I do not lie. If you want to make this dish the best that you could possibly make it, you will end up using what seems like an absurd amount of these two ingredients. Now with that out of the way, it’s time break down the concept of butter chicken:

Butter chicken is a curry

At its very core, a curry is a dish cooked using a blend of spices and aromatics. There are, like, hundreds of spices in Indian cuisine, and it still blows my mind how restaurants expertly balance all of these nuanced flavors. I practically drove myself crazy trying to wrap my head around it all (that’s what happens when you want to be the very best, like no one ever was). While I am still far from mastering the complexities of Indian cuisine, I am able to provide you with a spice blend that will make some really good butter chicken.

If you’ve done your research, then you know the best way to utilize spices is to buy them whole, toast them, and grind them right before use. I know this isn’t realistic for most people, but I would 100% recommend it. Whole spices (ie. cardamom seeds, dried chiles, etc.) have flavor compounds locked away inside. Toasting the spices make these compounds more volatile and ready to dance with our taste buds, while grinding simply makes the spice more versatile as an ingredient. If you let a ground spice sit for too long, like that one in the back of your spice cabinet, these flavors will go stale and your spice will start to resemble dust. Despite all of this, I was too lazy/cheap to go out and buy whole spices, so I used my expired dust. Do as I say, not as I do.

Okay, this is my first post ever. I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not to provide measurements of each ingredient. The thing is, I never (ever) physically measure my ingredients. When cooking something I haven’t made before, I scope out other recipes and get a vague sense of how much of each ingredient to use. Then, I use my judgement and preferences to decide from there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but regardless of the outcome, I end up learning. I absolutely love this method of cooking because it allows me to (1) memorize recipes/techniques by heart, and (2) optimize any dish to my own taste - often involving a systematic trial and error approach.

Sooo, with all this said. I think I am going to give you rough estimates of how much of what to use. Feel free to to tune and adjust to your own taste!

Ingredients

Makes about 4 servings

• Our previously mentioned spice blend - Start with 1 tablespoon and add more if necessary.

• Chicken - I’m usually a thigh guy, but I like chicken breast for this recipe - 2 pounds.

• Butter - I want to tell you 1/4 stick, but realistically, the dish tastes the best after adding upwards of 3/4 stick.

• Cream - I actually used milk, but that just meant I needed more butter to compensate for the lack of fat. I would recommend cream, start with a 1/4 cup and potentially add more from there. You want a nice orange hue.

• Tomatoes - 1/3 a 28oz can of tomatoes. It’s tempting to add the whole thing, but there is definitely such a thing as too much tomato in a dish like this.

• Tomato paste - I love his ingredient. 1 teaspoon will do. Again, too much tomato is a thing.

• Onion - 1 medium onion.

• Garlic - 3-4 large cloves.

• Ginger root - I find ginger can easily get too intense, so I add about a teaspoon of grated ginger. Pro tip: peel it with a spoon.

• Fenugreek Leaves/ Kasoori Methi - What the f**k is that you say? I’ll explain later. Just because it’s so hard to find I will say it’s optional, but it really isn’t. 1 large pinch will do.

• Sugar / Maple Syrup - just a little teaspoon. I know the maple syrup option sounds odd, but I will get into why I chose to put it in later. (Spoiler: it has to do with the fenugreek).

• Salt - to your taste.

Method

This where the magic happens. Here I will explain my workflow and the reasoning behind the techniques and timing behind each step. Put some music on and try to let your creative instinct do the decision making. Let’s get into it.

1) Heat up some fat. I used vegetable oil. If you want to be super authentic, use ghee. Hell, use bacon fat even.

3) Salt your chicken. You could probably wait until later for this, but I like to give the chicken and salt sometime to get to know each other. Salt literally dissolves and penetrates throughout the entire cut of meat, improving flavor and moisture retention. You might be familiar with a “brine”; this is the same concept sans the water.

4) Fry your aromatics. Onion goes in first. I personally like to cook them pretty aggressively. Once the onions start turning dark in color, add your garlic and ginger. The reason we wait on these guys is because they are pretty high in sugar and burn fairly easily.

5) Bloom your spices. Add your spices and allow them to cook for a few seconds. The flavor compounds of ground spices are super soluble in oil, especially when the oil gets hot. As the spices sizzle, the oil will change color and an exotic scent will fill your kitchen. This is called “blooming” your spices, and it is one of my favorite cooking vocabulary words - it just sounds so elegant.

6) Tomatoes. Adding the cold/wet can of tomatoes will stop the cooking process in the pot, preventing the spices from burning. Cook the tomatoes down a bit. Evaporating the liquid off will allow the tomatoes to mingle with your other ingredients, while also concentrating the flavor and adding body to the sauce.

7) Butter and Cream. Add a lot of both. You will be surprised about how much is actually needed to make it taste how it would at your local Indian restaurant. Up to this point, all of the ingredients have been acidic (tomatoes) and bitter/pungent/spicy (your spice blend). Cream and butter will tip the scales the other direction, providing a subtle sweetness along with a luscious, smooth mouthfeel that gives the dish its name.

9) Blend. I love this step so much. It turns your tasty-yet-chunky sauce into a velvety smooth gravy of joy and comfort. This is also the step where I do most of my tasting and adjusting - I literally put my spoon in the blender, taste it, add what I think it needs, and blend it again - rinse and repeat. I added a lot of extra salt and butter here, and I’m assuming you’ll probably need to as well. Also, this is where I perform one of my secret techniques for certain stews and sauce - I’m going to call it “tempering” our sauce. It all started with me still being disappointed with the sauce even after adding all the extra butter and salt (I have very high standards). After a few minutes standing over my blender pondering about what was missing, I concluded that it tasted too… cooked… too “one note”. I guess it needed more acid, but I knew a splash of lemon juice wouldn’t totally fix my issue. At this point in the process, all of our vegetables in the pot have been cooked to death. While this does bring out complex and desired flavors, it also leaves behind some of the original flavors that the fresh produce brought to the table. To help bring balance to the force, I added small amount of uncooked tomato and even smaller amount of raw onion (not even a teaspoon) to the blender and gave it a few pulses. Tasting it literally made me smile. It’s such a simple little trick, but the affect was absolutely noticeable. The fresh tomato added some acid and helped round out the savory notes in a way that related back to the base we laid with the tomato paste, while the onion brought a touch of some much needed bitterness and complimented the more “musty” spices such as coriander, cumin, and turmeric.

10) Fenugreek/Kasoori Methi. This stuff is cool. It looks like any other dried herb, but it brings on a totally wack-yet-subtle, almost maple-y aroma when added to it’s perfect accompaniment: cream based curries. Even after a pinch or two, it adds a very noticeable X-factor to the dish, making it much more similar to the authentic curries you get out of a great Indian restaurant. As I previously mentioned, fenugreek has notes of maple, and this is why I personally chose to lightly sweeten this dish with maple syrup rather than sugar. You don’t want to notice it; you want just enough to add a subtle sweetness that both balances your seasoning and also accentuates the flavor of the fenugreek.

11) Chicken joins the party. Here we just want to turn the heat down, and gently poach the chicken. The lower and slower the better. You could sear/grill the chicken before-hand, but I think the delicate texture of poached chicken breast matches perfectly with the smooth, unassuming sauce. Once the chicken is cooked, taste and adjust for seasoning one last time.

12) Eat. Maybe garnish with cilantro, maybe eat with rice, definitely eat with naan. Do what makes you happy. Enjoy.