We broiled the chicken in the oven for about 18 minutes (far longer than the recipe specified), then simmered it in the sauce for a few minutes and served. The result was the spiciest tikka masala we’d ever tried — it had vindaloo levels of heat and the jalapeno flavor overpowered the milder ingredients. The pepper, which I associate with Mexican cuisine, just tasted out of place amid all the Indian spices. But below the peppery heat lurked one delicious dish: a smooth, creamy sauce enlivened with sweet and savory notes of cinnamon, cardamom, and cumin. I’ll try this again without the Mexican interloper, and I think it will be incredible.

The naan was surprisingly easy to make. It consisted of just four ingredients: flour, plain yogurt, salt, and baking powder. I let the dough rise and then separated it into ten balls. As John and I had commandeered the kitchen’s rolling pin for our pottery projects, I had to flatten the balls by hand, so the dough-pancakes didn’t come out quite as thin as they should have. We then fried the “naancakes” in skillets until they began to brown on the bottom, then broiled them in the oven until they swelled up into that characteristic bubbly naan-texture and browned on the surface. And that was it–no tandoor necessary! The naan were a little on the thick and undercooked side, but their flavor was excellent: like Lebanese bread with a slight sourness from the yogurt. As always, the blackened crispy parts were the best. We finished the naan before the chicken and couldn’t stop munching it — we had to cut ourselves off so we’d have some left to dip in the tikka masala sauce.

John cooked basmati rice to round off the meal. He cooked it in the rice cooker the same way we do regular old jasmine rice, and it came out just fine. Another mystery of Indian cooking debunked!

I had always thought of Indian cuisine as esoteric and difficult to make, and assumed I couldn’t approach the wonderful flavors a place like the Sitar Palace pulls off in my own kitchen. Well, I still can’t and probably won’t ever reach Indian-restaurant heights, but I can come pretty close (and, if you’re a halfway decent cook, so can you). Now I’m excited to try vindaloo, korma, saag, daal, rice pudding, and all our other favorites.