Butter Chicken - Grilled Chicken in a thick Tomato based sauce (a rich cusine from Punjab)

Prepared on: 11 Dec 2009
This dish is a rich Punjabi dish from North of India. You will find various version of this in restaurants all across the globe. This does not require you to satnd for hours infront of the heat. You could hae only the grilled version of this dish as a starter or barbeque.

Ingredients:
Chicken 800 gm
Mustard oil 4 Tblspn
Lemon juice 4 Tblspn
Salt to taste
Yogurt 1.5% fat
ginger-garlic paste 3 Tblspn
Garam-masala powder (cardamom, cinnamon, cloves in equal proportion) 3-4 tblspn
Butter 2 tbspn
Olive oil 1 tbspn
Green chillies
Kastoori methi( dry roasted & crushed)
Whole garam masala (4 cardamom, 2 pieces 2 inch cinnamon, 6 cloves)
3-4 medium sized Tomato puree(this will make the gravy - so choose accordingly),
Sugar/Honey 1 Tblspn
Cashew Paste/Powder 200 gm
Cream 1/2 cup

To start with:
: Heat kastoori methi in the oven/dry pan for sometime to make it crisp. Crush between your palms to a powder.
: Hang yogurt in a muslin cloth for fifteen to twenty minutes to remove extra water.
: Make the Cashew Paste and keep aside

Preparation:
For Marination:
Poke with a fork on breast and leg pieces of the chicken. Apply a mixture of lemon juice and salt to the chicken and set aside for half an hour.
To the yogurt, add salt, ginger-garlic paste(2 tblspn), lemon juice (2-3 tblspn), garam masala powder(3 tspn) and mustard oil(2-3 tbsp).


Apply this marinade to the chicken pieces and keep aside for three to four hours or you could also choose to marinade the previous night in refrigerator.

Grill:
Preheat oven at 200°C for ten to twelve.
Cook the chicken for about 10 min.
Paste it with butter turn the pieces and cook untill almost done.
Remove and set aside.

For Gravy:
Take the olive oil and butter in a pan. Add whole Garam Masala - green cardamoms, cloves, peppercorns and cinnamon.
Sauté for two minutes, add 1 tbspn ginger-garlic paste and chopped green chillies. Cook for a minute.
Add tomato puree, salt to taste.
Cook till the water reduces & oil starts oozing out from the gravy. Add the chicken pieces & garam masala powder. Reduce heat to low and coer the lid for 10-15 minutes.
Add the Cashew paste.
Add sugar/honey and powdered kasoori methi.
Simmer for five minutes and then add fresh cream.
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For the same recipe boneless version of chicken:
The above recipe can be done without grilling, in a pressure cooker too.
In that case, you need to cook the chicken in pressure cooker and remove the flesh from bones - make the chicken boneless..
Cook as mentioned above and gravy consistency should be dry not too liquid.
This too tastes awesome.

Tip:
To make it less fattening. you could replace butter with olive oil and add less fresh cream.