hey everyone welcome to pai's kitchen today I am finally making butter chicken the quintessential
Indian dish that everybody loves now for a long time I was hesitant to try this dish
because in my head somehow I felt like it was gonna be a complicated dish but when I tried it
it really was on a big deal I mean it's a long list of ingredients but the process was really
straightforward and it's a really forgiving dish as well so let's get started there are two parts
to this recipe the chicken and the sauce that's it super simple so I am using chicken thighs because
I love the flavor fullness and the juiciness of chicken thighs but if you're a breast kind
of person you can do chicken breast as well and I just cut them into big chunks of each thigh I
cut them into three pieces now let's marinate these thighs so I am making first a paste out
of ginger and garlic right here okay you can grade it with a microplane if you like but I
like my mortar and pestle alright so now it's a fine fine paste I'm gonna scrape this into my
chicken to this I'm gonna add some yogurt some full fat yogurt and under that non fat zero fat
stuff okay you want nice and rich yogurt for this this is going to keep the chicken moist
tender and adds a slight tang and now the spices this is what makes Indian food seem complicated
it's just a long list of spices but it's really just a gathering ingredients nothing complicated
at all okay so I've got here some salt some garam masala now you can buy gower masala or if you want
to make your own I have my my own recipe I will include in the written portion ground coriander
some turmeric powder I'm using paprika that's just for color paprika is very mild I'm using
smoked paprika as well you can use regular but I like that smokiness and this is cayenne pepper or
you can use any kind of spicy chili powder this is just for heat and you do not want spicy at
all you can just use paprika or Indians would use Kashmiri chilli powder that's sort of the
traditional type but I think paprika works just fine give that a good mix and that's your chicken
now I like to give this at least a solid half an hour but you can definitely do this one day
in advance that's what I usually do mmm ah that looks so good it smells so good so the chicken is
well marinated and this was one of the things that I misunderstood about butter chicken is
a chicken isn't cooked in the curry sauce it is cooked separately and then put in the curry sauce
now you can just saute it but I'm gonna put it under the grill or the broiler I should say so
I can get some charred bits add a little bit of a grilled flavor to it so I've got a rack here
on top of a roasting pan and I put just a touch of water in the bottom because the chicken juices
will drip and I want to save all that juices as part of my sauce and the water is just there to
make sure it doesn't burn while the chicken is grilling it's just a little bit you don't want
too much water and I'm trying to keep the chicken in the center because with this broiler it's not
very even so if there's pieces on the edges it tends to not get as much love so this is
now gonna go under the broiler on high about 4 to 5 inches away from the element and once one
side gets nice and charred flip and do the same on the other side don't worry about whether the
chickens cooked on the inside because it's gonna cook again in the sauce ok there ya go so that
chicken right there is on its own delicious you can stop right here and have a good meal
but one thing I wanted to point out too that if you notice halfway through that your water
at the bottom is drying out and the chicken juices are starting to dry just add a splash
more because you want to collect as much of that chicken juiciness as you can let's make the sauce
so the base of butter chicken sauce is actually tomato so I've got here some diced tomatoes just
can diced tomatoes I'm using unsalted you can use salt it just make sure you adjust the salt
proportion you don't have to use dice you can use crushed whole whatever we're blending it
all up anyway so and then I'm also gonna add some herbs and we have some onion some ginger and some
garlic which I like the base of so many Indian dishes so that's all going in give it a flip
all right it's nice and smooth some people strain it to get it super smooth I can't be bothered
this is good enough for me okay so let's get the rest of the sauce going I'm gonna start out with
some butter yes surprise let that melt oh that's melting let's talk about the spices really quickly
so I've got here some of the same spices that we used in the chicken some garam masala some paprika
or Kashmiri chilli powder so this is for color and then some cayenne pepper for heat completely
optional so these are like your basic and then from that point on you can play with your spice
mix a little bit so I'm adding a little bit of cloves and cardamom alright so once the butter
is melted I'm gonna add all my spices oops and then I'm gonna let the spice it's basically toast
in this butter infused it's flavors and aroma but you got to be quick and your heat must not be too
high because powdered spices burn very quickly so I'm just gonna give it about 10 seconds to do its
magic oh I can smell it and then right away in with the sauce all that good stuff has got to
come out and now I'm gonna let this reduce and cook and concentrate you want to get rid of all
the water so we can replace it with that's right whipping cream and make it extra luxurious tada
there you go that's exactly what you're looking for you want it nice and thick and you can almost
see the butter just seeping away from the tomatoes a little bit simmering tomato sauce splatters like
crazy so if you got one of these put it on or I've also used like a sip of metal sieve just sitting
right on top of there as well it'll help your cleanup as you can see okay the whipping cream
this is what makes butter chicken so luscious and creamy and delicious now it's starting to
have that color that we all associate with butter chicken this beautiful orange gonna season this
with some salt of course some brown sugar you can just do come on now you can just do white
sugar if you'd like so the next thing I'm gonna add is an herb that always shows up in butter
chicken it's something called kasoori methi or fenugreek leaves that's been dried and crushed
now it's got a flavor that to me reminds me of a combination of celery and like aged cheese
it's a very savory satisfying robust note if you don't have it though it's like don't panic
it's not gonna break the dish I've made butter chicken without it before it's still delicious
but if you've got an Indian grocery store nearby that is where you will find this okay so I'm just
gonna add a little bit if you add too much it can have a bitter note at the end so be really careful
with it I'll save this for a sprinkling at the end a little goes a long way now that chicken is
gonna go in along with all of its delicious juices which we collected try not to splatter curry sauce
on yourself oh yes the chicken will need about seven minutes to ten minutes to heat through now
I'm just gonna add a splash of water I feel like it's a little bit thick right now also if you can
you can make it let it sit overnight and then it will have time to sort of mingle and marry with
the sauce and tomorrow it'll be even better all righty that is done and the most important thing
is to give it a taste you may need to add some lemon juice and I say may because that depends
on the acidity of your Tomatoes you just never know right oh good but it does need both salt
and lemon you can do lime juice at this point if that's all you have just a little bit a little bit
of salt and see because we grilled the chicken you can see the bits of the charred chicken giving it
extra character right now this has just a little bit of heat but because sometimes you serve a lot
of people some people like it spicy some people don't what I like to do is I just add some sliced
green chillies and I don't let it cook in here so that it doesn't have that much time to infuse but
if somebody at the table likes it spicy then they can actually eat a piece of that in entire we have
a word for it - we call it Luke door which means when you add like whole little chilies so people
can eat it it looks pretty - just the way that sauce like sits on that plate you know it's gonna
be rich maybe not quite the way that just splash I'm just gonna finish the garnishing with a little
extra fenugreek leaves mmm a few green chilies just so people know it's a visual warning and a
little drizzle of whipping cream from a tiny little picture that doesn't pour well at all
there we go tada and that is it I like mine with rice you can
have this with none obviously or both extra sauce
that is what I am talking about tender succulent chicken and that sauce is creamy and tomatoey and
tangy and with a hint of spices but the spices are really not bad overpowering I think that's
a wonderful thing about butter chicken as it's so well balanced between you know the complex
aromas and the creamy comforting nests of the tomato sauce so good just a little bit of cake
just enough spice to give it some character wow that is a dish that I will make again
and again and again now that I know it's not as complicated as it seems so the recipe as
always will be on Pais kitchen com when you make it send me a photo on Facebook Twitter
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next time for your next delicious adventure just a little bit and a little bit of salt