Tandoori Chicken and/or Salad

It's hot. Boil a few eggs on the sidewalk while you watch squirrels burst into flames, kind of hot.

And it doesn't show many signs of slowing down.

Since it's early Summer (or still late Spring, oh god we're all gonna die!) I've been subsisting mainly upon salads in just about any form I can think of. (The salad stuffed inside another salad, got a bit too meta and created a culinary black hole)

So I'm open to just about anything that can cut the creeping doldrums of "It's hot, I don't want to eat, but I have to or I'll die."

For the first part of this recipe you'll need:

Ingredients

• 1 cup nonfat plain yogurt, divided
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala, divided
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed

In a bowl plop down the yogurt, then whisk in the garlic, 1 teaspoon garam masala (a little tricky to find but worth it if you want to do any Indian cooking, it also adds a depth to beef dishes), coriander, turmeric and 1/2 tsp salt. I also like to mix in a whiff of Vindaloo and cardamom but that is optional.

Put your skinless thighs into a bag and attempt to pour the yogurt mixture in, while covering your counter, hands, dog, laptop and doomsday device in yellow staining marinade.

That goes in the fridge for 24 or so of your mortal hours. You can do less, but I don't see the point.

Delicious right? What do you mean no? Fine.

Get your grill a humming and oil the racks. Plop the chicken down about 6-8 minutes per side and grill, baby grill.

I am so sorry, I'll go sit in the corner for that right now and think about what I've done.

 Chicken's done. Now if you wanted you could just eat it like this, perhaps with some saffron rice. But I promised a Salad and a Salad you shall have!

Dicing the chicken off the bone takes time, so I like to make little tin foil pouches on the side so the chicken doesn't cool down into untasty town.

Once that's done now you get to make your own salad dressing. Bet you weren't expecting that one, eh?

Mix together 1/2 cup of that yogurt again (I swear by Dannon's plain. Every other plain we've ever tried has been far to sweet or completely nonfat which does not hold the spice well at all) with 1/2 tsp garam masala, 1/2 tsp coriander, a dash of turmeric and cardamom, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Whisk in 3 table spoons of vinegar (it calls for white wine, but I just used regular. Don't tell the vinegar police!) and 2 spoons of the table of olive oil (up to you how slutty you'd prefer).

Now just chop up a head of whatever lettuce you'd prefer, maybe some tomatoes, carrots, or whatever vegetables are getting a bit too uppity in your crisper drawer.

Combine, toss, and throw against the wall until a Salad appears.

Ta da! Tandoori Chicken in salad form.

Now, if you'll excuse me, thanks to all this heat the ants have mutated to work together to form some kind of super giant ant.

You're going down, Pym!