How To Make Butter Chicken (Murg Makhani)

Butter chicken , also known as Murg Makhani, is a very rich and popular dish with everyone and every age group! My sons know this as ‘chicken with the red curry’ and enjoy it to the hilt. Considering how often we make it at our home, we have to make it a little more healthy without compromising on the taste. Butter chicken is one of those dishes that very few restaurants get wrong…every cook or chef has his or her own little variations which makes their dish unique and yet, fantastic. Murg Makhani is a dish that has wonderful flavor and a rich and creamy texture. You will surely fall in love with it!
For a detailed recipe, please click on the link:
http://www.showmethecurry.com/2007/10/05/butter-chicken-murgh-makhani/
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Step 1:
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Hi. Welcome to Show Me The Curry Dot Com. I'm Hetal, I'm Anuja. And today we're making Butter Chicken. It is again one of those very, very popular dishes. And it's also known as Murgh Makhani. Murgh means chicken and Makhani means butter. So, it's a rich dish, we warn you, but there are ways of making it, good enough for the figure and enjoying it. So, we will give you the authentic way of making it and we will also give you tips later on and on our website.
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Step 2:
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One and a half pounds of boneless, skinless chicken, cut to bite size pieces.One tablespoon Lemon Juice.One teaspoon red chili powder.Salt, to taste.Half cup yogurt.Four teaspoons of ginger-garlic paste.Two teaspoons Tandoori Masala. One and a half tablespoons unsalted butter. One teaspoon Garam Masala. One big Cardaman. Two Green Cardamans. One-inch piece cinnamon stick. One Bay leaf. Three large tomatoes, pureed. One teaspoon sugar. One teaspoon Methi Leaves. Green chili, de-seeded, finely chopped, to taste. Heavy whipping cream, to taste. Cilantro, three sprigs, finely chopped for garnishing.
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Step 3:
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We're going to start by marinading our chicken. You're going to wash it, clean it, and cut it into bite size pieces. So, we'll start with the lemon juice, and half of the ginger-garlic paste that we have, that's two teaspoons. This is the Tandoori Masala. And the red chili powder. For the people who don't want it so spicy, you can use paprika instead. It still gives the wonderful color and it won't be spicy. It's a great alternative.
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Step 4:
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Add some salt, to taste. That seems enough. Add the yogurt to it.
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Step 5:
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You can even marinade this overnight, that's the best thing to do, but at least a couple of hours is recommended. You have to keep it in the refrigerator while you're marinading it, that's a very important point! And it's done.
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Step 6:
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Ok, it's been about two hours. We're going to go ahead and pull the chicken out of the fridge. Meanwhile, I'm just going to coat our broiler dish that we're using. You know, for the oven, and it will let the juices just drip down. If you don't have a broiler dish that's ok, you can just put it on skewers, wooden skewers or you can just lay it flat and let it dry out. That's also fine.
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Step 7:
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It's ready to go into the oven on broil, high. We're going to let it cook for about five minutes or until the chicken looks golden, a little goldenish color, and then I'll flip it around and let it cook on that side as well for another five, six minutes. Then we'll have it ready for the cream. Meanwhile, we're going to stick it in and get the gravy ready.
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Step 8:
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Our pan is starting heating up. It's on medium-high in a non-stick pan. We're going to start with the butter. It looks like the butter is nicely melted, so we can ad the rest of our spices. That's the big cardaman, the cinnamon stick, the two green cardamans and the bay leaf. We're going to let the bay leaf get a little golden in color. Ok, now we'll add our ginger-garlic paste. And we'll also add our chilis. We're ready for the tomato puree. Once that's mixed in we're going to add our red chili powder, garam masala and salt. Again, the salt is to your taste. We'll just check on it later. At this point, we're going to let it come to a boil, and once it comes to a boil, we're going to put it on low and let it simmer for about ten minutes. I think the tomatoes have come to a boil now so we can reduce the heat and let it simmer.
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Step 9:
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It looks like most of the tomato juice has evaporated now, so we'll give it a quick stir. Now we can add our sugar and dried methi leaves. Also we are going to go ahead and add our chicken, give that a nice mix. It's been cooking for about two minutes. Now comes the good part: Mix it in so we can see how much we need. And this is according to taste. I think it's about a cup. At this point we're going to give it another boil so it gets nice and heated up from the inside, don't over cook it because the cream does tend to separate.
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Step 10:
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I think it's ready. I'm just going to go ahead and put some cilantro inside and save some garnishing for later. I'm going to give it a taste test just to make sure everything is ok. Sometimes it depends on the amount of tomatoes you use, sometimes it's sour, sometimes it's sweet. The tomatoes are a little sour, so I'm going add a little sugar. We'll put in another teaspoon. And there you have it, butter chicken ready to eat., there's the final touch.
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Step 11:
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Join us again in another episode of Show Me the Curry Dot Com. Add a pinch of spice to your life.