Chicken Thake with XTRA sauce

Chicken Tikka is a dish originating in South Asia where it remains popular in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. It is traditionally made of small pieces of boneless chicken baked using skewers in a clay oven called a tandoor after marinating in spices and yogurt—essentially a boneless version of tandoori chicken. The word tikka means “bits” or “pieces”. It is also a chicken dish served in Punjabi cuisine.

Chicken Thake on the other hand is a dish recently originating in the Mediterranean where it is not very popular in Malta and Gozo. Traditionally made out of a spineless chicken of a man who is used to bullying other people as long as he is playing at home and has a script and a microphone in his hand.

He can only function successfully if he catches you unaware ‘fuq sieq wahda’ as we say. When he’s playing on an even footing he will politely decline because he can’t bear the thought of being grilled and having his arguments chopped up into tiny boneless pieces.

Salvu Mallia, Malta’s saviour and redeemer has agreed to take me on. He’s obviously got more spine than that half-baked -or should I say half-Thaked- excused.

I’ll be gladly taking on Salvu Mallia on tonght’s edition of XTRA, Saviour Balzan’s programme on TVM. No stranger to the screen and totally in love with the sound of his own voice, it should be interesting. SAlvu is quite the blabber mouth but he’s usually accustomed to having a script. So this is going to be interesting. Tune in to tonight’s edition of XTRA which promises to be entertaining if nothing else.