Butter Chicken
It’s a lot of butter, and it’s completely worth it. This butter chicken is creamy and full of flavor. One day I might come back and write an intro to this, but let’s be real: we all just want the recipe now.
What you need
Serves 4 to 6
~2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thigh
6 tbsp butter
1 large yellow onion
14 oz can of tomato sauce
1 inch of ginger root (or 1 tbsp of ginger paste)
4 cloves of garlic
1 cup half & half (or heavy whipping cream)
1-3 Serrano peppers, depending on your desired spice level
Cilantro, for garnish
Spices: salt, cumin, turmeric, garam masala, coriander powder, and if you can find it in your local Indian store, kasuri methi
What to do
Chop chicken thighs into bite-size pieces in a large bowl and marinate with the following: 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp garam masala, 1 tsp oil. Cover and let sit. You can marinate this in the fridge up to 24 hours before you plan to cook it.
Start by preparing all the ingredients. Dice the large onion. Peel and finely chop about ~1 inch of ginger root (about 1 tbsp). Peel and mince 4 cloves of garlic. Thinly slice the serrano peppers.
When it comes to cutting all of these, the shapes and size don’t matter too much. We let it simmer for a while and everything blends together. If you want a shortcut, you can chop everything in large chunks, cook it into the sauce, and then throw it into a blender or use an immersion blender to make it smooth.In a large pot or flat-bottomed wok, add 2 tbsp of butter on medium-high heat. Once the butter has mostly melted, add in the diced onions, garlic, and ginger. Continue to cook on medium-high heat until browned.
Once the aromatics are browned (I usually look for when the edges of the onions start getting a little brown), add in 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp garam masala, sliced serrano peppers. Mix well and let simmer.
After the spices get toasted a bit, you should be able to smell the cumin and garam masala. Pour in the can of tomato sauce, mix, lower the heat, and cook it covered for 5-10 minutes. Once the curry sauce darkens, scoop it out into another bowl and set aside.
In the now-empty pot, melt 2 tbsp of butter into the pot and then add the marinated chicken. Cook until the chicken is dark golden brown. Once you’ve started the chicken cooking, if you chopped your onion, ginger, or garlic into large pieces with the intention to blend the sauce later, this is where you’d do that. You can use a standard blender or an immersion blender, and you may have to add a few tbsp of water to get it to blend.
Once the chicken is that dark golden brown, add the curry sauce into the cooking chicken. If you have kasuri methi, add in 1 tbsp now. Mix and cook for 3 minutes.
This is where we make it creamier. Add in the final 2 tbsp of butter. Pour 1 cup of half & half or heavy whipping cream in slowly, while stirring.
Finely chop some cilantro and mix it in. At this point, taste a small amount of the curry sauce on a spoon and add salt to taste. Cover and let sit for 5 min on medium heat.
Garnish with some more fresh, chopped cilantro and enjoy with rice or naan!
