Anaarkali Butter Chicken Revisited–For the Hasty Cook!

Its a pity the link to the sample recipe does not work anymore on the Anaarkali Butter Chicken site. In fact, the site is unavailable too.

Which meant that I was flooded with questions about this recipe, which is NOT mine. I found it a little disconcerting to be encroached upon during my personal time with emails, text messages, personal messages on Facebook, etc. I manage this Blog and my Facebook page when I have the time from more important things in my life. I do it because I want to, not because I HAVE to.

The Anaarkali Butter Chicken is one recipe which is time taking and takes some amount of planning. So any precipitated, last minute approach to it (and other involved recipes) will probably not work. And if your go-to person for a recipe is limited, make sure you have enough time and give enough time to the person to respond to your questions!

It just makes life easy for everyone. And the Butter Chicken tastes out of the world too.

Anyway, I have vented out what irked me last night around midnight my time. Now the sample recipe for Anaarkali Butter Chicken.

You already have the marinade recipe and method from one of my previous posts.

Here is how you will make the sauce for the Anaarkali Butter Chicken:

These are screenshots of the sample recipe by the Anaarkali team. I have made changes and adapted ingredients I find here in Canada. I cannot post a PDF document here, hence the screen prints. If you want the PDF, please leave me a message for me on my Facebook page with your email. I will be happy to email you the document.

Thanks!

My Notes on Anaarkali Butter Chicken (ABC)

My Blog has taught me to measure things when I post my recipe. But weighing and measuring 45 grams of green chillies is really not my thing! Plus I do know how to use my eyes and my ever useful “pinch”.

The ABC Team has a sample recipe on their site, which I have shared on my post too. But here it is once again. (http://www.anaarkali.in/Butter-Chicken/anaarkali_sample_recipe.pdf)

From this sample recipe, I have adapted my own version of ABC. I have eaten Butter Chicken at the best places in Delhi, but I’d say this one tops my butter chicken barometer. And it’s only the sample recipe! So I am eager to taste the real thing – maybe someday.

· To begin with, I don’t follow the two-step marinating process mentioned in the sample recipe; instead I marinate my chicken breasts all at one go. And it’s fine.

· Here is what I do – choose chicken breasts for this recipe. (Bone in/boneless; whatever you prefer. I love some bone in my butter chicken, it lends a whole lot of flavour.)

· Score the breasts and marinate them in –> ginger – garlic paste, green chilli paste, plain yogurt, cheese spread (I use Cheeze Whiz here), lemon juice, mace powder, white pepper powder, garam masala powder (ground cinnamon, cloves and green cardamoms in equal quantities), honey and salt.

· I leave my marinated chicken for at least six-eight hours in the fridge.

· Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). If you don’t have an oven, a gas tandoor is your best option.

· Keep chicken on a baking tray lined with aluminum foil. Pour in the marinade too.

· Drizzle some olive oil (or vegetable or canola oil) on the chicken; and bake for 25-30 minutes.

· When the chicken is good to be handled with your hands, cut bite-size pieces of it. Keep aside.

· Now you can start on the gravy/sauce.

· Take a large, thick-bottom pan and melt some butter (I use unsalted here). Make sure you don’t burn/smoke the butter.

· Now add ginger-garlic paste and move it around in the butter on low-medium heat.

· Continue adding the ingredients in the order that they are mentioned in the sample recipe.

· I have started leaving out the black olives/kalamata in my version of ABC; I believe it’s just a frill and not really needed.

· When you are making this recipe, do choose the brand of ingredients which are available in your country.

· For the Dabur Homemade Tomato Puree, I use the Unico brand of tomato paste here.

· I have made ABC with both pinenuts and cashews, and I feel pinenuts make it creamier and richer in taste.

Let me know if you have any questions. For pictures of this delectable and simply out of the world Butter Chicken, please lick here. Sorry I meant *click.

Anaarkali Butter Chicken

There is Butter Chicken. And then, there is Anaarkali Butter Chicken. Thank you Dhempe for introducing me to this one! For the uninitiated, the Anaarkali Butter Chicken is the product of hard work and passion of two butter chicken enthusiasts – I B Saxena and Padma Prasad. Apparently this team of two worked for eight years to come up with a Butter Chicken so good, that you cannot source it anywhere in the world. But if you make a donation of Rupees 1,00,000 (a little over $2,000) to the Akshaya Patra Foundation you will get to taste the real Anaarkali Butter Chicken. What you get in return is a pyramid-shaped, hand-packed cardboard box containing the premium pack of 1300 grams of bliss served in a Borosil bowl garnished with black olives and real gold and silver varq.

For the penniless like me, who could probably do with some donations herself, they also have a sample recipe on their website. For free!Today, I had the taste of this sample Anaarkali Butter Chicken cooked by who else – yours truly. I like to throw my self food challenges like these in a typical Bobby Flay style and pretend I am some great cook!

Before I took on the daunting task of making this recipe, I did get a chance to ask Padma Prasad one basic question, the answer to which the sample recipe did not have – what portion of chicken should I use? Okay, maybe that was a dumb thing to ask. She was prompt in responding on Facebook, and I used what she suggested – breast portions. Well, that was the easy bit. But what was not so easy, was to shop for the pretty exhaustive list of ingredients which were all thankfully available under the same roof. Its another thing that some people found a certain five feet something running from aisle to aisle because of a badly written grocery list.

But I wonder as I sit back and write this post if the Father of Butter Chicken, the Punjabi-Pathan called Kundal Lal Gujral would approve of the parmesan and cheddar cheese that has gone into the marinade of this dish. Or the subtle sweet flavor of the moss–colored dry basil leaves. But then he believed in revolutionizing food too, and that’s what Anaarkali Butter Chicken does! I think its brilliant how people turn something good into spectacular, leaving a legacy for others to follow.

And follow I did - dotting the i's and crossing the t's, figuratively speaking of course. Every ingredient and every step was followed, careful not to miss anything in the recipe. Yes, and I even measured that one-eighth teaspoon of mace and 45 grams of green chilies!!!!

Here is photographic evidence of how I made the sample recipe of the Anaarkali Butter Chicken.
At the end of the Naan, Anaarkali Butter Chicken and Garden Salad dinner, I thought I was in butter chicken heaven saying hello to the baap of all Butter Chicken!