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.

The Most Amazing Beef Curry

My husband loooooves curry ! I could take it or leave it. This one though ... I'd definitely take. It was delicious ! I found the recipe here. I made it exactly as the recipe said and am just cutting and pasting the recipe here. All the credit goes to them ....

For the Beef :
1 tablespoon Homemade Curry Powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3 1/2 pounds beef stew meat, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces

Toasted spices:
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons fenugreek seeds
3 whole cloves
1 (1-inch) cinnamon stick, broken
2 dried hot red chiles
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon salt

Remaining ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
3 cups vertically sliced onion
3 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger
1/4 cup minced garlic
2 tablespoons Hungarian sweet paprika
2 cups plain low-fat yogurt
1 1/2 cups low-salt beef broth
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup minced fresh cilantro stems
1/2 cup tomato puree

Preparation

To prepare beef, combine first 3 ingredients; rub evenly over beef. Cover and chill 2 hours, tossing occasionally.

To prepare toasted spices, heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add coriander and next 6 ingredients (coriander through bay leaves); cook 1 minute or until fragrant, shaking pan constantly. Place coriander mixture, sugar, cardamom, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a spice or coffee grinder, and process until finely ground.

Heat 1 1/2 teaspoons oil in Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add half of beef mixture; sauté 5 minutes or until browned on all sides. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon. Repeat procedure with remaining oil and beef mixture; remove from pan. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion and ginger to pan; cook 6 minutes or until onion is tender, stirring occasionally. Add the toasted spice mixture, garlic, and paprika; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add beef, yogurt, and remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 hour and 30 minutes or until the beef is tender.

Channa Dal (Curried Chickpeas)

The recipe in the book was much more labor intensive. It involved dried chickpeas, toasting several different spices and whatnot. I simplified it a lot by using canned chickpeas and my nice curry powder - it had all of the spices the recipe called for and then some. Anyway, this is SO simple and quick to make and YUMMY!

1 14oz can chickpeas
4 tsp curry powder
1 cup chopped onion
2-3 cloves pressed garlic
1 T grated ginger
3 T butter
1-2 T chopped fresh coriander leaves (cilantro)

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add onion, garlic and ginger and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, or until onions are soft and golden. Add curry.

Add chickpeas and a 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a boil, then simmer on low until liquid is reduced to a nice sauce (feel free to turn up the heat if you get impatient!).

Place chickpeas in a serving dish and sprinkle with chopped coriander leaves.

Murg Dahi (Yogurt Chicken)

Important! Chicken needs to marinate, plan ahead accordingly.



Despite the rather bland and boring name, this chicken dish is spicy and delicious! The chicken is super tender and bursting with the flavors of northern India.

3 1/2 to 4 lbs chicken pieces, skinned
1 tsp salt
1 green chili, finely chopped (I used a Serrano)
1 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cups fresh coriander (cilantro) leaves, chopped
1 T fresh ginger, chopped
3 or 4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cups (1/2 stick) butter, melted

Prick chicken pieces all over with a fork and place in a large bowl. In a small bowl, combine salt, chili, yogurt, cilantro, ginger and garlic and mix well. Pour over chicken, cover bowl, and refrigerate for six hours to overnight.

To cook chicken, preheat over to 400F. Pour half the melted butter into a roasting pan. Put the chicken into pan and pour yogurt mixture on top. Place pan in middle of oven and roast for about 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F and continue roasting, basting frequently with remaining butter and pan juices, for about 30 minutes, or until chicken is done.

Remove chicken and place on a serving platter. Pour sauce over chicken and serve immediately.

How to Make {Cheese}

In this case, the cheese in question is Paneer. This is an Indian cheese that's pretty simple and easy to make, and is suitable for a vegetarian (although not vegan, 'cause let's face it...it's cheese) diet. The cheese itself is fairly tasteless (so don't throw in your lasagna), but when added to curries and things like saag paneer or fried in butter with a little garlic, it sings!

The original website I used seems to not exist anymore, so if this doesn't work, it's only because my memory is bad! Also, I may add in some pictures later, but I don't have time just presently.

What you will need:
4 cups of whole cow's milk
3-4 Tablespoons lemon juice (you can also use lime juice or leftover whey from your last batch)
Cheesecloth
Thermometer
A sieve
A saucepan

Heat the milk to 80 Celsius, or just before the boiling point. Add in the acid, 1 teaspoon at a time, making sure to give it a good stir. Keep adding the acid until the curds separate from the greenish whey (and while you're stiring, be sure to note that Little Miss Muffit was dumb-tuffit, 'cause would you really eat that??? Even without the impeding visit of a spider??? No, you would not).

Pour the mixture through a sieve lined with a couple layers of cheesecloth (If you want to, you can let the mixture cool for 30 minutes before this step, but I found it easier just to rinse it with lukewarm water until it was cool enough to handle). Rinse with fresh water. Squeeze the water out of the cheese with your hands. Then, sit your cheese under something heavy and let it self-squeeze for a while. The more moisture you remove, the firmer your cheese will be.

Optional: soak your cheese in cold water for 1-3 hours (I threw mine, cheesecloth and all, into a ziplock with some cold water and left it in the car while I grocery shopped. So mine soaked for however long that took, maybe an hour and a half). This will improve the color and texture of your cheese.

Note: this recipe does not yield a whole lot of cheese, so maybe plan to make two or even three batches.

Foods of The World - February 2009

For the month of February, we're going to bring India to our kitchens and tables and share what we discover with anyone who dares come see !! If you are not a Beans Blog author but want to participate, just post the recipe to your blog, link back to the Beans Blog (you can even use the banner above if you like) and leave us a comment to let us know you've done a post. We'll come visit and maybe even try out your recipe !!

I'm going to try and cook one Indian recipe a week. My husband will be thrilled !!

I'm going to be posting some Spanish recipes throughout the month too. I've been waiting on the recipes and they have arrived from Colorado via email this week !! (Thanks Peej !!)

Can't wait to see what you all come up with !!!

PS ... that's me and my Mom in the photo ... the year was 96 ? or was it 97 ? Can't remember and can't be bothered to try and work it out. Let's just say circa 96. We are in India ... dressed in authentic Indian garb ... eating authentic Indian food ... and having a ball !!

Edited to add ...

I've finally figured out how to add a Mr. Linky !!! Hooray !!

So ... I am going to leave this post at the top of the blog for the month of February ... and anyone who wants to participate can use the Mr. Linky !

I'm so excited about the Mr. Linky ! I just want to go add Mr. Linky's all over the place !!

I can't stop saying Mr. Linky.

ha ha

EDITED AGAIN on 22 Feb ... I can only have one Mr. Linky running at a time. And since I have a weekly meme running on my Simple Beauty blog, I'm going to have to figure out how to run both ! So for the remainder of the month, lets just leave our links in the comments !! And sorry to those of you who left links in the Mr. Linky already ... I've blown them away and don't know how to get them back !! Sheesh !!

PS ... I'm excited about next month's country. I'll be revealing it soon ! We've only got just over a week left for India ... I'll be posting an Indian recipe this evening and I am planning on cooking another dish this week so will post that too. How about the rest of you ... any Indian inspiration that you want to share ?

PPS ... I just found the links so I'm going to add them here manually ...

Trina@Frugal Dr. Mom ~ Pineapple Chutney
Mary Terese ~ What every curry needs !
Chick In The Kitchen ~ Vegetable Jalfrezi

Chicken and Potato Curry

I got the base recipe for this out of a magazine years ago.
Don't know which one.
Don't make it like they said to anyway ...

I didn't actually cook this the night we had it.
Rory did.

I have cooked it once, a long time ago.

1 tbls vegetable oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tbls grated fresh ginger
400g chicken ... we use breast, chopped
2 tbls korma or mild curry powder
potatoes, how ever many take your fancy
1 and 1/2 cups water
chicken stock cube
400 ml coconut cream
mushrooms
rice

Heat oil in large pan. Cook onion and ginger til soft. Add chicken and brown. Add curry powder and potatoes. Stir til fragrant. Stir in water, stock cube and coconut milk. Bring to the boil. Cover and simmer 20/30 minutes or til potatoes are just tender. Add the mushrooms. Simmer, uncovered about 10 minutes.

Serve with rice and Great Grandma Templin's Chutney.
That recipe will follow soon !!

PS ... I think Rory may have added carrots to this too ... there's something orange in the photo !!