Sunday 18 January 2015

A Food Favourite: Creamy Butter Chicken

Ever since I was young, my family and I would always come together and have a meal where my grandparents cook for an evening once every month or so. Most of the time it would involve my grandad cooking baked potatoes and juicy chicken wrapped in foil on his homemade outside fire cooker. However my nan would occasionally cook this amazing curry which there would never be enough of and we'd always fight over who would get the last spoonful out of the serving dish. This curry is now my all time favourite homemade curry and recently I've been making this dish myself. 
This curry is perfect for the family as it's not too spicy and, even if you do like spicy food, you can easily add a little bit more red chilli powder. It's also effortless to make, and very easy to make a lot of if you're feeding a bigger amount of people. The only downside to this dish is that the spices can end up being very expensive if you don't already own them. To go with this dish, I added a serving plain basmati rice with a garnish of coriander to add a bit more taste and colour. Although you can pretty much pair this curry with whatever choice of rice that you'd like to. Below is the recipe which I give credit to my nan for and if you do try out this dish; leave a comment or tweet me with your opinions and reviews. 
Butter Chicken

Ingredients
1.5lb Boneless thigh or chicken pieces

Marinade sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp red chilli powder
2 tsp ginger and garlic paste
2 tsp tandoori masala
¼ salt
1 cup of yogurt

Sauce
28g unsalted butter
1 large cardamom pod
Bay leaf
Cinnamon stick or sprinkle
2 tsp ginger and garlic paste
2 large tomatoes (pureed) or ½ small tin of puree or ½ box passata
1 tsp sugar
½ red chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala
Green chilli (Optional)
Heavy whipped cream (Optional)

Method
  1. Cut chicken in pieces and wash well.
  2. Put all marinade ingredients in bowl and mix well - add chicken and mix again to cover all chicken pieces, and marinade in fridge - overnight if possible.
  3. Grease wok or large frying pan with oil and layer the chicken in a single layer. Cook on high for 5-7 minutes.
  4. For the sauce - in a medium size saucepan on low heat melt the butter.
  5. Once hot, add the cardamom, bay leaf and cinnamon, fry for 1 minute.
  6. Add the ginger and garlic paste and fry for 30 seconds.
  7. Add the tomato puree mix well - (green chilli).
  8. Add salt, red chilli powder and garam masala and mix well.
  9. Allow it to come to the boil and then lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
  10. Add the sugar and cook for 2 minutes before adding the cooked chicken pieces.
  11. Add the whipped cream at this stage (if wanted) and bring to the boil.

I hoped you enjoyed this recipe and be sure to stick around for more blog posts in the future! :) 
Becky x

4 comments:

  1. this looks absolutely gorgeous, will definitely be trying it out!

    eliseroseblogs.blogspot.co.uk

    elise rose

    xxx

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  2. This is one of my favourite meals! Love the recipe :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. All credit goes to my nan whose recipe it is :)

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