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!

What’s Stewing?

I am getting more and more fixated with fast and easy recipes. Surprisingly for the husband and my friends who know me, I was probably someone who could not have reached a culinary hiatus. At least P still believes I have mystery remaining in my spice bottles. But I am exhausted from all the time-taking, involved cooking I had been hitherto doing. Hence this Chicken Stew which essentially is a Bengali recipe but without all those complicated spices.

The Calcutta Chicken Stew is a comfort food which you can have in your PJs, snuggled in your couch with some fresh bread.

I used about six chicken drumsticks, skinless. I roughly chopped a medium size red onion. Diced vegetables like cauliflower, potato, carrot, and broccoli. Snipped off the ends of green beans and cut them in halves.
Heat butter (unsalted) in a large saucepan or soup pot over medium heat. Add the onions and sauté them for 5 minutes.  Add the chicken drumsticks (you can even use thigh portions or pieces of lamb). Cook until the chicken browns.

Add all the vegetables and 4-5 cloves of garlic and 1 inch ginger cut coarsely.

I do add a stick of cinnamon, two black cardamoms, 2 bay leaves and few whole black peppercorns for that deliciously earthy flavor in the stew. Season with salt and freshly cracked pepper.

I like to cut my tomatoes right on the pot of the stew. I added two ripe hothouse tomatoes to the vegetables and meat.

Add enough water to drench all the ingredients and cover the pot. Keep stirring till you see all the vegetables and the meat cooked but not mushy.

Add half cup of sweet baby peas. I did not add them while cooking the stew as I wanted them to retain their green and not get mashed up with the other hardy vegetables.

Finish off with a dollop of butter and some more freshly cracked black pepper. You could also add some freshly chopped cilantro to the stew.

Ladle the stew out piping hot in serving bowls and serve with pieces of bread.

Chef @ Home ~ Butter Chicken (मखनी मुर्ग)

500 gms chicken (I used drumsticks for this, but you can use the thigh portions or simply boneless chicken)
1 medium onion made into paste
½ cup poppy seeds/ khus khus/ posto ground to a fine paste (soak the poppy seeds in water before grinding)
½ cashews ground to a fine paste (its best to grind the poppy seeds and cashews together in a blender)
1 large tomato pureed
½ inch ginger julienned for the garnish
4-5 green chilies sliced for the garnish
10-12 cashews chopped broken into pieces
10 raisins
2 tsp Kasturi Methi (I prefer the MDH brand)
2 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
Few drops of red food color
Butter to cook
Sugar
Salt

Sauté the chicken pieces in butter till you get a nice golden color on them. Now in the same pan, melt some more butter, do not let it heat up and smoke, butter burns easily. Add the onion paste and fry till golden brown. Add the ginger-garlic paste and keep stirring. Add the cashew-poppy seed paste and fry again. At this point in time, we can add some moisture into the mixture by adding the fresh tomato puree. Cover and cook this for 5 minutes, add all the dry spices like red chili powder, cumin, and coriander. Add some butter if you need along with the chopped cashews and raisins.

Add the chicken and fold all the spices nicely into it. Keep covered and on low heat to cook the chicken. Add the red food color and mix again. You will see the juices coming out of the chicken and spices. Add salt and sugar. Adjust the taste while adding the kasturi methi. Slowly crush the kasturi methi between the palms of your hand and add them to the simmering chicken.

Garnish the Butter Chicken with julienned ginger and sliced green chilies, and a little blob of butter. Serve hot with rotis or naan!

P.S. Instead of sautéing the chicken, you can also “tandoor” the chicken pieces. The Butter Chicken tastes the best when you use Amul Butter for cooking. I don’t usually add cream to my Butter Chicken, but what’s stopping you!

P.P.S. This is my Mum’s recipe, and maybe a little different from all the Butter Chicken recipes you know, especially because I am adding poppy seeds here. But try it, it tastes amazing. The key is to fry the wet ingredients really well; else the rawness of it all hits you when you eat.