Murgh Makhni (Butter Chicken Take 2)

I've been looking for a better butter chicken recipe for a while now; one more like the Indian restaurants serve. This recipe was the closest yet. The consistency and texture was much more like the restaurants dish up. This recipe looks long but it's really just very detailed. This is a good thing when cooking foreign food! Keep in mind this was from a British chef and therefore it will show both the original UK measurements and my conversions to US measurements. There is also a video of a chef making this recipe HERE.

• 17 ½ oz Chicken thighs (boneless) (I used 2.5 lbs instead - makes it go futher)
• 1 ¾ oz or 75 grams Ginger & garlic paste (1 tsp is 5 grams so 5 Tbsp or 1/3 C)
• ½ tsp Salt
• 2 ¼ fl oz or 4.4 Tbsp Yoghurt
• ½ tbsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• ½ tbsp Vegetable oil
• ½ tsp Garam masala powder
• For the makhni sauce -
• 1 1⁄3 fl oz or 2.6 Tbsp Vegetable oil
• ½ oz or 5 tsp Ginger,fresh grated/minced
• 6 small Green chillies 
• 4 Cinnamon sticks
• 5 Cardamom pods
• 5 Cloves
• 2 Bay leaves
• 25 oz Tomatoes (about 8 slicing tomatoes)
• ½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• 2 fl oz Single cream (half and half or heavy whipping cream)
• 1 tbsp Honey
• ½ tbsp Tomato paste
• 2 tsp Kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
• 1 ¾ oz or slightly less than 1/2 stick Butter
• 2 2⁄3 oz or 2/3 C Cashew nuts

Step 1: Wash the Chicken
Take the boneless chicken thighs and wash them in cold water. Put them into a colander and pat dry with a kitchen cloth or paper towel.
Step 2: Season the Chicken
Add the 50g (~ 3 Tbsp) of garlic and ginger paste to the bowl, along with half a teaspoon of salt.
Using your hands to mix everything together in the colander, to make sure the chicken gets a really even coating of the mix.
Step 3: Yoghurt mix
Put 65ml (1/3 C) of natural yoghurt into a new bowl. Add half a tablespoon of oil, half a tablespoon of chilli powder, and 1/2 tsp garam masala. Whisk these ingredients together.
Step 4: Add to chicken
Cover the chicken with the whisked mixture. Once again use your hands to make sure that the chicken is thoroughly coated in the mixture. Add a tablespoon of vegetable oil and keep mixing.
Step 5: Wait
Cover the chicken in cling film and put it in a refrigerator.
Leave the chicken to marinate for no less than 4 hours.
Step 6: Grill
After 4 hours, put the pieces of chicken on some greaseproof paper, and place under the grill or broiler for 10 to 15 minutes. There is no need to turn them.
Step 7: Cut the chicken
Remove the chicken from the grill and leave to cool for a few minutes. Then cut it into bite-sized pieces. Cover with cling film or plastic wrap and put it back in the refrigerator.
Step 8: The Makhni sauce
Start by peeling and finely chopping (or grating) 15g (3 tsp) of ginger. Then heat 40ml (2.7 Tbsp) of vegetable oil in a large saucepan, on a medium to high heat. When the oil is hot, add the four sticks of cinnamon to the pan. (The video looked more like 1 large stick in 4 pieces). Then, add the 5 cardamom pods, 5 cloves and a few bay leaves. Stir for a couple of minutes, then add the chopped ginger, cook for a further minute and add the 6 green chillies whole with stems removed.
Step 9: Add tomatoes
Put the 750 g (14 slicing tomatoes) of fresh, whole tomatoes into the pan and stir. Turn down to a medium heat and carry on stirring for a couple of minutes. Turn the heat down low and leave to sit for about a minute. Then add 100ml (0.4 Cups) of water, put the lid on, and leave to simmer for about 25 minutes until the tomatoes are cooked to a purée.
Step 10: Purée
Take the pan off the heat. Remove any whole spices.
Now you need to crush the tomato mixture into a paste like consistency. You could use a wooden spoon, but a blender is preferable. Blend until smooth.
Step 11: Strain (Very Important)
Use a sieve to strain the puréed mixture into the saucepan to get rid of any lumps. Add a little water to get all the mixture out. Put the pan on a high heat to bring it back to the boil.
Step 12: Cashew nuts
In the meantime, use the blender to grind about two thirds of the cashew nuts, that's 50g, into powder. Then add a tiny amount of water and blend into a paste.
Step 13: Finish the sauce
Once the sauce is hot and bubbling, add one tablespoon of tomato paste
Then the ground cashew nuts. Add a little water to the blender to get all the paste out.
Add half a teaspoon of chilli powder and a tablespoon of honey and stir for about 3 minutes. Then add 50g (1/4 C) of butter and stir until it melts. Next, a generous sprinkling of salt. Leave the sauce for about 5 minutes and then stir in one teaspoon of Kasoori methi, which are the ground dried fenugreek leaves.
Leave the sauce gently bubbling over a medium heat and move onto stage 3.
Step 14: Finish the Chicken
In another frying pan melt a little butter. Use a sharp knife to roughly chop the remaining third, or 25 g, of the cashew nuts and add them to the pan. Then, throw in the seasoned chicken tikka that you grilled earlier. Fry for about 3 minutes on a high heat.
Step 15: Add the sauce
Cover the chicken with the sauce. Then add 60 ml of single cream. Then stir the chicken and sauce together for about 3 minutes. It should be simmering while you do this.
*Serve
Decorate with a little drizzle of cream and serve with naan bread or rice.

In Pictures

Broil the marinated Chicken.

 My tomatoes were large so I did cut them in half.

 They have cooked now for about 25 minutes and are ready to puree.

 This is the first time I've used my blender! I was going to use the food processor but I noticed that every Indian Chef I've seen videos of uses a actual blender. I first removed all the large cinnamon pieces.

Hot liquids don't like to be trapped in small places. BE CAREFUL and make sure you allow the liquid to cool some before burning yourself like I did. I also ended up putting on a silicon oven mitt and venting some air out the top with that mitt overtop the blender "vent".

 See very messy when you don't allow the cooling time.

 I put it in the fridge for a few minutes after that.

 So chicken was broiled, cooled, chopped and then added to the pan along with butter and chopped cashew nuts.

 This is the sauce after puree and the additional ingredients added (butter and methi and the sort). It's ready to be united with the chicken.

 The two have been mixed and (in a Brit accent) "the single cream" has been added.

 This is Brett's FIRST serving. Good thing I made a lot huh?

 And what's curry without some garlic naan to go with it? I basted the top with butter, chopped cilantro, and minced garlic.

 

What I Learned

1. Hot liquids expand under pressure. Expanding liquids burn unsuspecting wrists. Allow hot liquids to cool before blending.
2. Use an actual naan recipe when making naan. Cooking regular bread dough as if it were naan does not make it taste just so. (Although it still did taste good, just not light and soft the way real naan is).
3. Using chicken thighs did make the dish better. Target sells some really good hand trimmed boneless/skinless chicken thighs that are also free range/no hormones/etc. 
4. Using real basmati rice helps too. Regular short grain rice just doesn't get you all the way there.Authentic Indian restaurants add cumin seeds and a bay leaf to the cooking rice.

Here's the video - helped a lot.


Indian:
How To Make Murgh Makhni