Yeah, yeah. And then we’ll just let that sit, that’s gonna become just super super rich. Heck yeah. Lid back on there, butter’s gonna melt. Now we gotta start cubing up this chicken, I’m just gonna bare hand it, ’cause why not? I have tongs literally right there, not gonna do it. And then now we’re just gonna cube this chicken, we want some nice kinda big chunks, ’cause really big in the Trader Joe’s version. There we go. Give it a turn. Give us a turn! Show us what you’re working with, shake that ass, chicken! Anyone remember Juvenile? I remember Juvenile. Mystikal, was it Mystikal, not Juvenile? They did a song with a similar message. And now bare hand the chicken again, even though it just hurt you, but you do not learn from your mistakes. And then we’re gonna… Mm. Okay, stir that chicken up, and you see the color of the sauce, I mean it’s got that beautiful reddish orangish hue, that’s the tomato paste, that’s the cream, that’s that turmeric working in there, and that is looking exactly how I want it to. I actually forgot the last ingredient. I mean I didn’t forget. You didn’t see that! Gonna add in our garam masala, just so it’s like the last thing that gets in there. And it just perfumes everything. That is gorgeous, I’m calling that, all we gotta do is plate. There’s a shleam over everything. Gonna take this lovely rice, and we’re just gonna add it to a bowl. Why? Bowls are good. I own one bowl at home, and it’s the only thing that I eat meals out of. I’m one of those guys that has one pillow, one towel, and one bowl. And I wash my body with shampoo. I like the way Garnier Fructis smells, I want my whole body to smell like it. I’m actually into that. Get a couple bay leaves on top, so people know there’s flavor in it, also bay leaves, they do do something. Grill pans don’t import a smokey flavor, bay leaves, cook rice with a bay leaf, cook it without it, you notice a difference. And then all of this lovely chicken tikka masala, and load that up into the bowl. That’s a lot of chicken. Do you guys think I could eat all this by myself? Can we do that? There you go. And I’m actually gonna take a bit of fresh cream on top, kinda give it a couple dollops. There. Little dollop of fresh cream. And uh-oh. Oh, I creamed. And then, a couple cilantro leaves. Guys, I’m hot, this is one of those sweaty cooks. Some days you got a clean cook, some days you got a sweaty cook, you know? Get a couple of those. One more little leaf. Leaves are good. People love leaves. Kids love leaves, you know? When you’re cooking for kids, kids love leaves. Hold on. I didn’t like that leaf. I gotta find a good leaf. No. That’s not a good leaf. That’s a good leaf. Oh, not the right leaf. Oh, this is adding to the cook time, isn’t it? All right, so here we have it, here is our completed chicken tikka masala, and here is our jeera rice. Let’s see how it compares to the Trader Joe’s version. I win. Look at, it’s stupid, it’s in a stupid little plastic thing, I got nice bowls. This obviously looks way better. All right, but looks aren’t everything, ’cause food is a thing that you put in your mouth. We gotta get down to taste, but also, there’s time and money, and so what happened was, is I spent 65 minutes to make my delicious dish, it only costs $1.71 per serving, that said, you gotta buy a whole lot of spices. If you already got all the spices in your pantry, then you’re good, whereas Trader Joe’s only takes about five minutes, including cooling time, and it costs three dollars and 69 cents. So they win on time and price, but, this is in a bowl, with leaves. So let’s just… Oh. Oh. Oh! I mean, I love this dish, this is one of the better things I’ve eaten in a long time, but, let’s see what the judges think. Emily, you cannot see, but I can. Before you, you have two chicken tikka masala dishes. One is made by myself, the other is made by the scoundrel Trader Joe. Okay, you’re gonna put ’em in my mouth? I’m gonna put ’em in your mouth, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. This is kinda awkward now that I think about it, but we’re gonna do, okay, okay, dish one. Why does this make me nervous? I will do a bite of chicken, followed by a bite of rice, there are two separate components. I have never had anyone feed me while blindfolded. Stop talking, open your mouth. Okay, lemme know if it’s hot, is it hot? It’s perfect. You want me to judge that now? But, but, wait, wait, get the rice, get the rice. Do you feel any strong type of way about it? No. I will give you a bite of the other dish. Okay. Airplane in the hanger, airplane in the hanger, Emily. You didn’t make the noise. Is that what an airplane sounds like? Too late, it’s already in my mouth. All right, bite of rice. There it is. Get it. Emily, what is your score, on a scale of one to 10, for the first dish? I’m gonna give it a seven. It kinda reminded me of tofu a little bit. It was nice, but it just was a little spongy, does that make sense? Have you had tofu? Yes, it tasted like tofu. And the second one felt like, somebody cared about that chicken. Care comes in many forms. The second one, I guess I thought the rice was a little bit more substantial, too, and the chicken felt more fresh. More fresh, eh? Second one, I’d give… I’d say a nine? Okay. Emily, you have given dish one a seven out of 10, and dish two a nine out of 10. Would you please open your eyes? Well, take the blind… Take the blindfold off. So, dish one, this is my homemade chicken tikka masala. You said it was spongier, I used chicken thigh, as opposed to the chicken breast in Trader Joe’s. Okay. Give it a non-blind taste. I got a really good chunk there. You just got a bad chunk of chicken the first time? Yeah. Well I mean that’s my fault, there shouldn’t be bad chunks of chicken in it. Yeah, there’s like skin on that one that I just got, and if there was skin on it, then I would’ve been like, “Yo.” Emily, in your highly professional, albeit incredibly upsetting opinion, you’re saying that I did not beat the brand. Based on the bites you gave me, you chose to give me that bite, I did like the other one better, although I do find the sauce in this one to be more exceptional. Mikayla, you have two dishes before you, one is the chicken tikka masala made by Trader Joe, one is the chicken tikka masala made by me. Are you comfortable with me hand-feeding you with a spoon? Hand-feeding me with a spoon. Not with my hand, I’ll have a spoon. Okay, as long as you have the spoon, I think that’s- Okay, beautiful, beautiful. Mikayla, we’re gonna start with dish one. All right, airplane coming into the hanger, this is dish one. Uh-oh, it’s kinda dripping, it might get in your shirt, we’ll figure it out. I’m sorry. I also have rice afterward, so be prepared for the rice. Focus, focus, focus. Okay, rice coming in the hangar. Mull it around, swish it like a fine wine. All right, now I got dish number two coming at you. So this is the chicken with sauce. All right, rice coming in. Oh, sorry. Sorry. No, I appreciate how seriously you’re taking it. My family says I eat like a bird, like it takes me a long time to eat stuff. No, birds don’t chew, birds just kinda it down. Okay, so tell my parents that. But I eat slow, so. You eat like a ferret. Okay. That works. Are you tasting any flavor differences in them? I am. What are you getting from dish one versus dish two? Two is like almost sweeter. One is a little bit more savory. Are you prepared to score these on a scale of one to 10? I think I need one more bite of each, though. Dish one. I’m leaning towards an eight. Okay. And then… I’m leaning more towards a six. Mikayla, remove your blindfold. So dish one is my homemade chicken tikka masala, you were dead-on, in fact, it is a lot more savory, a lot more aromatics going on. Trader Joe’s really relies on sweet and cream going in, and that made me so happy, ’cause I was very nervous that I was gonna lose, and I don’t like to lose. If we’re talking about time and money, and you actually make this at home, Trader Joe’s is about 3.69 per serving, we spent $1.71 per serving to make our own, however, you do have to own a lot of spices, so if you don’t have a fully stocked pantry, that’s gonna get expensive. This took 65 minutes to make, this took five minutes to make. Okay. But do you think the time difference is worth it? I think so, and I’m somebody that cooks at home very often, so I think it’s definitely worth it to have a better taste. And you said it’s cheaper, too? And it’s cheaper. It’s cheaper if you make it at home! That’s amazing. Chase, before you, you have two chicken tikka masala dishes. One made by myself, one made by Trader Joe himself. We actually got him to come in and make it . Wow. You will be rating these dishes on a scale of one to 10. First up, we have dish one, this is the chicken with tikka masala sauce. What flavor notes you getting off that? Does it taste good? Do you like it? It does taste good, I do like it. Would you like to taste dish two’s chicken and sauce? Yes, I’m ready for dish two. Okay. Tell me what differences in flavor you’re getting? We’ll come back to the rice. One is saltier. They do taste somewhat similar, but I think that’s ’cause they’re similar dishes. Be funny if you were like “One of those is fish and chips!” Do you have a guess which one I’ve made and which one Trader Joe made? Also, you didn’t eat the rice, just eat some rice while you talk. This is rice one. This is rice two. No one seemed to care about the rice throughout the whole process, so. It’s good rice. Both kind of the same, yeah? Yeah, little bit, but… both good. Right? Number one would probably be an eight, and number two would be a six. So, that means I’ve beaten the brand. Trader Joe’s, take that! Yeah! Screw you, Joe! Pleasant employees! Provide really good service and reasonably priced produce! Little flirtatious. Yeah, sometimes, I’ve fallen in love with a lot of Trader Joe’s employees. It happens. But that means the final score, 23 total points for mine, 21 total points for Trader Joe’s, so would you spend the extra 60 minutes to cook this from scratch? Was it that much better? Yeah, it really was. I was trying to be nice to this, just in case it was yours. But this was way better. The emotional politics in this show are too much. Chase, you heavily implied that I beat the brand, although I’m putting your own branded language from the show on that. Mikayla also preferred my dish. Emily was the lone person out who actually preferred Trader Joe’s, because she said that my chicken tasted like tofu, and I don’t really know what that means. How dare she? How dare she? Now what about you? Are you team Chase and Mikayla and you cook it yourself, or are you team Emily and you’re just gonna go to Trader Joe’s? Only you can decide what your personal values are. I don’t know, lemme know in the comments whether this is something you’d cook for yourself, or you’re gonna keep going to Trader Joe’s. Thank you all so much for stopping by the Mythical Kitchen. We got new episodes out every week, we got new episodes of our podcast, Chase, out every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Also, Chase has his podcast on the side, you can go check that out. We’re also on Instagram @MythicalKitchen, hit us up under #DreamsBecomeFood with pictures of your mythical dishes. I’ll see you all next time. Chase, thank you for validating me, man. 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