“What did you do today, Love?” “I built a tandoori oven,Hon.” There is nothing more satisfying than building your own cooker with your bare hands. Since the very beginning, humans have being making cookers outside. From the simple campfire to smokers and the BBQ as you know them today. All of the above do not need a single volt of electricity to work. All they need is a spark and some firewood. When the fine weather arrives you can’t beat this type of eating outside. The tandoori oven is a fabulous way to cook and smoke food. Once the embers are red hot and without flames, you are ready to start. You can make naan bread by sticking it to the inside of the pot. You can also smoke a whole fish or a block of cheese if you wanted to. This oven is really versatile. I cooked a whole chicken with a traditional tandoori spice rub. It was cooked perfectly in 70 mins. The core temperature of the bird was 75C, absolutely perfect. It was still juicy and bursting with the most wonderful smoky flavour. The crispy skin alone could have been used for bartering, it was that good. This oven is really not that hard to make. You just need to make sure you have good quality pots and that they are big enough to fit whatever you decide to cook. Here is my step by step guide.

One pot large enough to fit the other two pots. Two large flower pots. 1 flower pot base. 2 bags of building sand or vermiculite, which ever is easier to get.

Drill some vent holes on the large pot and the pot tray. Place upside down on the base of the large pot.

Use an angle grinder to cut off the base of one of the flower pots. Drill vent holes in the base of the other flower pot. Place them on top of each other. A good tip is to get one pot bigger than the other so when upturned they can rest on top of each other creating a lip.

Always make sure to run every move by your trusted foreman.

Using the sand or vermiculite fill up the pot carefully. Make sure to pack the sand leaving no air pockets.

Good job.

Finish of with some decorative stone.

Keep the cut pot end to make a lid.

Fire up oven. Use a paraffin free fuel, preferably kindling sticks so you don’t get that toxic smell. Like all ovens, they take short while to heat up.

Marinated chicken kebabs

The Tandoori Chicken.

The ingredients for the rub are:

1 tsp sea salt

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp garlic salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp garam masala

1 tsp smoked paprika

I used a medium sized chicken. Stir all the spices together and rub them generously onto the skin of the chicken. You don’t need any oil here as it is a dry rub.

Enjoy.