Creamy Butter Chicken Recipe

Butter chicken is supposed to be made as two seperate dishes that you subsequently mix together. The chicken has to be cooked (almost tandoori styles) and then mixed in with the mugh makni masala (Butter chicken spices...in this case in the form of a thick gravy)

For the Tandoori Paste (make 2 days in advance)

• 1 tsp Garlic Powder 
• 1 tsp Ground ginger 
• 1tsp Clove (use powder if you're not using a magic bullet, use whole cloves if you are ) 
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg 
• 1tsp Mace powder 
• 1 1/2 tbsp Cumin (Jeera) 
• 2tbsp ground Corriander 
• 1tsp Fenugreek powder 
• 1tsp Cinnamon 
• 1tsp Fresh ground pepper 
• 2tsp brown cardamom (don't use the green one....just don't) 
• 3tbsp of Oil/ Ghee (Indian vegetable lard..yum!

Then toss that into your magic bullet/food processor and puree the crap together until it forms a paste. This will be sufficient for about 1kg of chicken. Let the paste sit overnight so the flavours meld together Remember people, feel free to toy with the ingredients. It's cooking, not rocket science!

For the Chicken: Cube 1kg of chicken breast. Trim off all fat (cause this is already unhealthy enough) and then coat with the Tandoori paste. Refrigerate over night.

For the Butter chicken sauce

• 1 tsp red chilli powder (remember, this is supposed to be savory, not spicy, so don't over do it with the spice) 
• 3 bay leaves 
• 1 cinnamon stick 
• 8 cardamom pods 
• 8 pepper corns 
• 3 Onions chopped (I like onions, like REALLY REALLY like onions, so feel free to use less) 
• 2 tsp coriander power 
• 2 tsp cumin 
• 1 tsp ginger (crushed) 
• 1 can tomato paste 
• 2 tbsp dried fenugreek (raw seeds will work as well) 
• 4 tbsp butter (Deal with it) salt to taste 
• 1 cup FULL FAT CREAM (yeah, you want butter chicken, this is what's in it kids, and it's fucking amazing....ok you can use low fat yogurt, but seriously, treat yourselves, it's not like you drink 1 cup of cream a day...or at least dear god I hope not) 

So mix ALL of this together and blend it. If you have a magic bullet, amazing, if not just mix it together by hand. Let this liquid mix sit in the fridge while you cook the chicken.
FOR THE CHICKEN that has been marinating over night: Bring a frying pan with about 2 tbsp of oil to a medium heat. Then fry the chicken. Fry to the point where it's past browning, so about 3/4 of the way to cooked.

Then remove and store in a bowl. Do this for all the chicken. FOR THE SAUCE Bring your cream/yogurt mix to a boil. If it's the Yogurt you chose, add water to aid the boiling process. If you used the cream, you needn't add anything.

And make sure you SLOWLY bring it to a boil so as to not just burn the cream onto the bottom of the pan. Make sure you keep stirring so that disgusting skin doens't form on top of the dish (ew). Once this has reached a low boil, add the chicken in.

Let the chicken cook in the sauce for about 20 - 30 minutes and BAM! Butter chicken. Serve on Basmati rice garnished with cilantro :) It looks like a lot, but it's totally worth it.