Butter Chicken

Credit to Swasthi's Recipes: https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/butter-chicken/

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I have been struggling with my job quite a bit recently, and I figured that now is the perfect time to make a comforting dish. I chose butter chicken because it is an absolute classic. Saag paneer is my favorite Indian dish and I would love to try it someday, but I figured this would be a good intro for myself. I used every ingredient that I could find in my local Giant grocery store. I unfortunately could not find Kashmiri chili powder or Fenugreek leaves. I used smoked paprika instead of chili powder, and just went without the Fenugreek leaves because I was not sure what would make a good substitute. Other than that, I had all of my spices and ingredients ready to go!

Overnight Marinade

On Saturday, I marinated the chicken. I am a total thigh girlie. Chicken breast just doesn't have the juice for me and is easy to overcook. Thighs are moist no matter what. (WARNING: NO "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID" JOKES ALLOWED). There was only bone-in chicken thighs with the skin, but that did not stop me. Apparently, I make a good butcher! The bones were out, the chicken was cubed, then it was time for marination #1. I added lemon juice, paprika and salt, then it sat in the fridge for twenty minutes while I grated a whole bunch of garlic and ginger. This was a particularly tedious step. Ginger is weirdly shaped and hard to peel, and grating individual cloves of garlic does not yield very much. But the results were a paste-like texture, which was exactly what the recipe called for, so it was worth it. After twenty minutes, I added the grated ginger and garlic, garam masala, turmeric, coriander, cumin, and greek yogurt. Then it sat in the fridge overnight to let destiny/science take over.

The following steps were all followed on Sunday, so the chicken had ample time to marinate.

Cashew-ification

The next step was to blend the cashews. I used a cup of roasted unsalted cashew halves & pieces because that was what was at my grocery store. I soaked them in boiling water for half an hour. Meanwhile, I sliced and fried my onion until translucent and soft. Once my cashews were soaked, I put them in my blender with some of the water and blended them up. Then, I blended the onion and, last but not least, the tomato paste. I was worried about this step because my blender is almost a million years old. But you know what? It worked! The texture was like a bright red tomato-y smoothie. This was the base of my sauce.

Flavor Town (Shoutout Guy Fieri)

At this point, I was two hours from dinnertime. I made one more tablespoon of that garlic-ginger paste from the marinade step, and diced up one jalapeño. I removed the seeds, but I think next time I will include them for more spice. Once everything was prepped, I put all of this into a big pot with a knob of butter, and fried it until fragrant. Then (the fun part), I added my spices: smoked paprika (in place of Kashmiri powder), allspice, cinnamon, cardamom, garam masala, coriander, and cumin. The allspice was actually an accident: it was supposed to be cloves, but the packaging of both of these spices in my house look very similar. The recipe also called for whole cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods and cloves, but they were tricky for me to find at the grocery store (and I don't want a crazy grocery bill). When I added the spices, I looked away for two seconds and it looked burnt. Therefore, my note to all of you: watch your spices like a hawk!

The Sauce (Italian Hand Gesture)

Once I toasted/burnt the spices, I added my cashew tomato base to the pot. I brought it to a boil, added hot water from the electric kettle, then let it simmer for a few minutes. Once I felt like it was done (not sure what metric I used there, probably just my soul), I brought the heat to low, added a bit of cream, and mixed it together. I would recommend adding more hot water if you feel that it's too thick, or keep simmering if you feel it is too thin.

And... that's the sauce all done!!

Grilling the Chicken

My chicken had been marinating for over a day, so I was excited for this step. On my stove, I have a section specifically for rectangular griddles. I had never used it before making this recipe. However, on Saturday when I was buying a new pan, I discovered a set that came with a square shaped pan. I thought it would be a great use, and I would get to see how well my griddle stove worked!

I did not put any oils in the pan, just put the chicken right on there on medium heat. This is when I discovered that the griddle stove cooked the chicken unevenly with my new square pan. For this reason, the chicken took a little while to cook due to me constantly having to mix it up. It turned out very well though! I wonder if I put it on higher heat or in the oven next time if I could get the chicken more charred. I left the skin on hoping a little bit that it would get crispy, but it did not unfortunately. It was still delicious, moist, and flavorful.

MAWWIAGE (Of the Sauce and the Chicken)

If you did not get this joke, leave, go watch Princess Bride, then come back to this blog. Anyways, the final step was to put my cooked chicken into my sauce! The final results are pictured right below. The juices from the chicken combined with the sauce to create a very warm and savory flavor. I had it with jasmine rice because the basmati rice that was in stock was eight dollars, which I found extremely unreasonable. The sauce was thick and smooth, and had a beautiful tomato-ey flavor. The spices were there and left a nice warm taste (described above), but I think next time I will use more of the spices, and I will leave in the chili seeds because I like my butter chicken to be spicier than how I made this one. I also want to try the recipe with whole spices, like how I was originally supposed to; I think that will bring a lot of depth to the butter chicken, and I probably won't run into the issue of burning my spices. The chicken was juicy and delicious, but next time I will try and get a better char and crispy skin.

Final Words

This dish was everything I needed over the weekend. Comforting, made with love, and with enough to have for lunch and dinner for the rest of the week. I will definitely make this again with the described changes above. Also, someone please tell me a good fenugreek leaf substitute!! I am dying to know. Stay tuned for more weekend-long dishes! (I will try to add more pictures in future blogs).