Almost every cuisine has what I would call an introductory dish. You know, the dish that one would typically recommend to someone that’s never experienced a particular cuisine before. In Thai cuisine, this most often would be pad thai. For Peruvian cuisine, the dish would be either pollo a la brasa or lomo saltado. And For Indian cuisine that dish has to be classic butter chicken.
What is Butter Chicken?
In its most basic sense, butter chicken is simply chicken that is coated in a tomato and cream based curry sauce.
It was invented in 1947 at the famous moti mahal restaurant in Dheli. The restaurant was originally famous for its tandoori chicken and would frequently make large batches of the stuff for parties. However, this would often leave the restaurant with a lot of leftover chicken. And instead of letting this chicken go to waste, they wanted to come up with a way to reuse the leftovers. In the end, they came up with a rather straightforward solution, just reheat the leftovers in a curry sauce.
This simple fact makes butter chicken fairly different from most other chicken curry dishes. You see, normally you would make a curry sauce and then cook your chicken in it. However, by using leftover tandoori chicken you gain two advantages. First, by coating the chicken in spices and cooking it results in it being more flavorful. And secondly leftover chicken becomes slightly dry, which means it’s better at soaking up all of the delicious curry sauce.
So while most people tend to focus on the curry sauce, it is really the precooking of the chicken that truly makes butter chicken what it is.
Now obviously most of us don’t have a tandoori oven to precook our chicken. Luckily you can easily solve this problem by cooking our chicken in a pan. It will still be coated in spices, have a slight char, and be slightly dry so that it can absorb the curry sauce. So if this all sounds good to you then let’s get to making our butter chicken.
Tips, Tricks & Suggestions
- Today we will be using chicken breast as it is the most common cut used in making butter chicken. That being said you can just as easily swap that out with some boneless skinless chicken thighs.
- Unlike most Indian dishes buttered chicken is typically fairly mild. However, if you want some heat simply mince some chili peppers (thai, serrano, habanero) and add them at the same time that you add in the garlic and ginger.
- What to serve your butter chicken with? Well, the simplest answer would be either some rice and or naan bread to help soak up all of that extra sauce. However, if you really want to make it a big meal then check out some of our other curry recipes like dal tadka, spinach dal, chana masala, and aloo gobi.
Butter chicken Recipe
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 40 minutes
Servings: 3
Ingredients
For the chicken:
1 to 1¼ Lb of boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into roughly inch sized chunks
1 Tablespoon of chili powder
1 Teaspoon of salt
½ Teaspoon of coriander powder
½ Teaspoon of cumin powder
¼ Teaspoon of turmeric powder
Neutral flavored oil
For the Curry Sauce:
6 Tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 Medium red onion, roughly chopped
3 Medium tomatoes, roughly chopped
½ Cup of unsalted cashew nuts
3 Cloves of garlic, minced
1-inch Knob of ginger, minced
2 Teaspoons of sugar
2 Teaspoons of chili powder
1 Teaspoon of garam masala
1 Teaspoon of fenugreek leaves (optional)
¼ Cup of heavy cream
Salt to taste
Instructions
- Prep the chicken: Add the chunks of chicken to a bowl along with the tablespoon of chili powder, teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of coriander powder, ½ teaspoon of cumin powder, and ¼ Teaspoon of turmeric powder. Combine until the spices coat the chicken and set aside for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Brown up the chicken: Get out a large walled pan, add 2 tablespoons of oil to it and place over high heat. Once the pan is hot toss in the chunks of chicken and let them cook on one side undisturbed for 2 to 3 minutes. Then flip the chunks of chicken over and let them cook for another 2 to 3 minutes.
Transfer the partially cooked chunks of chicken to a plate and set aside.
- Make the curry sauce: Turn the heat down to medium and add 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan. Once the butter has melted toss in the onion, garlic, and ginger, and sautee for 3 minutes.
Then toss in the tomatoes, cashews, sugar, and remaining spices to the pan and continue to saute for another minute. Finally add a cup of water to the pan, cover it, and let it simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Blend the curry sauce: Carefully transfer the contents of the pan to a blender, and blend for 3 to 4 minutes.
Once it is smooth return this sauce to the pan. Also if you want the sauce to be extra smooth you can strain it through a sieve before returning it to the pan, though it’s not necessary.
- Finish the dish: Let the curry sauce come to a simmer and toss in the chicken, cream, and butter. Mix all of this together and let the chicken finish cooking in the curry sauce for another 6 to 8 minutes.
- Immediately plate the butter chicken along with some rice to soak up all of the extra curry sauce, enjoy!
Butter chicken Recipe
Equipment
- blender
Ingredients
For the chicken:
- 1 to 1¼ Lb of boneless skinless chicken breast cut into roughly inch sized chunks
- 1 Tablespoon of chili powder
- 1 Teaspoon of salt
- ½ Teaspoon of coriander powder
- ½ Teaspoon of cumin powder
- ¼ Teaspoon of turmeric powder
- Neutral flavored oil
For the Curry Sauce:
- 6 Tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 1 Medium red onion roughly chopped
- 3 Medium tomatoes roughly chopped
- ½ Cup of unsalted cashew nuts
- 3 Cloves of garlic minced
- 1- inch Knob of ginger minced
- 2 Teaspoons of sugar
- 2 Teaspoons of chili powder
- 1 Teaspoon of garam masala
- 1 Teaspoon of fenugreek leaves optional
- ¼ Cup of heavy cream
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Prep the chicken: Add the chunks of chicken to a bowl along with the tablespoon of chili powder, teaspoon of salt, ½ teaspoon of coriander powder, ½ teaspoon of cumin powder, and ¼ Teaspoon of turmeric powder. Combine until the spices coat the chicken and set aside for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Brown up the chicken: Get out a large walled pan, add 2 tablespoons of oil to it and place over high heat. Once the pan is hot toss in the chunks of chicken and let them cook on one side undisturbed for 2 to 3 minutes. Then flip the chunks of chicken over and let them cook for another 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the partially cooked chunks of chicken to a plate and set aside.
- Make the curry sauce: Turn the heat down to medium and add 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan. Once the butter has melted toss in the onion, garlic, and ginger, and sautee for 3 minutes. Then toss in the tomatoes, cashews, sugar, and remaining spices to the pan and continue to saute for another minute. Finally add a cup of water to the pan, cover it, and let it simmer for 20 to 30 minutes.
- Blend the curry sauce: Carefully transfer the contents of the pan to a blender, and blend for 3 to 4 minutes. Once it is smooth return this sauce to the pan. Also if you want the sauce to be extra smooth you can strain it through a sieve before returning it to the pan, though it’s not necessary.
- Finish the dish: Let the curry sauce come to a simmer and toss in the chicken, cream, and butter. Mix all of this together and let the chicken finish cooking in the curry sauce for another 6 to 8 minutes.
- Immediately plate the butter chicken along with some rice to soak up all of the extra curry sauce, enjoy!
