by D. Leilehua Yuen
Apparently, there is a Great Butter Chicken Controversy complete with lawsuits and everything!
The grandsons of the two men who founded Moti Mahal, possibly the first restaurant where Indian butter chicken was served, are in a battle over which grandpa created the popular dish. The suit has been filed with a 2,752-page-long document. Story and recipe at this NPR page.
Geraldine’s Murgh Makhanii (Butter Chicken)
Ingredients
- 1 stewing hen
- 2 medium-sized onions, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1 bulb garlic, peeled and coarsely chopped
- Fresh ginger, about thumb sized, peeled and coarsely chopped
- 1 stick cinnamon, about 3 inches, broken into smaller pieces
- Seeds from 6 green cardamom pods
- 8 whole cloves
- 1/2 tablespoon whole black peppercorns
- 2 bay leaves, about as long as your finger, crumbled
- Dried kashmiri (or other favorite) peppers, crumbled, to taste (if you are not used to spicy food, start with one)
- 6 tablespoons sunflower or other vegetable oil
- 16 ounces (2 cups) tomato sauce
- 1 stick salted butter
Preparation
Remove then skin from the chicken, cut the bird into pieces, and bone it. (Save the bones for broth.) You can place the skin in a pan on the lowest possible setting and render it to add the oil to the dish. (The crispy skin is delicious lightly sprinkled with a little garlic salt!) Cut the meat into approximately 2″ cubes Pat dry and put aside.
In your blender, combine the onions, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, peppercorns, bay, kashmiri peppers, and a tablespoon of water. Blend, adding water a little at a time, until the mix forms a smooth paste.
Heat the oil in a deep skillet, like a chicken frier. When very hot, add the chicken pieces and brown them quickly. You’ll want to add a few pieces at a time, brown, remove, and repeat to get them done properly. Add too many at a time and the steam will prevent proper browning.
When all the chicken is browned, turn heat to medium and add the spices paste. Cook the paste rather as you would a roux for about 5 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pot well to keep it from burning. Add the rendered chicken fat and half of the stick of butter. When it is well blended, add the tomato sauce, and water to just a touch thinner than desired consistency. Bring to a boil. As soon as it boils, turn the heat very low and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir often.
Add the chicken pieces and their juices to the sauce, bring it back to a boil, cover and simmer over very low heat for 30 minutes or so, until the chicken is tender but not falling apart. Stir gently every so often to prevent burning.
Cut thin pats off the remaining butter – as many as people who will be dining.
To serve, scoop hot jasmine rice into soup plates. Top the rice with the a pat of butter each. Scoop the butter chicken over the rice.
Image – Wikipedia
I learned a rather different version of butter chicken when I was traveling in Indonesia in the 1980s. My partner of the time, Rodrick, and I were somewhere in the hills and valleys above Ubud. I was hungry, and he was wanting to do rather more extreme hiking than I enjoyed, so I availed myself of a likely looking restaurant which had a chalkboard sign advertising butter chicken. I was settled into a comfy chair at a small table and ordered. About two hours later my chicken arrived with an apology. The boy who kills the chickens had gone home and they had to go fetch him before they could cook my lunch. It was a lovely setting, the chicken was delicious (and good exercise for my jaws!), and my correspondence was all caught up.
Here is the recipe, as best as I have been able to re-create it:
Leilehua’s Indonesian Village Restaurant Butter Chicken
- 1 Stewing hen
- chili pepper
- salt
- 1 pound salted butter
Skin the hen and render the skin in a deep skillet or chicken frier. It needs to have a heavy lit. You can put the butter in to melt along with it.
Cut the hen into frying pieces. Grind the chili pepper and salt together into a coarse blend. Roll the chicken parts in it.
Bring the temperature of the butter up and add the chicken. Be careful of splatters! When the chicken is golden and stops foaming, reduce heat as low as possible and add the heavy lid. Keep a good eye on it so the butter does not foam and boil over! Cook until tender.
Serve on rice. They did not present any side dishes. I didn’t know at the time that I was supposed to order them. And the chicken normally would have been served to four people or so. With the side dishes.
Keep the butter in the fridge to use in other dishes.
While we did not go to see a gamelon concert (we were traveling on a very minimal budget), we did have the privilege of listening to them in the evenings. I enjoyed very much listening to the sound as it drifted to us though the trees.
Looking for Christmas gifts? Books are always a great choice!
