I cannot remember which year it was, the first time I tasted Butter Chicken, but it was amazingly good. Various flavours came through from the spices used and needless to say, I fell in love found myself addicted - craving it often.
She was flattered by the compliments and said she would share her recipe with me seeing as I enjoyed it so much, she would be honoured to have me cook it for my family. I listened intently to her tips and tricks and when she was done she was beaming, I could see that she actually WANTED to share it with me, with the world! I thanked her profusely, she squeezed my hand saying I had made her day.
That evening before I went home, I went shopping and bought all the ingredients. Strange things (like ginger powder) that I would have never bought otherwise were now in my basket. I went home, carefully and meticulously followed her instructions, adding things in the correct order to the electric frying pan. I ate my first portion of home-made Cape Malay Butter Chicken that night and it was to die for.
That was decades ago and through the subsequent years that I have made it, I've used different ingredients depending on what was available.
My go-to recipe is now far simpler and more cost effective but is still extremely good.
I no longer have a blender so I don't blend up onion or add finely ground almond.
Chop up your chicken breasts into bite sized pieces. Add 2 tablespoons of oil to your frying pan. Olive oil is good but I just use vegetable oil. Let it start to heat up, swish the pan around to get the oil to coat the whole bottom of the pan.
Season the pan. I do this by adding a generous sprinkling of Turmeric, a sprinkling of Tandoori Masala, a sprinkling of garlic salt and a sprinkling of dessicated coconut to the pan, then I add the chicken pieces and two teaspoons of butter (have a look at the photo below). This way the flavouring gets locked into the chicken.
At this point I start my rice as well.
Once the chicken is seared, I then add a sachet of tomato paste (approx 4g or two tablespoons), stir that in, then half a tin of coconut milk and a splash of All Gold tomato sauce (which adds some sweetness). I let that simmer while stirring. The chicken cooks through and the sauce starts to reduce as it simmers.
I have found that the chicken stays nicely tender and absorbs the flavouring.
When I cook this meal now, I never really measure anything, I just kinda throw it together in that order. It's worked very well and even though there are slight variations in the taste, I'm never disappointed by it.
This is what we had for dinner last night and it is by far one of my and LL's absolute favourite dishes. Good enough to lick the bowl!
Do you have a favourite Butter Chicken recipe or do you also make it according to what you know works?
