Chicken tikka is a fine traditional Indian dish, but masalla is a clever invention. In the UK, around the 70s, a masalla sauce which was spiced up was added to chicken tikka to please a customer who thought the meat was too dry. Now this popular dish is on the menu of every Indian restaurant and takeaway in the UK, and curry lovers are familiar with it. There are also restaurants in India which serve chicken tikka masalla.
This dish is similar to the bhuna stlye which is a fairly dry dish, and a form of stir-frying. The sauce turns into a thick paste which coats the chicken, when the cooking is finished. Strips of red and green chilli, and roughly cut coriander leaves make the chicken appear very mouth-watering, and it tastes yummy with naan bread, roti or chapati accompanied with chutney or raitha.
The Preparation time for chilli chicken is around 20 minutes and including marinating. The cooking time depends on how you cook, but roughly it takes 25-35 minutes.