This is THE quintessential indian dish, right up there with Tandoori Chicken or biryani, to my mind, and it’s basically lick the plate good. That is not an exaggeration, I was totally licking the plate when I made this. You make this incredibly rich gravy out of tomatoes and cream and then stir in chicken you cooked separately. Traditionally you would use tandoori chicken, but the sauce is so rich and so flavorful that it smothers everything you throw at it. I generally use something like Chicken 65, but to be honest you could just about use chicken pieces that you have sautéed in garlic and oil. I will only be writing out the recipe here for the gravy.
Another note: I’m using a lot of whole spices here, because at this point I have pretty much everything in my spice cabinet. If you don’t and want to use ground spices that are more easily found, feel free, the only thing you want to do is skip the first step where you fry the whole spices in butter and oil.
Also? This is about as far from a heart healthy dish as you can get. You have been warned.
Ingredients
2-3 blades of mace (mace is the flower of the nutmeg plant, so if you want you can substitute 2-3 teaspoons of ground nutmeg)
2 inch long cinnamon stick (or 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon)
8-10 green cardamom pods (or 1 teaspoon ground cardamom)
8-10 whole cloves (or 1 teaspoon ground)
8-10 cloves garlic, minced
2 pounds tomatoes, tops removed, roughly chopped. Like in to eighths.
cooking oil
4 tablespoons butter, divided in half
1 cup heavy cream
2 inches ginger, minced
2-4 serrano chilis, seeds and ribs removed. You aren’t going for the heat here, you just want the green bits. Remove everything white. If you have cuts on your hands, probably want to wear gloves.
1 tablespoon paprika (officially you should use kashmiri chili powder, but this is a pretty good substitute)
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon garam masala
1 tablespoon kasuri methi/ground fenugreek leaves or 1/2 tablespoon ground fenugreek seeds (optional)
1 teaspoon cayenne (optional)
salt to taste
Directions
Add about 2 tablespoons of oil and half of the butter to a large skillet. Melt the butter, and once it’s melted and hot, add the mace, cinnamon stick, cloves, garlic, and cardamom. Let them fry while you chop up the tomatoes.
Once you have the tomatoes chopped, throw them in the pan and sauté on medium heat until the soften. You COULD spend your time melting the tomatoes down and stewing them in to a gravy, but we aren’t going to go that route, because it takes to damn long. After about 15 minutes they should be nice and soft and partially melted. At that point, remove them from the heat and let them cool off. Once the mixture is cool, put it in a food processor or blender and puree the mixture, spices and all. You may want to take out the cinnamon stick and break it down some by hand before throwing it in a blender, my food processor was not happy about chewing up the whole thing at once. Everything else should be fine though.
Take the pureed mixture, and strain it back in to the same skillet you were using before (you can use a fine metal strainer or a cheesecloth). Discard the solids that are left behind, you don’t care about them. Add some more butter, the ginger, and the chilis, and simmer for maybe 10 minutes more. While its simmering, add salt to taste and the paprika. What you’re doing right now is mellowing out the flavor of the tomatoes, if you’re curious.
Finally, add the cream, honey, garam masala, and kasuri methi. Bring back up to a simmer for another 10 minutes and fold in the chicken. If you’re using chicken 65, or some other chunks of chicken, go ahead and just throw the chunks in. If you’re using actual tandoori chicken, cut it in to pieces, on the bone, and fold it in to the sauce. Remove it from the heat and let it cool. As it does, the sauce will infuse the chicken and smooth out any flavors that were in it in the first place.
Eat with rice, naan, and whatever else you want. Enjoy!
eatbensmeat 