Indian Butter Chicken
Butter chicken, traditionally known as murgh makhani, is an insanely delicious Indian dish served with a creamy sauce made from tomatoes and butter.
Equipment
- Deep-based pot
- Blender
- Strainer
- Frying pan
Ingredients
Chicken
- 200 g chicken thigh, cut into bite-size chunks boneless and skinless
- 2 tbs hung yogurt
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbs lemon juice
Sauce
- 4 red tomatoes
- 2 red onions
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1 thumb-sized ginger
- 10 cashew nuts soaked in water minimum 2 hrs
- cooking oil
- 25 g butter
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp coriander powder
- ½ tsp kashmiri chilli powder
- Salt
- Sugar
- Garam masala
- Dash of cream
Instructions
- Marinate chicken in yogurt, lemon juice, salt and lemon juice for at least an hour.
- In the meantime, chop up tomatoes, onions, chillies, garlic and ginger so they are easier to blend later.
- Heat up oil in cooking pot. Add chopped vegetables and cashew nuts. Stir-fry over low to moderate heat for a few minutes, until the onions start to brown. Set vegetables aside until cool enough to handle.
- Transfer vegetables to a blender. Blitz until you achieve a smooth pourable paste.
- Heat up oil in frying pan. Fry marinated chicken pieces a few minutes on both sides until you achieve browning. At this stage, the chicken is not fully cooked inside. The cooking will be completed in the sauce later.
- Now, heat up butter in cooking pot. Add a stick of cinnamon, coriander and cumin powder.
- Add sauce in. Cook for 10-15 minutes to extract maximum flavour. Remove cinnamon stick.
- Mix in chicken and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.
- Season with sugar, salt and garam masala. Add a dash of cream, as per your liking. Serve!
Notes
1. Hung yogurt is not easily available in Malaysia, where I live. To achieve the same thing, place your yogurt in a strainer over a bowl at the bottom. Leave overnight. The liquids from the yogurt should have dripped down into the bowl, leaving behind your "hung yogurt" in the strainer!
2. I used ghee to fry the tomatoes & to fry the chicken and I found the flavour too overpowering. Next time, I’d probably just use normal oil.
3. Since I did not have Kashmiri chilli powder, I used 2 fresh red chillies + 3 green chillies instead of the amount stated in the recipe. As red chillies are spicier than green, I deseeded them so the gravy is not spicy.
4. Although I strained my paste, you might notice it is still a little granular. The paste did not turn out pourable-smooth because my blender is not powerful enough; I only have a stick blender at home. Nevertheless I can live with it - the taste is what matters most!