Inside the Tandoori Oven: Why it's Food Tastes Different

It looks like a big clay pot. It is one of the oldest ovens in the world.

At Madras Cafe on Stockwell Street, a good part of the kitchen's work happens inside one. The tandoori food in Glasgow city centre that leaves our pass, from soft chicken tikka to whole sea bass, gets its char and smoke from a clay oven that people have been cooking in for thousands of years. Here is why that oven does what no grill can.

What exactly is a tandoor?

A tandoor is a large, vase-shaped oven, usually made of clay. The traditional kind burns charcoal or wood inside, so the food is cooked by direct heat and smoke at the same time. Tandoors can stand above ground or be partly buried, and the heat inside can reach around 480°C, roughly double what a typical home oven manages. That is why the traditional ones tend to live in restaurant kitchens, where they can be kept lit for long stretches.

The name has a long pedigree. It reached English through Hindustani from Persian, and it traces back to an Akkadian word that joins the ideas of mud and fire. In rural Punjab, villages often shared a communal tandoor, and the wider tradition is far older than any single restaurant. Roasting in tandoor-like ovens is documented in the Indus Valley civilisation, a Bronze Age culture that flourished from around 3300 BCE, and one account of tandoori chicken puts chicken cooked in such ovens as early as 3000 BC.

Why that heat changes everything

Fierce heat cooks the outside of food fast. A marinated piece of chicken or paneer picks up a charred, smoky edge in minutes, while the inside stays juicy because it has had so little time to dry out. A domestic oven or a standard grill cannot get near that combination of temperature and smoke.

The clay walls do the rest. They soak up heat and give it back evenly, which is why bakers press flatbread straight onto the inside wall. That is how naan is made: the dough is rolled, flattened and stuck to walls that can reach 480°C, and it bakes within minutes with its familiar spotty browning. The earliest mention of naan in the region comes from the writing of the Indo-Persian Sufi poet Amir Khusrau in the 1300s. The word itself is just the Persian word for bread, and it did not reach English until 1803.

Naan is not the only bread the tandoor turns out. Kulcha, a flatbread of refined wheat flour, is baked in one too, and so is tandoori roti. On our menu the plain naan is baked in the tandoori oven, along with the garlic coriander naan, the mango peshwari naan and the wholewheat tandoori roti.

The marinade does half the work

A tandoor needs something to work on, and that is where the marinade comes in. In classic tandoori chicken, the meat is marinated in yoghurt and a spice blend called tandoori masala before it goes onto skewers. Chicken tikka is the boneless cousin: small pieces marinated in yoghurt, red chilli, ginger, garlic and lemon juice, then grilled in the tandoor. Some accounts trace it to the Mughal court in the early 1500s, where Central Asian oven cooking met Persian yoghurt marinades and Indian spices.

That famous red colour comes from chilli. Cayenne, red chilli powder or Kashmiri chilli give the deep colour, although milder versions of the dish are often coloured with food dye instead. So a bright red tikka does not always mean a hot one.

Our Madaresee Chicken Tikka follows the classic method: soft chicken breast marinated overnight in rustic spices, Kashmiri chilli and yoghurt, then grilled to perfection. The overnight rest matters. The longer the marinade has, the deeper the flavour goes.

From Peshawar to Delhi

The dish most linked with the tandoor's journey is tandoori chicken. Its modern form was popularised in the late 1940s at the Moti Mahal restaurant in Daryaganj, Delhi. The Moti Mahal founders, Kundan Lal Gujral, Kundan Lal Jaggi and Thakur Das Magu, had worked at an eatery of the same name in Peshawar from the 1920s until 1947.

That year the subcontinent was divided. The partition of India in August 1947 displaced somewhere between 12 and 20 million people, and many Punjabis arriving in Delhi brought their cooking with them. Writing in The Wire, the food writer Anoothi Vishal describes how tandoori became the food of Delhi as older Mughlai traditions faded and refugee cooks changed how the city ate. At Moti Mahal, tandoori chicken reached the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and it became a regular at official banquets.

Moti Mahal is also credited with one of the world's most famous curries. The usual account of butter chicken is that it began by chance, when leftover tandoori chicken was mixed into a tomato sauce rich in butter. It became a staple of Delhi cooking in the 1950s, and the question of who invented it and where has been argued over so long that it has ended up in court. Our Bombay Butter Chicken follows the same idea: chicken marinated overnight, tandoori roasted, then finished in tomato, cream, sun-dried herbs and fragrant spices.

A Glasgow footnote

Tandoor cooking has a Glasgow chapter too. One of the best-known claims for the origin of chicken tikka masala is a Glasgow restaurant called Shish Mahal, where proprietor Ali Ahmed Aslam is said to have created the sauce in the 1960s after a customer asked for some gravy with a dry chicken tikka. The claim is disputed. Another Glasgow chef, Sultan Ahmed Ansari of the Taj Mahal, has claimed to have made it in the late 1950s, and other accounts credit Bangladeshi chefs elsewhere in Britain. So treat it as a good story rather than settled fact.

What is settled is how far the dish travelled. On 19 April 2001 the then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook called chicken tikka masala a true British national dish, and used it to make a point about a multicultural Britain. Our menu describes ours as a testament to Glasgow's multicultural status, and we think that is fair.

Beyond chicken: what else comes out of the tandoor

The tandoor is just as good with other ingredients:

• Paneer. Paneer tikka is the vegetarian answer to chicken tikka. Chunks of paneer are marinated, threaded onto a stick with peppers, onions and tomatoes, then grilled in the tandoor and finished with lemon juice and chaat masala. The paneer stays tender inside with a crisp singe on the surface. Ours is grilled with peppers, tomatoes and onions in a punchy hot and sour tandoori masala.

• Fish. Our Tandoori Sea Bass is cooked whole with Kashmiri chilli, garlic and onion seeds. The Tandoori Pomfret is a whole silver pomfret in a spiced marinade, skewered and flame-grilled.

• Lamb. The Amritsari Chops are marinated in yoghurt, garlic, cumin and garam masala, then barbecued at high heat for a crispy, juicy finish.

• Seafood and chicken together. The Nantara Chicken Tikka and King Prawn pairs tandoori chicken with tiger prawns, onions and coriander in the chef's own Nantara sauce.

How to enjoy tandoori food at Madras Cafe

Tandoori dishes are made for sharing. For two guests, a good plan is one Madaresee Chicken Tikka and one Paneer Tikka in the middle of the table. Add a plain naan and a garlic coriander naan for scooping, a bowl of saffron basmati rice, and a laal pyaaz salad of red onion, green chilli and lemon to cut through the smoke. Every tandoori dish comes with a sauce on the side, so you can decide how much to add.

If you like this kind of frontier food story, our article on chapli kabab, the flat kebab with a Peshawar story is a good next read.

Where to eat tandoori food in Glasgow

The best way to understand a tandoor is to eat from one. You will find us at 120 Stockwell Street, Glasgow G1 4LW, a short walk from Glasgow Central Station. Have a look at the full menus, then book a table or order online. If you have allergies or dietary needs, tell us when you book and the team will guide you. For more stories like this one, browse the rest of our Food Stories.

Frequently asked questions

What is a tandoor and how hot does it get? 

A tandoor is a vase-shaped clay oven, traditionally fired with charcoal or wood. The temperature inside can reach about 480°C, which cooks food fast and gives it a smoky, charred edge.

What does tandoori mean? 

Tandoori simply means cooked in a tandoor. The word is used for chicken, fish, lamb, paneer and breads that are cooked in the clay oven.

Is tandoori chicken the same as chicken tikka? 

They are close relatives. Tandoori chicken is made from larger chicken pieces marinated in yoghurt and tandoori masala, while chicken tikka uses small, boneless pieces cooked on skewers. Both start from a yoghurt marinade.

Is tandoori food always red and spicy? 

\No. The colour comes from chilli powder, or in some kitchens from food colouring, so a bright red dish is not always a hot one. Ask our team about the heat level of any dish and they will happily guide you.

Are there vegetarian tandoori dishes in Glasgow? 

Yes. At Madras Cafe you can order Paneer Tikka, and the tandoori breads are marked vegan on our menu.

Where can I try tandoori food in Glasgow city centre? 

Madras Cafe is at 120 Stockwell Street, Glasgow G1 4LW. Our Tandoori Grilled section includes chicken, lamb, fish, seafood and paneer, all cooked in the traditional clay oven.