Indian Butter Chicken Recipe

Butter chicken is mine and pretty much many other indians favorite chicken dish. The dish has primarily an orangish color to it, some food color is used anyways to enhance its presentation. – otherwise the onion and tomatoes mixture below results into a brown color.

Ingredients for 1 KG Butter chicken dish.

Chicken to be marinated overnight :

• 1 kg Chicken breast – (leave them as is, i sliced them a bit thinner so they cook entirely for sure.)
• 250 gr Yogurt
• Finely chopped mix of 6x Garlic Cloves (because indian garlic are smallish) + 1/2 Thumb size ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon haldi (turmeric), dhaniya (coriander), garam masala, red food coloring powder

1. Mix the garlic and ginger into each other as much as you can. Use a blender if so to make into a paste.
2. Mix all ingredients into the yogurt, mix well and add the chicken to it.
3. Cover and leave refrigerated overnight.

What you want to cook the chicken and get a barbecue texture – the one which real indian tandoors give to the tandoori chicken. You will do this now while you prepared the gravy mixture below.

I polished the black oven tray with oil so the chicken would not stick, poured the whole marinated mix onto the tray and baked.

I used my oven, if you don’t have one, you can just cook the chicken on a fry pan – try to dry out the water.

 The gravy mixture : 

• 4 x red chopped onions (small ones)
• 3 x small white onions
• 1 teaspoon Jeera seeds (cumin seeds)
• 1 nut mace (in the pic above, the orange thing. – its the protective cover over the nutmeg)
• 1 thumb size cinnamon (like in the pic above – 1 of those)
• 4 x elaichi (cardamon)
• 5 x clove seeds
• 1/2 star anise (dark brown looking dried flower in pic)
• 9 x garlic cloves
• 1/2 thumb sized ginger
• 4 x Kaju (cashew nut)
• 2 x kashmiri dried chilli ( the wrinkled red ones which do arent spicy)
• 4 x chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala, haldi (turmeric), jeera (cumin) powder.
• 1 teaspoon dhaniya (coriander) powder.
• 50gr butter
• 1 teaspoon red chilli powder (optional)
• salt according to taste (i added 1/2 teaspoon)
• indian chicken spice mix (optional)

1. I used a cooker but you can use a saucer too. – Add the following into it and mix until light brown – red & white onions, jeera seeds, nut mace, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, star anise.
2. Once the mix is light brown, add the garlic cloves, the ginger (slice it), cashew nuts.
3. Add the kashmiri chillis, tomatoes and mix well until tomatoes are saucy.
4. Add the garam masala, haldi (turmeric), dhaniya (coriander), jeera (cumin) and mix well.

This is the final stage –

1. In a blender, make the mixture above into a sauce.
2. In a pan, add the butter, the red chilli powder, mix until butter is dissolved and add the sauce we just made.
3. add salt according to taste.
4. mix the chicken and 1 cup of water into the pan. – DONE
5. Optional – i tasted the dish and wanted a stronger flavor, so i added a bit of indian chicken spice mix. I also sprinkled some methi (fenugreek leaves), the combination with the sauce gives out an amazing arome.