Butter chicken

Butter chicken :

Hello everyone,
From today I have included chicken recipes on my blog. I would like to share with all my blog readers some exciting chicken recipes tried in my kitchen.

Chicken is one of the favorite bird meat loved around the globe. Easily available at a reasonable price. Its one of the tasty bird which is prepared in every non vegetarian lovers homes in a variety of methods. Dishes are uncountable but every dish turns out perfectly awesome in taste.

Today I shall share with you butter chicken tried with lots of efforts, study and patience. Yes friends, if you need a perfect result, you need to take that much of trouble and efforts which I took for this recipe. Butter chicken is not as easy as it looks on any online videos. You need to study hard the procedures, perceive lots of patience and give it lot of time.

Butter chicken is the most demanding dish in all restaurants. Also its child favorite as its not too spicy but a rich recipe. Its my family favourite recipe, so I thought of trying it in my kitchen this year on my sons birthday, and to my surprise it turned out perfectly restaurant styled in taste and aroma.

To make a perfect butter chicken, you need to have following 3 basic things with you first:
1. A medium size strainer
2. Coal pieces (2-3)
3. A nonstick wide pan or a big tawa.

Next following items required in bulk quantity:
1. Red tomatoes
2. Butter
3. Fresh cream
4. Kasuri methi
5. Cashewnuts.
6. Kashmiri red chilli powder.
7. Yoghurt or hung curd.
8. Tomato puree
9. Of course boneless chicken

OK perfect, if you have above things with you, then you can go ahead to make your perfect butter chicken at home.

So let's start with the recipe.

Ingredients:
I have already mentioned half of the ingredients above, however their quantity depends on quantity of your chicken. I have made butter chicken with 2 kg of boneless chicken, so I shall give you the quantities accordingly.

There are 4 steps for butter chicken prepn
1. Marination in 2 steps
2. Preparation of gravy
3. Preparation of chicken tikka.
4. Final butter chicken dish.

Boneless chicken-2 kg

For 1 st marination:
Lemon juice of 1 lemon
Salt as per taste
Ginger-garlic paste-2-3 tablespoons.
Kashmiri red chilli powder-2 tablespoons.

For 2nd marination:
Yoghurt or hung curd:200gm
Kashmiri red chilli powder-2 tablespoons
Everest tikka lal red chilli powder-2tablespoons
Jeera powder-2 tsp
Coriander powder-2 tsp
Lemon juice of 1 lemon
Ginger garlic paste-2 tablespoons
Salt as per taste.
Oil- 2 tsp

For gravy:
Red tomatoes-1.5 kg
Onions-6 big size
Cashewnuts-100gm
Oil-2 tablespoons
Butter-2 tablespoons
Jeera-1 tsp
Kashmiri red chilli powder-2tablespoons
Haldi powder-2 tsp
Bay leaf-1
Green cardamom-3-4
Black cardamom( masala elaichi)-1
Cinnamon-2 inches stick
Cloves-5-6
Jaipatri-1
Ginger-1 inch piece
Garlic-7-8 big pods
Garam masala-2 tsp
Water as required.

For chicken tikka:
Here you fry the chicken pieces on tawa or pan in batches, so the quantity required of oil and butter cannot be measured.
Oil- as required for frying
Butter-1 tsp for each batch.

For final butter chicken dish:
Kashmiri red chilli powder-2 tablespoons
Sugar-2-4 tablespoons
Kasuri methi-3 fistful
Fresh cream-1 small bowl
Salt as per taste
Tomato puree-1 small bowl
Everest tikalal red chilli powder as per your spicyness
Butter-2 tablespoons
Garam masala-2 tablespoons.

List is very big, quantities need to be adjusted according to your taste, so study the list perfectly and then start with your recipe.

Method:
Wash your boneless chicken twice with water. Then marinate it with first marination ingredients and keep it in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile you can do the preparation for gravy. For that chop tomatoes, onions roughly. Take a heavy bottom vessel and heat oil. Add jeera. Once it splutters, add kashmiri red chilli powder and saute well. Add roughly chopped onions. Saute till little soft. Add roughly chopped tomatoes, and saute very well. Add all dry spices mentioned in ingredients and then cashewnuts. Add ginger, garlic, butter and again saute. Then add water till mixture deeps and allow the whole onion tomato mixture to cool well. It will take about 10-15 minutes. You will see your tomatoes are nicely become soft and now off the flame and allow this whole mixture to cool.

Now in a big bowl, make the second marination mix for your chicken with the ingredients mentioned above. Remove first marinated chicken from refrigerator and drain any water if settled at bottom. Put the pieces in second marination mix and nicely mix all pieces with your hands so that all chicken pieces are coated well. Now place all pieces at sides of your bowl creating a depression in between. Place a small bowl in the centre in the depression and now heat coal pieces on a mesh on the gas. Then place these heated coal pieces in the bowl in the centre. Keep a lid in your hand, put hot melted butter on coal pieces, fumes will come, close with the lid immediately to capture the fumes inside your marinated chicken pieces. Keep it aside for 20 minutes. Then open and remove the centre bowl containing coal pieces, and mix the chicken again evenly. This marinated chicken needs to be kept in refrigerator for minimum 4 hrs. I usually do this the previous day and keep marinated chicken in refrigerator overnight.

Your gravy mixture takes about 2 hrs to cool. Once cooled, grind it to mixi to fine paste. Grind the full mixture to fine paste and collect the paste in another container.
Now the tedious procedure requiring more patience. Take the strainer and strain the gravy little by little slowly in another container. You may add little water while straining. Straining is very important step for yielding a perfect silky smooth rich gravy for a perfect butter chicken. Once I had done without straining and it was my very big mistake. So never skip this procedure. Strain slowly taking lot of time. On the strainer, you just see some skins of tomato and fine pieces of your dry spices. I do this procedure the previous evening of my function day to save time, as you need to give lot of time for further procedures of butter chicken, next day it becomes very tiring as you need to manage preparing more dishes for your planned function. You can keep this strained gravy in refrigerator overnight, nothing happens. Or if you wish to prepare fresh, then keep it aside and let's go to the next step.

Let's do the third step, preparation of chicken tikka. Heat a pan or a tawa, add oil, and butter. Keep on high flame. Place your second marinated chicken pieces directly on heated tawa and let it cook on high flame. Start on your exhaust fan as this step brings lots of fumes in your kitchen. After few minutes, once one side gives black marks, turn off the chicken pieces, put more oil and let it cook. Once cooked, remove. See here, cook openly, do not close. Also do not flip the chicken pieces again and again. Its just a twice flipping step and closing the chicken will form moisture and it will not turn out to be a tikka. So cook openly and flip just twice. So cook all chicken pieces in batches. It will take you almost 30-40 minutes depending on the quantity of your chicken.

After all pieces are fried, place them in a bowl at sides creating a depression in centre and repeat the coal procedure as done in your earlier step done after marination. Here the fried chicken pieces nicely absorb the coal fumes giving you a tandoor flavour to your chicken tikka.

Once this step is over, you can relax for sometime. Only now final gravy of butter chicken remains.

Now keep the vessel containing the strained gravy on gas. Let it boil. Once it boils, add salt, sugar, tomato puree, fried chicken tikka pieces, everest tikalal red chilli powder, kashmiri red chilli powder, garam masala. Let it boil nicely. Add water to adjust the consistency of your gravy. Taste it and see if you require more salt/sugar and accordingly. Then crush kasurimethi on your palms and add in it. Add fresh cream and butter. Stir well. Close the lid and let it boil for more 5 mins and you are done with your perfect orange colored butter chicken of restaurant style in taste and aroma.

Serve with naan, parata or rice. You can serve adding more fresh cream on top to increase the richness of your dish.

Enjoy your function with this perfect restaurant style dish. I just could not click the step by step procedure images this time, it wasn't possible. But yes next time I shall click and update this wall with step by step preparation images.

Thank you for reading my post. Please leave a comment on how did u feel my post, by clicking on the 'enter your comment' section.

If you have any queries on my post,  please feel free to ask and I shall respond to you in 24 hours period.