Do take note that this is not the traditional butter chicken where you add cashew(kaju)nuts to make it thick and they jut bind your taste bud anyway, this is a homemade recipe which is affordable daily-driver if you wish to use it as one. You can use ready-made tandoori chicken or even chicken tikka.

For this recipe. First, we are going to marinate the chicken. For that we are going to first add 2 middle spliced green chili, 1/2 table-spoon ginger garlic paste, Salt according to taste, lemon juice 1 table-spoon, then mix these properly. Set aside this 1st marination for 20 to 30 minutes and it would have been a lot better if you could leave the marination over-night as well only if you have sufficient time. By setting these aside you will get really flavor full meat pieces as salt will absorb the water and lemon juice will enter the chickens and the ginger garlic paste will tenderize the meat.

Next we are going to finely chop the onion into very small pieces, then prepare a puree of the tomatoes as butter chicken masala needs to be fine in order for it to taste better, look better.

Dry toast the spice mixes for masala and salt for 5-10 minutes a medium heat pan. Separately dry toast the fenugreek leaves (Kasoori methi) in the pan at low flames, then finely grind them along with the pre-prepared masala mix.

Start charring the lump of coal in a low flame.

Now let us come back to our chicken, squeeze out the water from the chicken meat and keep it in a second bowl for second marination. For second marination we are going to take dry red chili powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and curd. The second marination is really important for curry as the first marination was for chicken meat. Set aside the marination and let’s start preparing for gravy of the butter chicken masala.

Now take your kadhai or wok and set it on flame. In their add ghee, oil at a medium flame. The oil is added so that the ghee does not burn, as ghee is high dense material and it sticks to the kadhai if taken as a singular for cooking. Add the finely chopped onions in the heated ghee/oil mix (at medium flame/heat). Cook the onions until transparent, do not cook the onions until they turn golden. After the onion becomes tender and transparent, add ginger garlic paste. Do keep in mind that you can not add ginger garlic paste at the start as they catch color really quickly during cooking. Maintain medium flame throughout the process, if other levels are required it will be highlighted near the sentences. I am putting emphasis on color because the actual color of butter chicken is not crimson, but brownish yellow if it becomes crimson then it will look like chicken tikka masala and that is not what we are making right now, now is it. After the ginger-garlic paste is cooked but not charred (crimson colored), add coriander powder (1 heaped tbsp), add dry red chili powder 1 tbsp, curd 3 tbsp, tomato puree 1 ½ cups. Mix them properly and cook them at medium flames. After the raw smell goes away add water 1 cup, curd 3tbsp, and mix them properly. Keep cooking the mixture gradually at medium flames. Add some salt to it for taste (Check before adding as we also have salt in our previously prepared garam masala). After the gravy is cooked to its 50 percent (that’s when the raw smell of curd goes away), we are going to let it sit at low flames or you can even set it aside if you have a single flame.

Take a fry pan on another flame for roasting. Add refined oil (2-3 tsp) in it and properly coat the cook pan. Now roast the chicken in the pan. You can cook the chicken in air fryer or oven, that depends on you but doing it on a pan is kind of a desi style, so let’s stick to it. Do not cook the chicken to 100 percent as it will get cooked along with the gravy which is also at 50-60%.

How would you know when the chicken gets 50% cooked, well keeping the flame at a medium the outer part of chicken gets brownish red and the sizzling sound is not coming out of it anymore and the raw smell has gone away, well that’s from my experience, you can use your own way of judgement.

Next add the roasted chickens to gravy. Scrape the left-over masala from pan and add them to your gravy as it elevates the taste of chicken gravy. Now cook it for 10-15 minutes at medium flame until the chicken gets done. After that add the garam masala mix we previously prepared (2-3tsp). Mix them properly to get that deep taste you all so much adore. If you crave for a sweet and tangy taste then add 1 tbsp of honey, sugar or jaggery, but if you don’t like the slight sweet taste in curry then skip this step. Do not add honey in the beginning or in the middle of the process as it has proteolytic property which breaks the meat and softens them. After that add some cream (1 ½ tbsp) for finishing touches. Now for the smokey taste part, take a small bowl and put the charred coal in it and add ghee to it, then cover it completely so that the gravy can absorb the smokes arising from the coal. This process will mostly take 45 to 50 minutes if marination step has been completed before.

Now serve and enjoy.

Photo by Raman on Unsplash