The Perfect Butter Chicken

June 5, 2015March 8, 2022 - Sadia Mohamed

This rich, buttery, creamy curry needs no introduction. Butter chicken, without any doubt is one of the most well known and most loved dishes around the world.

I came to know recently from chef Gordon Ramsay’s show, Gordon’s great escape that this dish has its background in Punjabi cuisine and was developed by Kundan Lal Gujral, owner of Moti Mahal restaurant situated in the capital city of India, New Delhi. It seems this dish was originated to end the problem of excess chicken tikka, which if left overnight gets hard and fibrous. What a great idea to use up leftover tikka, i must say!

Butter chicken is a must in all Indian restaurants (mainly the north indian ones). You can rate the quality of a restaurant by trying out their butter chicken. According to me, a restaurant is not worth going to the second time if they dont serve a good, satisfying plate of butter chicken.

It is a fav among the kuwaitis here, but i actually dont get that satisfaction when i have it from restaurants here. I like to have mine spicy, creamy and flavorful with a sweetness that balances all the flavors. But here, they modify the recipe to satisfy the locals taste buds and makes it sugary sweet, less spicy and very bland.

Butter chicken is made with pureed juicy tomatoes, and spices are cooked in butter and finished off with a rich cream. The aroma of the kasuri methi/dried fenugreek leaves is the highlight of the dish. The chicken is marinated in a yoghurt based marinade, grilled (i shallow fried it) and cooked further in the prepared gravy. It goes very well with soft naan, ghee rice or even with biryani like how the hyderabadis have it.

I have been searching for that perfect butter chicken recipe for soo sooo long, and i finally found it. I got it from aarthi’s blog yummy tummy aarthi. I seriously made butter chicken a million times before, but would never get happy with the results. But with this recipe i got exactly the restaurant style butter chicken. My husband loved it very very much, which made me super happy. Thanks a loot Aarthi for this awesome recipe. 🙂

Ingredients:

2 tbsp Oil

For marination:

500g chicken
1/2 cup yoghurt
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp ginger garlic paste
Salt to taste

For gravy:

3 tbsp butter
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 large onion chopped
2 tsp ginger garlic paste
11/2 tsp red chilli powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
2 1/2 – 3 tsp sugar
Salt to taste
2 large tomatoes pureed
1/4 cup cream
1 tbsp kasuri methi crushed
Water as required

Notes:

✔️ Red food color can be added if you want.
✔️ You can adjust the thickness of the gravy by adding more or less water.

Method:

Marinate the chicken in above mentioned ingredients and leave for 15-20 minutes.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a frying pan and place the marinated chicken in a single layer and cook them on high flame till chicken is charred on all sides. Set this aside.
In a heavy bottompan heat oil and butter and heat up.
Add in zeera and let sizzle. Add onions and sauté till onion is well browned.
Add in ginger garlic paste and sauté well.
Add in the chilli pdr, garam masala pdr, salt and sugar and mix well and cook for 30 seconds.
Pour in the tomato puree and mix well. Cover and cook for 8-10 mns till oil starts separating.
Let the mixture cool and then blend this in a blender till smooth.
Return this back to the pan, pour required amount of water ( i used 11/2 cups of water)
Add in fried chicken pieces and cook in low heat till chicken gets cooked completely for about 15-20 mins.
Once chicken is cooked, add the crushed kasuri methi. Pour in the cream. Simmer again for another 5 mins.
Switch off the flame and add in coriander leaves.