How to make the perfect Butter Chicken at home

In fact, even the biggest British chefs didn’t know about Butter Chicken. The great Heston Blumenthal, for instance, seemed to have tasted it for the first time in 2006, when he came to Delhi to get the original recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala. Ramsay himself was introduced to proper Butter Chicken only in 2010, while shooting his Great Escape series in India.

The dish has come a long way since then. Today, my Instagram and YouTube feeds are inundated with goras trying Butter Chicken (with Naan ‘bread’ and Mango lassy) on camera, and going viral.

But what makes Butter Chicken so popular?

Ironically, the dish which has become a global ambassador of Indian food, is probably such a big hit because it tastes very little like other staples of our cuisine.

For starters, it barely uses any of the standard Indian spices. Secondly, the Butter Chicken sauce – or makhani gravy – is much closer to the smooth, clean, sauces of Western cuisine than any other Indian ‘curry’. Finally, it is cooked in a ‘western’ fat, butter, as opposed to common Indian cooking oils or ghee.

Butter Chicken is a restaurant dish. It is tough to reproduce at home, largely because the chicken has to be prepared in a tandoor, and the sauce itself requires certain processes that are normally not followed in home kitchens.

Yet, armed with a few tips and tricks, and a whole lot of patience, you can make a near perfect restaurant-style Butter Chicken in your own home. You do not need to own an oven, or an air fryer, and also a mixer-grinder. Most urban homes will have those now.

But before we look at the details of the recipe, let us understand what a good Butter Chicken is all about.

THE FIRST THING it must do is give you a tomato high. Because the makhani gravy is almost entirely tomato-driven. Onions are rarely used. And even ginger and garlic — those staples of the North Indian kitchen — are used sparingly.

The tomatoes lend huge dollops of umami-ness to Butter Chicken, thanks to the high levels of glutamic acid that they contain. Glutamic acid, whose pure form is monosodium glutamate or MSG, is the biggest source of umami, the savoury ‘deliciousness’ which has been recognised as a separate, fifth taste, after salty, sweet, sour, and bitter.

Half a kilo of ripe red tomatoes contains almost as much MSG as a plate of chow mein at your local ‘Chindian’ stall. When these tomatoes are slowly roasted and dried, the glutamic acid gets concentrated and increases the umami flavours. So, when we make Butter Chicken at home, our objective is to make the tomatoes pop, make the glutamic acid sing.

THE NEXT KEY ASPECT of Butter Chicken is the smoky, charred taste the chicken lends to the makhani gravy. This happens because it is traditionally made with leftover Tandoori Chicken. While it is impossible to get that heat – 380-450 degrees C – in a home kitchen, there are tricks that we can use to mimic its taste.

Now, let us get to the cooking.

You will need to start the previous evening. Begin with four pieces of chicken legs – thighs and drumsticks. Avoid chicken breasts, because they cook at 74 C, and dry out quickly at higher temperatures. Chicken thighs and drumsticks are much more forgiving. In fact, they do better at 85-90C.

There are three stages to preparing the chicken, even before you start cooking it.

STAGE ONE is brining. Pour one litre of drinking water into a large bowl, and dissolve 10 teaspoons of salt in it. Yes, 10 teaspoons. This will create a 6% brine. Make lengthwise slashes in the chicken legs, almost up to the bone, and soak them in the brine solution, and refrigerate it for at least three hours.

Brining partly dissolves the filaments that contract when chicken meat is heated, making it more tender. It also increases the meat’s ability to absorb aromatic molecules from any marinade.

TO MAKE the first marinade, mix two teaspoons of lime juice into two tablespoons of ginger-garlic-chilli paste, add one heaped teaspoon of deghi mirch, and a pinch of salt. Remember, the chicken has been brined, so go easy on the salt.

Drain the brined chicken and wash it well in clean drinking water to remove the salt from the surface. Massage the first marinade into the chicken legs and refrigerate it overnight.

At the same time, spoon out 150 grams of sour curd onto a muslin cloth, tie it in a knot, and squeeze out as much water as you can. Put the muslin pouch on a large strainer placed on a bowl, and leave it in the fridge overnight.

THE NEXT DAY, make the second marinade. Heat two tablespoons of mustard oil in a pan, till it begins to smoke. Take it off the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Add one heaped teaspoon of deghi mirch, stir for a few seconds, and then decant the red chilli oil into a large bowl.

To this add one tablespoon of ginger-garlic paste, one teaspoon of chat masala, the hung curd, salt to taste, one pinch of green cardamom powder, and one teaspoon of finely chopped coriander leaves. Mix well ensuring that there are no lumps.

Take the chicken out of the fridge, and drain any water it might have released. Now, rub the second marinade on the chicken legs, ensuring that it goes into the cuts. Cover and let it sit for an hour.

AS THE CHICKEN marinates and comes to room temperature, prepare the tomatoes for the makhani sauce.

Wash eight large tomatoes, and scoop out the stalk at the top. Place the tomatoes on a tray and roast slowly in a 150 C oven for 25 minutes. If you are using an air fryer, drop the temperature to 135 C. This process will help dry out the tomatoes and release higher levels of free glutamate to boost the umami taste.

After 25 minutes (18-20 minutes in the air fryer) you should be able to peel the tomatoes. Sprinkle salt on the peeled tomatoes and return them to the oven, along with 15 cashew nuts, 10 garlic cloves, a 1-inch piece of fresh ginger chopped into rough chunks, one green chili, and one tablespoon of chopped coriander stalks (no leaves). Roast for another 15-20 minutes.

Heat three tablespoons of butter, and one tablespoon of any neutral oil. Add the roasted tomato mix, and cook on medium-low heat for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer everything into a mixer-grinder jar, let it cool for a few minutes, add 2-3 tablespoons of ice-cold water, and grind to a smooth, fine paste.

IN THE MEANTIME, preheat your oven to 180 C (160 C if you are using an air fryer). Lay out the marinated chicken onto a wire rack placed on a baking tray and roast the chicken for 20 minutes (15-18 minutes in an air fryer).

Now, brush the chicken legs evenly with melted butter, crank up the oven or air fryer to its highest temperature and roast for five more minutes. This should give the chicken legs a little bit of char at the edges, which will mimic the taste of Tandoori chicken.

We are now ready to finish cooking the makhani sauce and assemble our Butter Chicken.

Return the tomato paste to the pan and cook it on medium-high heat for 10-12 minutes, till the fat begins to separate. You will need to control the heat and stir the sauce constantly, since it contains cashews, which can burn very quickly. Add a cup of water to make a thick sauce, and let it simmer.

This is the time to decide how sweet you want your Butter Chicken sauce to be. First taste it to see if you are satisfied with the level of salt. Then add sugar gradually in pinches, tasting after each addition, stopping when you have reached the level of sweetness that you want in the sauce.

Now, pull the chicken meat off the bones into long strips and mix them into the makhani sauce. Add one-fourth teaspoon of shahi garam masala – made of cinnamon, cloves, green and black cardamom, nutmeg and mace. (Not the standard Punjabi garam masala.) Cover and cook on low heat for 4-5 minutes.

Dry roast a teaspoon of kasuri methi. Crush the roasted kasuri methi and add it to the Butter Chicken. This is a crucial step. Don’t skip it. It gives the Butter Chicken its characteristic earthy aroma.

Add exactly two drops of kewra water. The kewra is meant to round off the sharp edges of the makhani gravy, without lending its strong scent. So be careful with it.

Take the saucepan off the heat, and stir in two tablespoons of fresh cream and a tablespoon of butter into the Butter Chicken sauce without mixing it completely. Some amount of cream should be visibly separate from the reddish-orange sauce.

Now, we come to the final step, the trick that will recreate the smoky flavours of shop-bought Butter Chicken.

Get a piece of coal from your local presswala, and heat it directly on the gas flame, till it begins to glow. Place a small steel bowl on top of the butter chicken in the saucepan, place the glowing piece of coal, and pour a teaspoon of ghee on it. The coal will begin to smoke immediately. Cover it and let the Butter Chicken absorb the smoke for 3-5 minutes.

Your Butter Chicken is ready. Tell your friends and family that you ordered it from your favourite restaurant. I can guarantee, if you follow these steps, they won’t know the difference.

P.S. If you find making tandoori chicken at home too time-consuming, then the short-cut would be to order the tandoori chicken, and follow the rest of the recipe.

Aunindyo Chakravarty was Senior Managing Editor, NDTV Profit & NDTV India. Aunindyo has been cooking since he was eight, and he believes he is much more skilled as a cook than as a journalist.