Experimental kitchen: butter chicken

[serinde]

This did not go quite as famously as the veg curry. It was very tasty, don't get me wrong; but I need to frob the recipe. Firstly, I have not got the hang of chopping up chicken pieces into sizes that will cook in roughly the same amount of time; I know that's more accurate to at least what I see in Indian restaurants, smaller on-bone pieces, but rather than making myself frenzied about partial-rawness...or stabbing myself in the mouth with errant chicken ribs...I'm going to stick to deboned meat for the time being.

Secondly, the taste & consistency weren't quite on. I thought it was odd that it called for a full half cup of coconut cream, and indeed it was a bit coconut-y. (Maybe that means something different in Strine? I assumed the "milkfat" that rises to the top of a can of coconut milk.) The gloop was also insufficiently gloopy, a bit too watery. This may have been the result of pureeing a can of whole peeled tomatoes in Mister Choppy instead of using the product "pureed tomatoes", which I think would have led to a thicker stuff. And I think I might in future, instead of 1/2 c. cream + 1/2 c. coconut cream + 1/2 c. yogurt, reduce to a total amount of 3/4 or 1 c. of liquidish substance.

It has nowhere near as much butter as I'd feared; about 1 Tbsp. for two pounds worth of chicken. Not that the cream and the coconut and whatnot is exactly virtuous, but it's certainly not Death Inna Bowl.

Comments

[lillilah]

Sometimes I've had to just scoop everything out after all the meat and stuff is cooked and cook the sauce until some of the liquid evaporates so that it reaches the right consistency. The butter chicken recipe I have (Simply Indian is a fairly good cookbook) calls for much more butter and cream than your recipe seems to. As for yogurt, I managed to make a recipe the other day in which dumplings were boiled in a yogurt sauce. I love yogurt, but it is so sensitive to heat changes that I'm hesitant to use it in sauces. When you have a finalized recipe, would you post it? I'd love to have one that doesn't call for 3/4 cup heavy cream.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Well, y'know, the funny thing is that I accidentally let the mess boil several times (I was cooking while we watched a movie; always a Bad Damn Plan), and it did not separate or curdle or do any of the other unfortunate dairy things.

But when I have it perfected, I surely will post it!

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Coconut cream *is* coconut milk. Shake the can first. Here, you can find cans of both kinds, and I used to think there was some difference in thickness/creaminess, but now I suspect that it's just interchangeable.