Butter Chicken

"Christmas is coming"

I absolutely adore Asian cuisine. I was Introduced to Indian food by my friend Petra in NY. While I was living there during my late highschool and college days we would always talk about her favorite Indian dishes. She took me to a few restaurants and indeed I did enjoy the food. I was always a fan of Chinese and Thai but over the years developed an appreciation and love for all the food the continent has to offer. I always cook Chinese food at home, but ever thought to try Indian until now.

While in Kingston my mother, sister and I went to Tamarind Indian cuisine (probably my fav Indian restaurant in Kingston) My sister ordered the Chicken tikka masala, I ordered butter chicken and mom ordered a fish dish that I forgot the name of. The butter chicken was absolutely delicious. It was even more so delicious the next day. It got me thinking, how hard would this be to make at home? I began to do my research looking at the different ways butter chicken is cooked and the spices needed to prepare it.  I think it’s such a good recipe for a holiday table, its shareable, has lots of sauce, spicy, full of boneless meat and is extremely easy to make. That last bit shocked me, it took less than 30 minutes to cook. The bulk of the time was spent on the meat marinating in the refrigerator.

I’m not going to lie, my butter chicken was darn good, not as good as Tamarind (although my sister said it tasted the same) I found it a little heavy on tomato paste and the cumin (So I tweaked the recipe below). Mine also lacked fresh herbs, I wanted to add some curry or coriander leaves (aka cilantro), but a las, I could find none. The next time I make this dish I will be sure to add it.

Ingredients (printable recipe)

12 boneless skinless chicken thighs

For the marinade

1 ½  teaspoon Garam masala

2 tablespoon ground Cumin

1 tablespoon ground Coriander

1 ½ teaspoon Salt

1 tablespoon Sugar

½ cup Greek yogurt

For the stew

2 tablespoon Butter

2 tablespoon Oil

¼ cup finely chopped onions

3 Chili's or ¼ teaspoon hot pepper (optional)

1/3 cup Tomato paste

½ cup chicken broth/stock

1 tablespoon Honey

¾   teaspoon Salt (to taste)

¼ teaspoon Black pepper

½ cup Cream

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

Instructions

• Cut the chicken thighs into bite sized pieces
• Add the chicken and all the marinade ingredients to a zipper bag and marinate in the refrigerator for at least two hours, up to over night
• In a pan melt butter and oil, sauté some hot chilis and onions
• Add the chicken (marinade and all) to the pan
• Sauté continually stirring until the chicken starts to brown slightly about 5 to 10 minutes
• Add the tomato paste, honey salt and black pepper and chicken broth/stock bring to a boil
• Reduce the heat and allow it to simmer on low and thicken
• Add the cream and allow the mixture to cook for another 5 minutes and slightly thicken again
• Remove from the heat and stir in cilantro
• serve 

Xoxo Greedygirl