Indian Week 2 - Butter Chicken!

Last week I went to a pot luck dinner which had an Indian theme. I prepared some butter chicken and cumin-seasoned rice. The dishes turned out well and I got a couple requests after for the recipe, which whipped me to write up this long overdue entry of what we learned in Week 2's class. This is an authentic recipe from my Indian Chef's grandma. The only alternation that I make is to cut off some of the butter. I like the recipe a lot because it's fairly easy to make (roughly 1hr cook time) and it's a lot healthier than butter chicken that you get in a restaurant as you can control the amount of butter that you put in. 

Ingredients

1 whole chicken, 8-pieced


For Marinade:
15g garlic paste
15g ginger paste
250g greek yogurt
lemon juice from 1 piece
1 tbsp vegetable oil

15g Tandoori spice10g red chili powder
10g cumin powder
10g coriander powder
2.5g turmeric powder
a pinch of orange colour powder
salt/pepper to taste

For Sauce:
1/2 cup butter (usually I just use 2 tbsp)
1 onion, chopped
700mL canned tomatoes, crushed
100mL 35% cream
5g toasted dry Fenugreek leaves
1/2 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped
sugar, salt to taste
10g garam masala

Methods

1. mix half garlic/ginger paste, half of the powder spices and everything else from the marinade together and let the chicken sit in it overnight 

2. preheat the oven to 450F, bake the chicken for 20min

3. at the same, heat a hot and melt the butter, brown the onion (takes a good 15-20min to get golden brown at medium heat)

4. add the other half garlic/ginger paste, sweat it for 1min

5. add the second half of the powder spices, stir for 1min

6. add the crushed tomatoes, the leftover marinade if there is any and water to make it to a thick liquid

7. add sugar to adjust the acidity, simmer it for 15min

8. add the cooked chicken, simmer for another 5-10min

9. adjust seasoning with salt/sugar

10. off heat, stir in garam masala, Fenugreek leaves and garnish with cilantro leaves