Easy Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhana)

Ingredients

Chicken Marinade

• 400 gms boneless chicken - thigh fillets work nicely, cubed breast
• 1 tbsp Ginger garlic paste
• 1 tsp chilli powder (for mild)
• 1 tsp turmeric
• Salt to taste
• Oil to pan fry

Butter Chicken Gravy

• 600 gms of  quartered tomatoes
• 100 gms finely chopped cut onions (1.5 medium onions)
• 1 tbsp garlic paste
• 75 gms cashew nuts (use mortar and pestle to roughly crush)
• 1 tsp kasuri methi, dry fenugreek leaves (alternative is Fenugreek power)
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1.5 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tbsp chilli powder (Kashmiri is best), increase quantity to enhance
• 4-5 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp cream (or you can use equal parts plain Greek yogurt and full cream milk)
• 2 tbsp malt vinegar (or 1.5 tbsp of white vinegar)
• Water for cooking (I add white wine and water, but this is definitely not part of the normal recipe).
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Mix all ‘chicken marinade’ ingredients and allow chicken to marinate for a minimum of 1 hour, (2-3 in the fridge is best).
2. In heavy based pan, add a little oil and fry chicken pieces, almost fully cooked. Remove from pan and set aside.
3. Using same pan add a little more oil and 1 tbsp of butter to pan, add onions and cook until onions are translucent.
4. Add tomatoes and cashews, mix with onions then follow by adding a cup of water (and wine if you decide to use my suggestion).
5. Add garlic paste, garam masala, sugar, vinegar, chilli and (and fenugreek if using the powder).
6. Cook on simmer for a minimum of 30 minutes, stirring regularly and add water if mixture starts to reduce. Cook until tomatoes cook down to almost nothing.  I prefer to cook for about 45-50 minutes.
7. Once tomatoes are cooked down pour mixture into a large bowl and attack it with a hand blender if you have one, or use a normal blender, to smooth out the mixture and blend in any remaining tomatoes and onion.
8. Once blended push mixture through a sieve/strainer back into the pan the add additional butter. The sieve will remove any of the residual chunks to achieve that silky smooth butter chicken sauce consistency.
9. On low heat add back the chicken, then add the cream and kasuri methi, simmer for an additional 5-10 minutes and then serve.
10. You can add a little more cream and kasuri methi (or coriander) to garnish.

The changes made to the original recipe, plus a few additional tips:

• Recipe suggest chicken breast, but I find fillets or boneless thighs a little juicier.
• I added turmeric to the chicken marinade, mostly to increase the colour.
• There was way too much sugar listed in the original Bombay Chef ingredients list, 1.5 tbsp is plenty.
• Fenugreek power is an ok substitute for the kasuri methi, which is not always the easiest to find.
• Crush the cashews (not mentioned originally), this will enhance the nuttiness in the flavour.
• Chop the onions finer.
• Instead of cream I tested with a Greek yogurt and milk mix - as I ran out of cream - it worked well. 
• As did the addition of a cup of white wine early in the process.
• I start with less chilli, you can always add a little more – difficult to take away if it is too spicy.
• Simmer the gravy longer than the original recipe suggests, less work later and the flavours only get better.
• Try making your own garlic paste (and garlic & ginger paste). It lasts quite a while in the fridge. It can be used anytime you need garlic for anything and it’s really simple to make.