Making Butter Chicken With Limited Browning Skills. What Happened?
Making butter chicken would be so much easier if I didn’t have to brown the meat first.
Below are links to more details of my experience, including photos and tips:
My Story
When my family and I order Indian food, butter chicken is always a dish we get, so when I came across a recipe that seemed to have mainly ingredients commonly found in the supermarket, I decided to give it a try.
Inspiring Recipe
The recipe that I selected was indian butter chicken from a blog, The Kitchen Paper.
First Try
After going to a few markets, I was finally able to locate the most important spice blend, garam masala, for the butter chicken.
Ingredients to Use
Starting with about 2 1/2 pounds of chicken thighs, I had to adjust some of the other ingredients for the recipe. Also, the amount of tomato sauce that I could find closest to what the recipe called for was in a 15-ounce container, so that’s what I used. Lastly, I didn’t buy the yellow onion at the supermarket due to the lower quality. Instead, I substituted it with a white onion.
Here are the other ingredients that had to be adjusted, along with the modified amounts:
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 1/4 tablespoons garam masala
- 1 1/4 tablespoons fresh ginger
- 1 1/4 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon + 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 5 ounces of water to make up for the missing cream
In terms of serving, I planned only to accompany the chicken with rice, so I could focus on making the chicken, instead of naan as well.
Steps to Prepare
I followed the majority of the steps in the recipe. However, I used a pot instead of a skillet for everything. Also, I misread step 2 and cooked the onion pieces until they were all softened, which was way longer than three minutes.
Below are some photos from the process:
Time to Eat
After lots of cutting, browning, and stirring, we were finally able to taste the butter chicken:
Recipe Rating
Below are the results of the recipe after the first tasting:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1️⃣6️⃣* | 🤏🤏 | 💰💰 | 🙂 |
Because I deviated from the instructions at the beginning of the cooking process, I burnt the pot. Luckily, even though the sauce was a little thin, it tasted okay. However, the chicken definitely needed flavor. Still, what saved the dish was the refreshing taste of cilantro.
As for the naan, my younger son noticed that it was missing. 😯
Second Try
During the next attempt, I wanted to address the bland chicken, so I searched for a recipe to marinate it ahead of time and planned to do a better job browning it. Also, to prevent the sauce from being watery, I wasn’t going to add any water to the sauce like I did previously.
Ingredients to Use
To marinate the chicken, I used the marinade in the Butter Chicken recipe from the Spend with Pennies blog, which required two new ingredients, the lemon of which would be used to replace the lime as garnish when serving the dish, so I didn’t have to open up the lime.
For the original butter chicken recipe, I was able to find a decent yellow onion to use. Also, since I had a little over two pounds of chicken, I set aside an extra quarter teaspoon of garam masala and ginger for the sauce. Lastly, I also reserved an extra one tablespoon of butter for the sauce at the end, so I wouldn’t have that small piece left in the refrigerator.
The new amounts for the modified ingredients were as follows:
- 1 tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon garam masala
- 1 tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon ginger
- 3 tablespoons butter for Step 4
Steps to Prepare
First, I marinated the chicken overnight.
The next day, I planned to brown the whole chicken thighs for 3.5 minutes on each side without crowding them in the pot. However, it took twice as long for the first batch due to the extra liquid from the marinade and the second batch didn’t even brown. As for cutting the chicken into chunks, I wanted to find out if it would be easier to do that step after browning instead of before and it was!
For the sauce, I followed the same steps as before, but started adding other ingredients once the onion pieces started to soften, unlike before. However, at the end I decided to add the cilantro directly to the pot as garnish, instead of during serving time.
Here are some photos from the process:
Time to Eat
Below is the bowl of butter chicken from the second attempt:
Recipe Rating
After the second try, the results were as follows:
| Number of Ingredients | Effort (Low🤏, Medium🤏🤏, High🤏🤏🤏) | Cost per Serving (<$2💰, $2-5💰💰, >$5💰💰💰) | Taste (Not for me🤔, Trying Again🙂, Eating Regularly😋) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1️⃣6️⃣ | 🤏🤏 | 💰💰 | 🙂 |
After all the work, this version of butter chicken was worse than the first attempt due to the smell and taste from the burnt contents in the pot. Also, since the cilantro was added to the pot, the refreshing taste was missing.
To turn my attempts at butter chicken around, I will need to stop burning the contents in the pot! The following is what I’ll do next time:
Continuous Improvement
- Brown the chicken in a cast iron pan, cut them into bit-size pieces, then transfer everything to the pot in Step 3.
Making butter chicken a couple times has certainly highlighted the following reminder for me:
Lesson for Dumber Self
- Sometimes I just have to make a choice, even if I don’t want to. (In this case, it would be choosing not to make this a one-pot dish next time.)
What will you do now?
Next Step for You
- Try the indian butter chicken recipe from The Kitchen Paper blog?
- Share a butter chicken recipe that’s easier to make?
- Read another post on this site? (Go to the menu at the top of the page.)