Chicken tikka masala

I love me some chicken tikka masala! I want to eat all the chicken tikka masala right now! (I didn't bring a lunch today. Sigh.) For Sunday night dinner, I made the allrecipes.com version of this recipe, with some changes.

Changes for the marinade:
-- 1 teaspoon cayenne
-- 1 teaspoon black pepper (otherwise it would be way spicy, in my opinion.)
-- 1 teaspoon of salt (4 would be crazy-overkill!)

Changes for the sauce:
-- Add 1 teaspoon cardamon
-- Add 1 teaspoon masala seasoning
-- Used just one jalapeno (but next time, two might not be so bad)
-- Add a scant 1/2 teaspoon of salt, then mix the sauce all together. Once simmering, taste it and see what you think — if it needs more salt, add it 1/4 teaspoon at a time.

For three packages of chicken breast tenders, I doubled the sauce — but next time, I would triple it. Three packages of chicken breast tenders would have fed 4-5 people, without leftovers. If I wanted to feed 5 people and for sure have leftovers (enough for multiple people to enjoy for dinner the following night), I would up it to 4 packages of chicken breast tenders and (what the hey!) do the sauce times 4. With all the rice we eat with our chicken tikka masala, I believe you can never have too much sauce!

I also made coconut rice to go with the chicken, but I think that next time I would do just normally cooked Basmati rice — no coconut milk. The sauce is thick enough that you don't really need a thicker rice (whereas, I really like coconut rice with coconut curry chicken — but the sauce isn't as thick as chicken tikka masala). Oh I am hungry now! Enjoy, and make 4 packages of chicken — so that I can come join you for leftovers. :-)