Most home butter chicken gets the tomato, cream and Kashmiri chilli right and still tastes like it is missing something. It is the kasuri methi, crushed in at the end.
Serves 4. Marinate 2 hours, then 40 minutes.
You need
- 800 g chicken thighs, deboned, cut in large pieces
- 125 ml plain yoghurt
- 1 tbsp ginger and garlic
- 6 tomatoes, blended smooth, or 400 g tinned
- 60 g butter
- 125 ml cream
- 1 tsp sugar
- Salt
From the shelf: 2 tbsp Kashmiri Chilli, 1 tsp Jeera Powder, 1 tsp Dhania Powder, 1/2 tsp Garam Masala, 1 tbsp Kasuri Methi, 3 Green Elaichi pods, 1 small piece Cinnamon.
Method
1. Marinate the chicken in the yoghurt, ginger and garlic, half the Kashmiri chilli, the jeera and dhania powder and salt. Two hours in the fridge, minimum.
2. Grill or pan-sear the chicken in batches over high heat until charred at the edges and just cooked. Char matters more than doneness here — set it aside.
3. Melt the butter in the pot. Add the cardamom and cinnamon for thirty seconds, then the blended tomato and the rest of the Kashmiri chilli. Simmer for twenty minutes until it darkens and thickens and the butter comes to the surface.
4. Add the sugar, then the cream, then the chicken with any resting juices. Simmer for five minutes.
5. Off the heat, crush the kasuri methi between your palms directly over the pot and stir it through with the garam masala. Give it two minutes before serving.
Notes
Kashmiri chilli is doing the colour, not the heat. If you want it hot, add a fresh green chilli with the tomato rather than more Kashmiri, which would make it bitter before it made it hot.
The sugar is not optional. It corrects the acidity of the tomato, and without it the cream tastes flat.
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