Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani)

Occasionally someone asks me what my favorite thing to cook is and I generally tell them Indian food.  The process of making Indian food is very enjoyable as it requires a lot of ingredients with various and amazing smells.  Generally you start by cooking aromatics like onions, garlic, peppers and fresh ginger.  Then you add spices like cumin, garam masala, cinnamon, chili powder, tumeric, and on and on.  Each stage of the process introduces new aromas and they continue to change as the aromatics and the spices continue to cook.  Finally you add the ingredients that make up the bulk of sauce and simmer.  The scent continues to change.  All together it makes for a wonderful sensory experience.  Plus at the end I have delicious Indian food to eat, and that always makes me happy.

Unfortunately, making Indian food is a time consuming and labor intensive process.  All of those aromatics have to be peeled and minced.  The many spices must be found in the cupboard and measured.  Often the meat requires a marinade.  Plus the cooking process if generally fairly long.   Generally when I make Indian food I have had to set aside an entire afternoon to work on it.  It was a happy day when I realized that some of my favorite Indian dishes would freeze very well.



There are some dishes that are labor intensive but a large batch is not much more work than a single.  Butter chicken is a prime example of this.  I can make a double, triple or even a quadruple batch and then have it to enjoy several times with about the same effort it would take to make it just once.  It's fantastic!

Learning to cook and freeze Indian food is also saving me a lot of money.  Now when I have a craving for Indian I can head to my freezer instead of going out to eat.

Adapted from: allrecipes.com
Difficulty:  Moderate
Category: Simple Side
Recipe Column: AV

1/3 cups plain yogurt
1 tbsp Tandoori Masala 
1 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cubed
1 small onion, diced
1 1/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and minced - Asian grocery stores generally sell minced ginger in a jar.  It can save you a lot of work as ginger is kind of a pain to mince.  1 inch ginger = 1 tbsp
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp water
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tbsp garam masala
heaping 1/4 tsp Indian chili powder
1.5 cups tomato sauce

1. Mix the Tandoori masala into the yogurt.  Add the chicken and toss together to combine.  Marinate the chicken in the yogurt for an hour in the refrigerator.  Remove the chicken from the yogurt and discard the marinade.
2. Add the onion, ginger, garlic and water to a food processor and process until they form a paste.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large pan over medium-high heat.  Once the oil is hot, add the chicken and brown on all sides.  Remove the chicken from the pan and reserve.
4. Add 3 tablespoons of oil to the pan. Once the oil is heated add the onion paste to the pan and fry the paste in the oil until it starts to brown slightly and the moisture is mostly evaporated.  Sprinkle the garam masala and chili powder over everything and continue to cook for a couple more minutes.  Stir regularly during this whole process and be careful to not let the spices burn.
5. Add the tomato sauce.  Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Puree the sauce.  I used an immersion blender to puree the sauce.  This did not yield the velvety smooth consistency that the butter chicken sauce at Indian restaurants has.  A regular blender would probably yield a smoother sauce.  I haven't decided if the difference in texture would be worth getting the blender out and cleaning it.  We really enjoyed this recipe even if the sauce wasn't a smooth as we are used to.
6. Add the chicken to the sauce and continue to simmer until the chicken is fully cooked, about 15 minutes.

To freeze:

Properly cool the butter chicken.  Divide the mixture into the desired number of containers or bags and freeze.

To serve:

1 cup heavy cream

2 tbsp butter

salt, to taste

rice or naan

vegetable side

Thaw the butter chicken in the refrigerator overnight and reheat in a large pan. Once the chicken is hot, add the cream and butter.  Stir the cream and butter in and let cook until everything is heated through.  Add salt to taste.  

Serve the butter chicken with rice, naan or both.  I also like to have a vegetable side to go with it.  I generally saute some fresh green beans in butter with salt and pepper because it's easy and my kids like it.  For the picture above I sauteed fresh, baby spinach in butter until wilted and then sprinkled it with garam masala and cumin.  Then I stirred in a couple of spoonfuls of plain yogurt and added salt and pepper to taste for kind of a fake saag.  My husband was a big fan of the spinach, and we'll probably have it again although next time I will toast the spices and then add the spinach as the dish had a raw spice taste to it. 

If you want to go all out with your Indian dining at home, make an easy mango lassi to go with it.