Recipe: Murgh Makhani (Butter Chicken)

StarBuzz Weekly, Toronto-

Rejuvenate yourself, from the tip of your tongue to toe with Tandoori Chicken cooked in home-made silky red, spiced Tomato purée served with steamed Basmati Rice, after a tiring Christmas shopping, plus when it has been snowing for the last three days.

For some people – like me cooking is therapeutic. Cooking is more a pleasure when I see my family enjoying the labour of love. Cooking is hardly tiring or a exhaustive job, especially when you know what you are cooking and have planned and laid it out well. Well I mean organising (Mise en place) yourself before and after cooking is very essential to the success of cooking anything. This is one of the many reason why I like spreading out the recipe in separate stages and sub-sections, when physically applied in the kitchen, you will certainly find it more relaxing.

This is an interesting story behind Butter Chicken or Chicken Makhani. The cooks of New Delhi’s Moti Mahal Restaurant, stored up all the left-overs of the whole Chicken Tandoori, like the legs, neck and wings, which used to get accumulated over the day which they later decided to cook it in a Tomato gravy. This later become world-famous and one of the most sought after takeaways from Indian restaurants. Sometimes the recipe itself looks complicated, don’t just love those no-fuss dishes were all go in together and can be served straight from the pan? Complication is worth it!! I made it atleast three different ways to get an in-depth knowledge about this special recipe, before I could write for you to enjoy. Butter and Cream is essential in this recipe, but I have tried with Olive Oil and did not add Cream at all, and when I served to my friends, they were really surprised that it had the same taste as when they had from Indian restaurants. So my friends, try this wonderful recipe without comprising on your health and make it just the way I mentioned.

While typing the notes for this recipe, I was listening and following the FIFA World Cup voting and I am delighted to see Russia hold FIFA 2018 and Qatar to hold FIFA 2022.

Making of Chicken Tandoori:
Whole Chicken – weight not more than 800 grams (net weight after cleaning) – Read the full recipe here.
Making of the Makhani Gravy:
Things You’ll Need:

• Sweet Vine Tomatoes¹ – 1 kilo
• Chopped Garlic – 1 tbsp
• Ginger – 1 tbsp
• Green Chilli – 10 nos
• Green Cardamom – 4
• Cloves – 4
• Mace² – ½
• Cashewnuts – 100 grams
• Kashmiri Red Chilli Powder – 1 tbsp
• Dried Fenugreek Leaves Powder – 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste
• Olive Oil – 1 tbsp
• Butter – 50 grams or Olive Oil – 2 tsp (optional)

For Serving:

• Full Cream – 100ml (optional)
• Honey – 1 tbsp (optional)

Golden Touch Mis-en Place [5 mins]

1. Finely chop Garlic.
2. Cut Ginger lengthwise (Juliennes³)
3. De-seed⁴ and slice green Chilli same as Ginger.
4. Powder Cashew-nuts.

Golden Touch Preparation [30 mins]
Stage 1:

1. Sauté Tomato in Oil for a couple of minutes.
2. Add Green Cardamom, Mace, Cloves and Garlic, cover and cook on slow flame till tender and soft. Now you see the Tomatoes become bright red in colour, this is only possible when you sauté the Tomatoes in Oil. If you were to use purée, which is fresh Tomatoes roughly chopped and made to a paste in a blender, you will not certainly get this bright red colour needed for this preparation, and you need not add artificial colours which is unhealthy.
3. Add the powdered Cashew-nuts and Fenugreek Leaves, cook for 4 minutes.
4. Allow to cool and grind to a silky smooth paste.
5. Strain through a fine filter.

Stage 2:

1. Heat Butter or Oil. Add Ginger and Green Chillies, sauté for 2 minutes.
2. Add the fine Tomato paste. Cook for 10 minutes on slow flame, to remove the the sourness of Tomatoes.
3. Add Kashmiri Red Chili Powder⁵ and Salt to taste.

Stage 3:
Cut the cooled Tandoori Chicken into bite size pieces and mix to stage 2; cook for a 4 -5 mins and serve with fresh Cream on it.
Golden Touch Service:
Serve hot with steamed Basmati Rice or Naan

NOTES:
1. You could probably use normal ripe red Tomatoes.
2. Mace is the waxy red covering of Nutmeg. It is of the same flavour as Nutmeg, but with a hint of Pepper. It is native to tropical places like South-India and Sri-Lanka. It is easily available in Indian grocery stores in whole and powdered form.
3. Juliennes – Vegetables cut into thin long strips 2 -3 inch long and 1/16 to 1/8^th of an inch wide.
4. Removing the seeds and the central-stalk makes it less spicy.
5. Kashmiri Red Chilli imparts the strong red colour without the spiciness or normal Chilli powder.

-Abraham Chacko