Smoked Tandoori Style Chicken on a Gas Grill

Welcome to my newly created food blog.  I intend to write mainly about recipes and techniques but anything food related is fair game.  Since the weather is pretty nice, I expect the first few posts to be a bit grilling-centric.  I'm going to jump right in with Tandoori Chicken that I made the other night.

Tandoori Chicken

Ingredients:
chicken parts - whatever you like, I used legs and thighs, breasts work, a whole cut up chicken would be good too
tandoori masala - get this at an Indian grocery store or ethnic food section, 1 to 2 heaping tablespoons per pound of chicken
garlic
ginger root - you want roughly 1/2 to 1 tablespoon each of garlic and ginger per pound of chicken
yogurt - 1 to 2 heaping tablespoons per pound of chicken
oil - I've used extra virgin olive, corn and safflower, enough to lightly coat

Equipment:
gas grill set up for indirect heating
smoker box with wood chips, hickory worked for me
grill thermometer - I use the Grill Grates wireless thermometer.  Once you use something like it, you'll wonder how you lived without it.
instant read thermometer - another essential grilling tool
disposable vinyl gloves - for the prep stage, easier than scrubbing with a fingernail brush later
oil sprayer - not essential but nice to have

Times:
Prep 15 minutes/Cooking 60 minutes - these are approximate

The first step is to prepare the chicken and let it marinate in the refrigerator for an hour (or overnight).  Mince garlic and ginger root.  Here's where you'll want the gloves.  Pat the chicken parts dry with paper towels and put in a bowl large enough to hold them.  Add minced garlic and ginger and mix by hand so all the pieces are coated.  Add masala and again mix to coat all the pieces.  Try to get everything as red as possible.  Add a thin coating of oil to all the pieces.  An oil sprayer is nice but you could just pour in a couple of tablespoons and mix.  Add yogurt and mix.  Gloves keep the masala out from under your fingernails.

Set up grill for indirect cooking and preheat to 325F.  Anything from 250-325 will work just changes the cooking time.  As you put the chicken on, add the smoker box with wood chips.  You can improvise by putting chips in a heavy foil pouch and poking holes.  I don't advocate soaking the wood chips.  It doesn't buy you anything.  Keep an eye on your temperatures and cook until all pieces reach an internal temperature of 165F.

My wireless thermometer has two leads, one for the grill itself and one for the food.  The food probe on mine is huge and I don't rely on it except to see when I'm in the ballpark.  I use an instant read thermometer to determine when the food is done.  The Thermapen is the gold standard for instant read thermometers.  I use a much cheaper CDN model that is pretty good.

Edit: I should mention that I don't use a lot of wood chips, maybe a handful.  Chicken doesn't need a lot of smoke.