Dinnerblog: Butter Chicken

Dinnerblog 2 is one of my favourite dishes: butter chicken.  As far as Indian food goes, it's pretty mild and quite easy to make, which is probably why it's so popular.  That said, if you like it hotter than what you'd get in an average Indian joint, you can easily fix that by adding more chillies.

Here's what you'll need to butter up some chicken:

• 3 chicken breasts, boneless and skinless
• 1 yellow onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• a 2 inch piece of ginger
• a 15 oz can of whole tomatoes
• 1/3 cup plain full fat yogurt (if you use non fat yogurt an adorable Indian baby cries)
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1.5 tbsp tomato paste
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/2 tsp chilli flakes (add more for teh extra hawtness)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• a handful of chopped cilantro (optional ... I forgot to get some as you'll see below)
• 2 tsp cooking oil (I use grapeseed, but canola, vegetable, or olive work fine.  If you want to be really authentic, find some mustard oil)

First off, I cube the chicken and sprinkle the salt and pepper on it.

I put that aside while I mince the onion, garlic, and ginger.

Prep work is done ... that was easy!  Time to saute some chicken.  I throw the oil in the pan on medium high heat, and wait for it to get nice and hot.

The chicken goes in.  (Side note: after seeing this pic, I noticed that a piece of chicken got stuck in the back burner!)

I flip it around until it's solid white on all sides.  This only takes about five minutes in a hot pan.  It's done as soon as it's white outside - if it gets too cooked it won't be tender at the end.

The chicken is set aside for now.  I give the pan a very light rinse with warm water, and put it back on medium heat with the butter.  The butter melts and grabs all those tasty chicken crumbs.

Once the butter has fully melted, I saute the onions, garlic, and ginger in it.

The onions start to soften and turn translucent after about two or three minutes.  That's when I add the spices.  Things start to smell really good right about now.

I keep everything moving so as not to burn it.  You want to toast the spices without scorching them.  After a couple minutes of that, the yogurt gets stirred in.  It melts and covers everything.

I immediately stir in the tomato paste ...

... then the tomatoes.  I crush them a bit with the spatula to let the juices out.  We want those juices to mingle.

That's our sauce.  I turn the heat down to medium low and let it simmer for about five minutes, stirring occasionally.  Once that's done, the chicken goes back in and joins the flavour party.

I simmer like this for ten more minutes.  The chicken gets nice and tender and the tomatoes get downright sloppy.  That's how I like them ... oh yeah.  Let's see how it looks after that.

Yeah, basically the same except the tomatoes are kind of sinking.  That's good.  Oh, and if I had been smart and remembered to buy cilantro, it would be going in right here.  Just use your imagination.

Here's the final product served on rice with a home-brewed India Pale Ale.  Let's hear it for the subcontinent!