Creamy butter chicken

4 Servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
2 pounds Chicken skinned quarters *
4 tablespoons Oil; up to 5
2 cups Full fat yoghurt; (told you it wasn't health food)
6 Cloves of garlic
1 Square fresh ginger; 1/2\"
1 teaspoon Red chilli powder or more if you like as if you needed telling
¼ teaspoon Coriander powder
½ teaspoon Cumin powder
½ teaspoon Garam masala powder
Cochineal or red food colouring optional
½ teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Lime juice
1½ pounds Tomato's; (I used a 16oz tin)
½ teaspoon Dried methi leaves
3 ounces Chilled butter; (see note)
½ teaspoon Paprika
Few drops of vinegar
¼ teaspoon Garam masala powder
Salt to taste
1½ ounce Single cream

Directions

MARINADE

MAKHANI SAUCE

* or smaller pieces on the bone. I used boneless chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces.

This has to be the best curry (according to my wife and hey who am I to argue) I have ever made. Stacks up to any restaurant one. It's definitely not health food but sure tastes good. Serve with hot garlic naan bread.

It's from the 50 best Indian curries cook book I posted about recently.

Most people will probably want to jack up the heat. Creamy yummy though.

First prepare the marinade. Place the yoghurt in a piece of cheesecloth and leave to hang to allow the whey to drip away (I didn't bother and no-one died). Puree the garlic and ginger in a blender then add this and all the marinade spices, salt and lime juice to the yoghurt and mix well.

Make gashes in the chicken if using pieces on the bone then mix chicken in the marinade and leave in the fridge overnight if possible otherwise 1-2 hours, longer = better.

Scald the tomatoes for the makhani sauce and peel off the skin (tin was easier and worked ok for me). Grind the fenugreek leaves to a powder.

After marinating heat the oil in a large thick bottomed pot and put in the chicken with the marinade. Cover and cook over a low heat till done turning occasionally.

Put the tomato in a frying pan and reduce slightly, 5 mins or so on low heat. Add the paprika and chilled butter, after the chilled butter has melted cook for one minute. Taste it, if it has no sourness add a fewdrops of the vinegar. Add the ground fenugreek leaves and the garam masala and salt to taste. After 30 secs add the cream and stir. The sauce is now ready, mix it well with the chicken and serve.

Notes: The butter needs to be chilled as if you cook it for more than three minutes it turns to ghee and goes horrible. You can cook the chicken ahead of time but the makhani sauce which only takes 5-6 minutes should be made when you are ready to eat it. IMHO It's not worth trying all the low fat alternatives as we love it as it is and I don't think you'd eat it every day. The recipe originally came from the tandoori oven indians who used to mix what was left of the tandoori chicken with the sauces that had dripped of during cooking then serve with cream.

It is a little fussy recipe as you need to go pretty quickly at the end, I put all the spices on saucers ready to throw in when required.

Posted to CHILE-HEADS DIGEST by martino@... on Oct 23, 1998, converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.

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