Cooking Tandoori in a Pizza Oven

[james]

Robert,

You have both a pizza oven and a clay tandoori oven and I wanted to ask if you can do a good job of cooking Indian dishes in a pizza oven. Have you done tandoori, or any other Indian dishes, in your brick oven? How does compare with your tandoori oven?

Any advise would be appreciated on temperature, marinades, cooking time, et. al.

Thanks.
James

[Robert Musa]

i haven't tried indian in the pizza oven yet but... i hate to admit it but it might be easier to cook indian in the pizza oven than in the tandoor.

1. heat control is easier in the pizza oven. in the tandoor there are two openings and you have to futz around with both the intake and the exhaust in order to get the temp correct.

2. warm up time is about the same for both ovens. (i thought the tandoor would require less time; it doesn't).

3. you could position one of those bricks with the three holes in it, in the back of the oven, and put one end of the skewer thru it and rest the other end of the skewer on a brick in the front. less chance of the meat slipping down and off the skewer with a horizontal arrangement.

4. less (or zero) flare up with the pizza oven.

5. most importantly, you can easily mount a food rescue operation if meat (like the ground meat formed on skewer dishes) falls off. this is almost impossible in the tandoor for anyone other than captain hook.

on the plus side of the tandoor, you can build it in two weekends and it requires less fuel.

[james]

How hot?

Let me get this right. You marinade the chicken or meat in yogurt and spices, put it on skewers, and rest the skewers on bricks. This could be good.

How hot is your oven?

Are you making other curries in the oven? Lentil or chickpea dahl would be great......

James