Butter Chicken

People who know me know that I love Indian food.  Curry is one of my favorite spices to cook with and I have a ton of recipes available on Clearly Delicious that take advantage of said spice (see Curry in a Hurry and Curry Rice).

When my friend Lydia first introduced me to a recipe in the Curry family called "Butter Chicken" or "Murg Makhani," I knew that it had to be clearly delicious--consisting of cloves, cinnamon, peppercorns, cumin, and much much more, the sauce and chicken combination promised a full bodied flavor that was melt-in-your mouth authentic in the Indian cuisine family.

Although the name of this recipe "Butter Chicken" suggests a sauce that is primarily butter based, the name is indeed a misnomer--instead of being butter based, the sauce consists of greek yogurt and tomato sauce with melted butter added at the end (2 tablespoons).  This recipe is significantly healthier than one might think.  Regardless of its name, the sauce is a creamy, flavorful, mildly spicy sauce-based dish served over white or brown rice.

Butter Chicken
Lydia found this recipe on the About.com website (recipe can be found here).  The recipe is written by Petrina Verma Sarkar, one of the About.com Indian food writers.  Follow the below recipe for an authentic, tasty Indian entree, but if you can't find a couple of the exact spices (i.e., kasuri methi), don't worry too much--the other spices easily balance out one or two missing spices.

Ingredients:
* 1 kg boneless chicken skin remove
* Juice of 1 lime
* Salt to taste
* 1 tsp red chilli powder (adjust to suit your taste)
* 6 cloves
* 8-10 peppercorns
* 1 inch stick of cinnamon
* 2 bay leaves
* 8-10 almonds
* Seeds from 3-4 pods of cardamom
* 1 cup fresh yoghurt (must not be sour)
* 3 tbsps vegetable/canola/sunflower cooking oil
* 2 onions chopped
* 2 tsps garlic paste
* 1 tsp ginger paste
* 2 tsps coriander powder
* 1 tsp cumin powder
* 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
* 1 can (400g or 14 oz) of tomato paste
* 1/2 litre chicken stock
* 2 tbsps kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
* 3 tbsps unmelted, soft butter
* Salt to taste
* Coriander leaves to garnish


Other Accompanying Dish:
* Prepare 6-7 servings white, or brown rice.  (Note: I use a handy-dandy, rice cooker.  I'll never have to wait for water to boil again!)


1.) Begin by marinating the chicken: add the juice of one lime and 1 tsp chili powder in a bowl with the chicken.  Mix and cover the chicken thoroughly; wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

2.) Roast cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, bay leaves, and almonds till lightly dark.  Cool and add cardamom seeds.  Grind until powder in a coffee grinder.

3.) Mix yogurt with the above ground spice powder with cumin, coriander, and turmeric.  Add to chicken mixture.  Mix thoroughly and allow to refrigerate for another hour.

4.) When chicken mixture has marinaded for an hour, sauté onions in a saucepan with a tablespoon of olive oil (or butter) until golden brown and translucent.  Add garlic paste and ginger. Sauté for one more minute.

5.) Add chicken and cook with garlic/ginger/onion mixture.  Chicken should be browned, but not cooked completely (you'll want to finish cooking the chicken in the sauce with the next step).

6.) Once chicken is thoroughly cooked, add tomato paste, chicken stock, and remaining yogurt sauce mixture.  Cook till chicken is tender and sauce has reduced by one half.

7.) Melt butter in separate saucepan and pour over chicken and sauce mixture.

8.) Mix to integrate and pour sauce mixture in a deep serving pan.  Serve with white or brown rice.  Makes 5-6 servings.  Enjoy!

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Curry Rice

Friday night we decided to cook a nice dinner for Joe (who was leaving for a month of training with the army in the woods...somewhere...in America).  In Clearly Delicious style, we sent him off with a delicious assortment of Indian cuisine--Butter Chicken, Edamame, Na'an, and of course, Curry Rice.

This Curry Rice is loaded with healthy veggies, natural remedy ingredients such as honey and olive oil, and makes for one heck of a fulfilling Indian rice dish.  Make as a side dish, or as an entree (hot or cold) and you will have treat equally Indian and clearly delicious.

Curry Rice
This recipe comes from Elise's blog, Simply Recipes, and can be found here.  Elise suggests in the original to serve the rice dish cold, but I find the combination of warm rice, honey, and freshly cooked vegetables to demand being served hot.  Regardless, serve hot or cold for a curry rice dish that is healthy, flavorful, and extremely clearly delicious.

Ingredients:
* 4-5 cups cooked brown, or white rice
* 1 onion, chopped
* Curry paste, or powder, to taste (Elise suggests yellow, or red, but not green, and NOT Thai)
* Olive oil, to taste
* Cumin, to taste
* Chili powder, to taste
* Sesame oil, to taste (optional if unavailable)
* 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
* 1 cup raisins
* 1 apple, cored and chopped
* Honey, to taste
* Salt, to taste
* 2 celery stocks, washed and chopped
* 1 cup edamame, cooked
* 1/4 bell pepper (red), chopped
* 1/4 bell pepper (green), chopped

1.) Prepare rice and set aside.

2.) Prep your ingredients: chop the bell pepper, onion, celery, and apple.  Set aside.

3.) Begin by sautéing onions in olive oil.  Sprinkle with curry powder/paste to preference and cook until translucent.

4.) Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the edamame separately while onions are browning.  (For more information on how to cook edamame, see the "Edamame with Thyme" post).

5.) Add remaining chopped vegetables--peppers, celery.  Cook for several minutes until all vegetables are soft, but still retain a certain amount of crunch (the al dente of the veggie community if you will).

6.) Add cooked edamame, mix to combine, and remove from heat.

7.) Now prepare the rice dish.  Place rice in an oversized mixing bowl (trust me, you'll need it!), and add the cooked vegetables.

8.) Add 1 cup raisins and drizzle with honey to taste.

9.) Add chopped apple and mix to combine.  Season to taste preferences with additional curry, salt and pepper, cumin, olive and sesame oil, cilantro, and chili powder.  There are few measurements on this recipe as everyone's taste palette is especially different when combining the salt and pepper with the sweet of apples, raisins, and honey.

10.) Serve either hot or cold.  Makes 8-10.  Enjoy!

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Curry Chicken

This week, I had the rare opportunity of making two chicken curry recipes--one, by Tyler Florence (my foodie boyfriend) over at Foodnetwork that involves a ton of ingredients, a long cooking process, and a natural yogurt based sauce; you can find the recipe here.  The second one was by Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes and can be found here.  What makes the latter recipe completely different than the former is that it calls for a sour cream sauce instead of a yogurt one, and 1/10 of the ingredient's Tyler Florence's recipe calls for.  The catch? In my experience, it's better!

For my birthday dinner this past weekend, I had the very good intentions of blogging about everything I prepared.  However, I, like most people, am one of  my own worst critics and REFUSED to post anything that wasn't top notch.  Now, I'm not saying that the meal we made Sunday wasn't damn good (I'd like to think it was pretty tasty), but it just didn't scratch my itch for Indian food when it was prepared.  Partially, I blame myself for not babying the recipe before serving it--you know, the constant adjusting of ingredients and flavors until the combination is "just right" and makes you go, "mmm...."--but I also think that maybe the essentials to a good curry chicken/veggie/anything recipe really doesn't need to be that complicated.  Honestly, if you want to do Tyler's recipe, that's great--it's incredibly aromatic with its combination of everything from turmeric, to curry, to fennel seeds, to coriander, to you name it in the Indian spice cabinet.

But, I worry that the overall combination of these ingredients has just too much going on.  With the recipe below from Elise Bauer, the ingredients are simple, the process is simple (and fast! It is aptly titled "Chicken Curry in a Hurry"), but mostly, with a decent combination of salt, pepper, and parsley in the end, it is enormously flavorful, makes you go, "mmm..." and is clearly delicious.  Just ask Ms. Lydia Dorsey!

Chicken Curry
For this recipe, I chose to prepare chicken, but you really can add whatever you'd like here.  For instance, stir fried vegetables and tofu would make a natural and flavorful adjustment.  However, if you are doing chicken, I suggest 3 large, or 4 small-to-medium-sized chicken breasts. 

* 3 large, or medium-to-large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
* 1 onion, chopped
* 1 1/2 teaspoons yellow curry powder, separated in half
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 cup sour cream
* 1/3 cup golden raisins, optional
* Freshly minced parsley

1.) In a medium saucepan, add oil and warm.  Add chopped onion and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onions are translucent.  Add optional raisins.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and add half of the curry powder.  Mix to fully integrate and cook for another minute.
2.) Wash and prepare the chicken.  First, salt and pepper both sides of the chicken to taste and even prepare the breasts as strips for a more even cooking process.  Sprinkle/rub in the remaining curry powder.
3.) Push cooked onions to the side of the pan, and add chicken.  Cook chicken for 3-5 minutes on each side or until done.  Transfer to plate.  Now would be a good time to cube the chicken before returning to pan.
4.) Add 1 cup sour cream and stir to integrate.  Continue stirring and heating over medium-high heat until the sauce has thickened.  Once thick, return chicken to pan and mix to integrate.
5.) Serve over rice, and enjoy!

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