Chicken Makhani

Julesong's Note:

Chicken Makhani is also known as "Butter Chicken." This recipe posted as a response to a recipe request - I got it online. Source: http://www.sanjeevkapoor.com

• Total Time: 4 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 4 hrs
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 4

• 800 g chicken
• 1 teaspoon kashmiri red chili powder
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• salt

Marination

• 1 cup curds (yogurt)
• 2 tablespoons ginger paste
• 2 tablespoons garlic paste
• ½ teaspoon garam masala powder
• 1 teaspoon kashmiri red chili powder
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons mustard oil
• salt

Makhani Sauce

• 1 tablespoon whole garam masala
• 400 g tomato puree
• 2 tablespoons sugar or 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon ginger paste
• 1 tablespoon garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon red chili powder
• ½ teaspoon garam masala powder
• 1 cup fresh cream
• ½ teaspoon kasuri methi
• 1 teaspoon chopped green chilies
• 50 g butter
• salt

Directions:

1. Skin and clean the chicken.
2. Make incisions with a sharp knife on breast and leg pieces.
3. Apply a mixture of red chilli powder, lemon juice and salt to the chicken and leave aside for half an hour.
4. Hang the yogurt in a muslin cloth for 15-20 minutes to remove extra water.
5. Add red chilli powder, salt, ginger-garlic paste, lemon juice, garam masala powder and mustard oil.
6. Apply this marinade to the chicken pieces and refrigerate for 3 to 4 hours.
7. Put the chicken onto a skewer and cook in a moderately hot tandoor or a preheated oven (200 degrees celsius) for 10-12 minutes or until almost done.
8. Baste it with butter and cook for another 2 minutes.
9. Remove and keep aside.
10. Heat butter in a pan.
11. Add whole garam masala.
12. Let it crackle.
13. Then add ginger-garlic paste and chopped green chillies.
14. Cook for 2 minutes.
15. Add tomato puree, red chilli powder, garam masala powder, salt and one cup of water.
16. Bring to a boil.
17. Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
18. Add sugar or honey and powdered kasoori methi.
19. Add cooked tandoori chicken pieces.
20. Simmer for 5 minutes and then add fresh cream.
21. Serve hot with naan or parantha.

Reviews

[Rakhi]

I cooked this dish for a dinner party last week. The only alteration being to adjust the amount of honey- I used 1tbsp. A fantastic recipe. Everyone at dinner commented how delicious this dish was. Thank you!

[Charishma_Ramchandani]

Boy O Boy! What a creation this is!I made this for lunch this afternoon and my mom and bro. jumped onto the table to eat this like a cat would leap onto a mouse! I served it with hot rotis and long-grain Basmati rice. What a hearty meal they've just had - you could see that contented smile on their faces stretching from ear to ear!:) I did make a few changes(additions, deletions, etc), though. I used 4 tsps. of dried kasoori methi(crushed between my palms)- just love that stuff! For the 1 tbsp. whole garam masala, since I didn't have a packet of whole garam masala on hand, I used 2 bay leaves, 3 cloves, 3 green cardamoms and 1 inch cinnamon stick. I did use honey this time for the makhani sauce, but since my mom and bro both love spicier food than sweeter creations, I will be totally omitting the honey next time on. This chicken dish has a beautiful colour(I did add a dash of red food colour to give it that luscious red look!) and an aroma that is soooo wonderful, that even my dad who is a pure vegetarian like me, came running to the table thinking I had made some new veggie dish. LOL. Everyone said the colour and aroma were fantastic. I did garnish it with fresh corriander leaves(about 2-3 tbsps., finely chopped). I felt the quantity of lemon juice as stated in the recipe was a little too much, so I used just the juice of 2 lemons(freshly squeezed) in the marinade and I did not add more later. I stuck to these ingredient measurements which were for a 800gms. chicken, but, I did use a 1 kg. chicken and the measurements worked like a charm. I didn't use mustard oil, as I can't even stand that stuff, so, I used Minara Premium Sunflower Oil which is what we use in our daily cooking. Since I wanted to cut out on the cals as much as possible, I substituted the fresh cream with low-fat plain yoghurt(1cup, well beaten). I used for the entire chicken dish(including the marination and the makhani sauce),oil and not butter. This might sound funny, but this is just for health reasons, nothing else. I'm sure the chicken marinated in butter and the sauce made with butter would be even more delish! As I was short of time, I could marinate the chicken only for 2 hours this time. Next time, I will do it for 4 hours. I'm sure the longer the chicken sits coated in the marinade in the refrigerator, the tastier it'll be when cooked. Also, I would like to mention that the cooking time for cooking the chicken in the oven is perfect and so is the temperature. Next time, I will be adding more green chillies to this, omitting the sugar/honey totally and I'll use yoghurt that is slightly on the sour side(just keep the yoghurt out for a few hours before adding to the dish to have it on the sour side) and not yoghurt straight out of the refrigerator like I used today. All in all, this is a wonderful dish and I promise to make it again! THANK YOU for posting.

[mazzizapsycho]

This was really nice, although i did reduce the amount of chilli powder in the sauce as 1 tablespoon seemed a lot, and it was still pretty hot. I was also concerned about the amount of tomato puree that was called for, so I just used a few tablespoons of this and a tin of tomatoes. I used all of the lemon juice that was suggested and didn't think this was too much.