RCP: Murgh makhani/butter chicken

*the real deal, not the over-oily butter chicken you'll get in restaurants these days.

Ingredients and seasonings:
Chicken breast (ideally with the fat/skin/bones removed, roughly half a pound)
1 large red onion
2 tomatoes
1 cup almonds
Turmeric
Chilli powder
Ginger
Garlic
Cumin powder
Garam masala
Yoghurt
Lemon juice
Butter

Early preparation:
1. Soak almonds in a bowl of water (ideally overnight)
2. Cut the chicken into fairly large chunks (roughly 3-5 cubic cm).
3. Mix 2 tbsp lemon juice with 1 cup yoghurt, add 1 tsp finely chopped ginger, 1 tsp crushed garlic, 2 tsp each of chilli powder and cumin powder and salt and black pepper. Once this is mixed place the chicken pieces in and set to marinate (did this overnight as well for the sake of convenience, although even 2-3 hours in the mixture should be fine).

Actual cooking:
1. Chop the onion and tomatoes roughly, and take the skin off the almonds (I also peeled the tomatoes, optional). Also crush/chop fine one clove of garlic.
2. Melt 1 tsp butter in a pot over medium heat, then throw in the onion.
3. Fry until it's just starting to brown, then add the almonds (whole), garlic and chunks of tomato. Add salt, 1 tsp each of garam masala and chilli powder and 1/2 tsp of turmeric; stir and cover for five minutes. If it's getting dry you may want to add a quarter/half cup of water so the onions/almonds don't stick to the pot.
4. After five minutes pull the mass of partly cooked onion/tomato/almond out and place in a mixer or food processor. Add a little water if need be; this should turn into a very aromatic, creamy brown paste.
5. Add another tsp butter to the pot and add the chicken pieces with a little (~1/4 cup) of the yoghurt/lemon/spice marinade. Saute at medium-high heat for a couple of minutes until the pieces are browning on the outside.
6. Add the masala/creamy paste back to the pot with another tsp of chilli and 1/2 tsp garam masala, lower the heat to medium-low and stir, scraping any stuck bits of meat/cooked yoghurt off the bottom off the pan (and adding any water if you need to).
7. Cover and allow to cook another 7-8 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.
8. Garnish with a little mint leaf and a few sliced almonds and serve.

No pictures, but I'll try and add some the next time I do this.

Yum, gotta try this dish this weekend. Thanks for posting the recipe!

-Paul W.

[Jenise]

Yum!

Salil, at the risk of sounding naive, this dish is not one I ever encountered, at least by the name "butter chicken" in any Indian restaurant I ever ate at in Southern California or Europe. Yet it's on the menu of every Canadian restaurant I've been to. Didn't know what to make of that, but I like the dish and am pleased you've posted this recipe. If only I could cook....

If only I could cook....

I think this might be doable on a gas grill. If you don't mind standing there in the snow.

Jenise - there are a lot of "Indian" restaurants around Australia/UK/USA that I've seen that serve something called either butter chicken, chicken (murgh) makhani or chicken tikka masala. In almost every case, it's usually a bland, oily gravy with fairly flavourless chicken (the result of a lot of those restaurants not marinating the chicken long enough, which is really necessary in a lot of north Indian cooking, or using oils/heavy creams to try and thicken up the gravy).

Not sure what the Canadian ones taste like, but let me know if you try this out once your remodelling is done and have any comparisons to make.

Jenise - there are a lot of "Indian" restaurants around Australia/UK/USA that I've seen that serve something called either butter chicken, chicken (murgh) makhani or chicken tikka masala. In almost every case, it's usually a bland, oily gravy with fairly flavourless chicken (the result of a lot of those restaurants not marinating the chicken long enough, which is really necessary in a lot of north Indian cooking, or using oils/heavy creams to try and thicken up the gravy).

As you probably know, Salil, chicken tikka masala has been nominated to be England's national dish Properly speaking, shouldn't that dish have the chicken grilled in a tandoor prior to inclusion in the gravy?

Mark Lipton

Mark,

You're correct about chicken tikka masala. It sort of bears the same sort of relationship to Indian cuisine as chop suey does to Chinese. Both are dishes within the parameters of the cuisine, but unknown in the cuisine's native land. Tikkas are an authentic Indian Moghul dish where small pieces of meat are marinated and then grilled (traditionally in a clay tandoor). Chicken tikka masala is a British innovation, where, after grilling, the tikkas are served in a spiced cream sauce (this is the "masala" part). Balti is another British-Indian innovation. Although it's not a traditional Indian dish, chicken tikka masala is wildly popular in Indian restaurants abroad, and with good reason.

Murgh makani uses butter and yogurt rather than cream, and you don't grill the chicken ahead of time. Although, as Salil points out, a lot of restaurants use grilled chicken and cream in their murgh makani.

-Paul W.

I started a batch of chicken marinating last night. I will cook this dish for dinner tonight.

-Paul W.

How did it turn out Paul?

It was delicious. The spice balance is really nice in this dish. There is a lot of sauce here for the amount of chicken, but I think that's the style for this type of dish. I think I'll cut back a bit next time, or use the extra sauce with another dish.

Not all the marinade goes into the dish. I'll have to find another use for that--it's too good to go to waste.

Thanks for sharing this recipe with us.

-Paul W.

Glad it came out well Paul. As for the excess marinade - I just threw some more chicken pieces in it, then seared those the following night on a pan.