Jono Makes Butter Chicken w/Saffron Rice

Jono LOVES butter chicken.
On his night to cook a couple weeks ago he requested that we try making it at home !
We found these recipes in a cookbook that was my Grandma's.
It is called Indian Food and Folklore.

We modified their recipes to look like this ...

For the butter chicken ....

1 kg chicken breast, cubed
7 tablespoons vinegar

Put the chicken and vinegar in a bowl for an hour or two. Mix the following ingredients in a food processor and let rest while the chicken is doing whatever it's doing in the vinegar.

4 garlic cloves
2 inch piece of fresh ginger
2 tablespoons of a mild curry paste. We used a green curry paste.
a big handful of chopped fresh coriander
1 teaspoon dried mint
150ml greek yogurt
1/2 teaspoon salt

Pour this luscious green mixture onto the chicken (after it's hour or two in the vinegar) and let marinate in the fridge overnight !

Preheat oven to 160c/325f

To cook, pour all of that chicken ... including the marinade ... into a roasting tin. (I lined mine with baking paper so the chicken wouldn't stick to the pan.) Bake for 20 minutes ... or until chicken is cooked through.

While that's cooking you'll need to get these ingredients together and make your sauce:

6 tablespoons ghee
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
1 small onion, thinly sliced
7 tablespoons thickened cream
1 tablespoon garam masala

Heat the ghee in a wok, add cumin and fry for one minute. Add onion. The original recipe said to fry til crisp and golden. Mine never crisped nor golden-ed. So ...whatever. Add the cream and garam masala and simmer gently. Once the chicken is cooked, pour it into this sauce and mix it all together. Serve with saffron rice and top with a bit of fresh coriander.

For the rice ...

375g basmati rice
50g ghee
1/2 a cinnamon stick
6 cardamom pods
6 cloves
1 red onion, sliced
1 teaspoon saffron threads
2 tablespoons boiling water
450 ml water

Put the saffron threads into the boiling water and let set at least 10 minutes.

Wash the rice. Soak in cold water for 30 minutes. Drain.

Melt the ghee and fry the spices in it. Add onion. Fry to desired onion consistency. Add rice. Fry 2 minutes. Add saffron water & the 450ml water. Stir. Bring to the boil. Cover. Cook gently ... about 20 minutes ... til liquid is absorbed and rice is tender.