Butter Chicken Recipe

What’s up, dude? Let me start by saying I absolutely love Indian food and I plan on doing more of it. And if you’re anything like me, you also love Indian food, so a great place to start is with butter chicken. It is one of the most popular Indian curries in the world, and today I’m gonna show you how to whip one up with some garlic non to dip it in. You gotta have that if you ask me.

Why You’ll Love This

I absolutely love Indian food.

If you’re anything like me, you also love Indian food.

It is one of the most popular Indian curries in the world.

You gotta have that if you ask me.

I just happen to like breasts better for this curry.

I don’t want a little skimpy piece of chicken in my curry, or something like this. So you get a good chunk of chicken every time you take a bite.

I can’t tell you how good this already smells, my friends. When raw chicken makes you hungry, you know it’s gonna be good.

If you have the foresight and the god-like patients, do it the day before, a full 24 hour marinade would be awesome. Over night for 12 hours would be second best. But if you wanna just do it for an hour or two, it’s still gonna be amazing, all right?

If you ask me, you can’t have a great butter chicken without some incredible fluffy garlic naan.

Dipping that garlic naan into the curry is a beautiful experience and I recommend it to everyone.

This looks so good.

The chicken is absolutely tender. And when you have it inside of the garlic naan, holy f***, give it a shot, my friends.

Ingredients

For the Chicken Marinade 1:

• chicken breasts
• lemon juice
• Kashmiri chili powder
• salt

For the Chicken Marinade 2:

• Greek yogurt
• a little bit of neutral oil that just avocado oil
• ground fenugreek
• turmeric
• ginger
• garlic
• garam masala

For the Garlic Naan:

• lukewarm water
• active dry yeast
• little pinch of sugar
• one egg
• some oil
• some yogurt
• salt
• all-purpose flour

For the Naan Garlic Butter:

• unsalted butter
• slices of garlic
• a nice big pinch of salt
• cilantro

For the Curry Sauce Base:

• stick of cinnamon
• a chili that I just cut a little slit into it
• a few cardamom pods
• a couple little pieces of clove
• unsalted butter
• more ginger
• garlic
• sugar bomb tomatoes
• cashews
• a teaspoon of salt
• a little bit more Kashmiri chili powder
• Tiny little bit of sugar, just a teaspoon
• water

For Finishing the Curry:

• Little more garam masala
• fenugreek seeds
• cold, unsalted butter
• a little bit of cream

For Garnish:

• a little bit of cold cream
• more of those fenugreek seeds
• cilantro

Instructions

1. Trim a little bit of fat off this breast, if necessary.
2. Remove these little tenders right here as well.
3. Slice them into nice big cubes.
4. With the tenders, cut them into big cubes.
5. Remove that little tendon that’s in the tender.
6. For the first marinade, add lemon juice, Kashmiri chili powder, and salt to the chicken.
7. Give this all a good mix.
8. Let these ingredients work their magic for about 20 minutes first.
9. For the second marinade, combine Greek yogurt, a little bit of neutral oil, ground fenugreek, turmeric, ginger and garlic ground into a fine paste, and garam masala.
10. Mix it all up again, making sure to distribute those spices.
11. Let the garlic and ginger enter the chat.
12. Marinade for a couple hours at least.
13. For the naan, start with lukewarm water, active dry yeast, and a little pinch of sugar.
14. Give that a little mix and let it sit for about 10 minutes.
15. Add one egg, some oil, and some yogurt.
16. Mix that all together.
17. Add some salt to your all-purpose flour.
18. Give it a good mix.
19. Take a pile of your flour and make a little well here in the center.
20. Pour your wet ingredients into that little well.
21. Pull in flour from this little well into the mix.
22. Keep working that in until your little well begins to thicken up.
23. Switch to a dough scraper.
24. Start pulling in a lot more of that flour.
25. Push the dough together and scrape as you go.
26. Knead the dough for about five minutes until it’s nice and smooth, slightly sticky to the touch, but not really sticking to your hands very much at all.
27. Create a little tension on the top by pulling from the top down to the bottom.
28. Make a nice little ball like this.
29. Place into a bowl to prove.
30. Cover it with a hot, damp kitchen towel.
31. Leave this out at room temp to rise for 40 minutes to one hour, depending on how hot your kitchen is.
32. After proving, drop the naan dough out onto a lightly floured work surface so it doesn’t stick.
33. Roll it out into a rough little log.
34. Portion out about 10 pieces.
35. Roll out each portion to somewhere around a quarter of an inch thick.
36. To make the garlic butter for the naan, add unsalted butter into a little pot over medium heat.
37. When the butter’s melted, add some slices of garlic and a nice big pinch of salt.
38. Cook for about three minutes with the butter and then turn that off and just let it chill.
39. Bring a really lightly oiled pan up to high heat.
40. Drop in your naan.
41. After just 30 seconds, flip.
42. Cook another 30 seconds until totally done.
43. Add cilantro to the garlic butter last minute.
44. Brush the cooked naan with the garlic butter.
45. Layer them up one on top of the other.
46. When your chicken is done marinating, place it on a sheet pan lined with tin foil.
47. Spread this out nicely so you don’t have any large clumps of chicken that steam and not brown.
48. Set your broiler to high heat.
49. Jam this chicken under there and keep a careful eye on it for about five minutes until you get little charring bits.
50. For the tomatoes, throw them all into a blender.
51. Whack on the lid and blend it up for about 10 seconds until it’s a little bit chunky tomato puree.
52. To build the curry sauce, turn a pan onto low to medium heat.
53. Throw in a stick of cinnamon, a chili that you just cut a little slit into it, a few cardamom pods, and a couple little pieces of clove.
54. Toast these for about four or five minutes.
55. Add unsalted butter.
56. Continue toasting these spices off in that butter for about two minutes.
57. Remove the spices.
58. Put in more ginger and garlic, just ground off like the ones before for the chicken marinade.
59. Toast this off for a minute.
60. Once that garlic and ginger is nice and fragrant, add the tomato puree.
61. Turn up the heat now just to a little over medium.
62. Let this cook down.
63. Season it up a little bit by adding about a teaspoon of salt.
64. Add a little bit more Kashmiri chili powder.
65. Add a tiny little bit of sugar, just a teaspoon.
66. Dump in the juice that came out of the chicken.
67. Reduce the sauce down for about 20-25 minutes until it turns into a paste and all the water is removed from the tomato.
68. At this point, add water back in.
69. Bring this back to a simmer.
70. Put the sauce back into the blender and blend on high for one minute.
71. For an extra velvety smooth sauce, pass it through a shin-wash trainer.
72. Push it through with a spoon.
73. Add a little more garam masala.
74. Add fenugreek seeds.
75. Add a little bit more cold, unsalted butter.
76. Add a little bit of cream.
77. Put in all of your chicken.
78. Keep the heat low and be gentle with this chicken, just to warm it up in the sauce for two to three minutes.
79. Put a touch more salt now to finish up the seasoning aspect.

Cooking Tips

If you wanna use thighs, you can go ahead. Those will be just as good. I just happen to like breasts better for this curry.

A full 24 hour marinade would be awesome. Over night for 12 hours would be second best. But if you wanna just do it for an hour or two, it’s still gonna be amazing, all right?

If you wanna make rice with this, go ahead.

You can make these non as big or as small as you like.

What we don’t wanna do here is overcook the chicken into finish in the sauce.

If you can’t find these [sugar bomb tomatoes], just use another kind of tomato, it will work just fine.

You don’t have to do this next step, but for an extra velvety smooth sauce, I’m gonna pass it to a shin-wash trainer.

If you can find the leaves [fenugreek], that would be best.

Serving Suggestions

Serve this up in our traditional Indian bowl.

Finish with just a little bit of cold cream as is per tradition, just really more for the look than anything if you ask me.

Some more of those fenugreek seeds, but if you had the leaves, that would be better.

And some cilantro, but if you don’t like it, just leave it out.

My favorite thing to do is take some naan, be like a little tiny taco out of it, hold it up.

And there is your traditional butter chicken, my sweet, sweet, sweet friends. Coming in for a taste, oh gosh, I’m hungry. It’s got a mild to medium kind of heat to it. And until next time, yay, you know I love you naan.