Butter Chicken / Murgh Makhani

The Christmas Break is over, and I now have time once again to devote to this blog - apologies for the lack of posts recently!

We commence with Butter Chicken - this recipe based on Rick Steins India version - and it is fabulous if made with care!
Complimenting this was the ubiquitous Green Coriander Rice, Tarka Dal and something new - Thoran - which I will post separately.



Butter Chicken, Lila Dhania Baath, Thoran & Tarka Dal



A great feast with great friends!

SO, to the Butter Chicken:

Ingredients

4 large skinless chicken breasts, each cut into 2 or 3 big chunks

Marinade 1
Juice of 2 limes
2 tsp Kashmiri Chilli Powder
1 tsp Salt

Mariande 2
50g Natural Yoghurt
50g Double Cream
20g/ 4 cloves garlic - finely chopped
25g/ 5cm root ginger - finely chopped
1 tsp Garam Masala - see elsewhere on this blog
1 1/2 tsp Turmeric
1 1/2 tsp Dhania Jeera (See Masala dabba) - or half and half ground coriander and ground cumin

Sauce
50g Ghee / Unsalted clarified butter / Sunflower or Coconut oil
25g/ 5 cloves garlic - finely crushed
25g/ 5cm root ginger - finely grated
400g Tomato passata
1 tsp Kashmiri Chilli Powder
1 1/2 tsp Dhania Jeera -or half and half ground coriander and ground cumin
1 tsp ground Cinnamon
1 tsp Garam masala
1 tsp dessicated coconut
1 1/2 tsp salt
200ml water
25g cashew nuts (Plain)
25g pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp boiling water
1 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves/ 1 tsp ground fenugreek
1 1/2 tsp Curry leaf powder
1/2 tsp caster sugar
50 ml Double cream

To finish
Pinch of Chat masala (elsewhere on this blog)
Big handful of fresh coriander - thin stalks very finely chopped, leaves roughly chopped
15g/ 3cm root ginger - very finely shredded

Method

Mix the first mariande ingredients in large bowl, add chicken, stir around, cover with cling film and place in fridge for an hour or so

For the second marinade mix all the ingredients together - in a food processor if you like but I left as per ingredients list. Add to the chicken bowl and mix well (get your hands in there!). Cover and return to fridge for at least 4 hours

Preheat oven to 240 degrees C/ Gas 9 or as high as oven will go. Or boot up the BBQ.

Using either skewers or a grill rack, you want to lightly char all the chicken pieces but not cook them through and certainly not drying them out - they finish cooking in the sauce later

For the sauce: heat the Ghee/ oil of medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and fry for a minute (take care not to let this burn), then add the tomato passata and bring to a simmer for 5 mins. Add all the spices, coconut, salt and 100ml of the water and simmer for a further 10 mins. In a mini blitzer/ food processor, or using a pestle and mortar, blend the cashew nuts, pumpkin seeds and boiling water into a paste. Stir this into the sauce, followed by the chicken pieces and another 100ml water.
Simmer for 10 mins, check the chicken is completely cooked through, then stir in the fenugreek, sugar, cream and the coriander stalks - simmer for a further 2 mins. Sprinkle with the chat masala, garnish with the coriander leaves and the shredded ginger, then serve.

PS: I confess to using more cream than the recipe. I also made this again the following day using some beef I had (I've never heard of Butter Beef but the sauce is so good.....why not!). I caution that if using beef, you must leave simmering much longer and using more water in the stages prior to the final cream addition.