Indian Butter Chicken -- a #recipe from our travels by @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: In April, Mr. Right and I went to Seattle for the Left Coast Crime reader-author convention, and stayed for a few days to enjoy the city. We met my BFF at Benaroya Hall to hear the Seattle Symphony perform Mahler’s Third, the New World Symphony. The next day, she picked us up and we drove to the Skagit Valley to see the tulips in full bloom. We went to the Seattle Art Museum, Emerald City Guitars, and of course, the Market. Call it research – but you know I mean “eat.” 

"The Bluest Skies are in Seattle: Getting the Locale Right" - panel

At the banquet, with MLK blog mates Leslie Karst, Libby Klein, and Vicki Delany

Cozy Coffee, with a few readers

At Roozengarden, LaConnor, Washington

At World Spice

Mr. Right and I enjoy recreating dishes we’ve had on our travels. One night, we went to Wild Ginger, an absolutely delicious restaurant with a Pan-Asian theme in a historic building downtown.

He had the duck. I ordered Butter Chicken, a classic Indian dish that we’d both heard of but never tried. (You might enjoy this NPR piece, “A deep dive into the controversy over who created the Indian dish: butter chicken.”) 

Oh, my. Tender chicken cooked in a curry thickened with pureed tomatoes and served over rice. I couldn’t eat it all, so one night in the hotel, it was Leftovers Night – half a turkey sandwich, nachos, and the chicken. No microwave, so we warmed it all with the hair dryer. Call it a Hair Fryer. It won’t get your food hot, exactly, but warm enough to eat and enjoy!

This dish is little hotter than the Wild Ginger version. We used cayenne; if you’d like to tone it down, use ground chilis (note that typical American chili powder may include other spices) or skip that ingredient entirely. The cooking process sounds more involved than it really is. Garam masala is a classic Indian blend without much heat – you can buy the blend or make your own. See my recipe in Guilty as Cinnamon.) Note that the chicken does need to sit in the marinade for at least 3 hours. 

I’ll share more recreations from our travels in the next couple of weeks. 

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe so you can print it easily. Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Indian Butter Chicken 

For the marinade: 

1/2 cup plain yogurt 

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon ground turmeric 

2 teaspoons garam masala 

1/2 teaspoon ground chilis or cayenne 

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tablespoon ginger, freshly grated or jarred

2 cloves garlic, crushed or minced

1-1/2 to 2 pounds chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces

For cooking and for the sauce:

2 tablespoons butter 

1 cup tomato sauce or crushed tomatoes 

1 cup cream or half and half 

1 tablespoon sugar

1-1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons butter (additional)

For serving: 

Jasmine or Basmati rice, cooked

fresh cilantro leaves, chopped (optional)

Make the marinade: Combine the marinade ingredients in a bowl or casserole dish with a lid. Mix well. Add the chicken and stir to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours, or up to 24 hours. 

To cook the chicken and sauce: White rice usually takes 20-25 minutes to cook, on the stove or in a rice cooker, so start it before you cook the chicken. 

In a large saute pan, heat the butter over medium to medium-high. Use a fork or slotted spoon to remove the chicken pieces from the marinade and place in the pan. (Keep the leftover marinade in the bowl for a later step.) 

Cook the chicken 3-5 minutes, until it appears whitish – because of the marinade, it won’t appear to actually brown.

Add the tomatoes, cream or half and half, sugar, and salt. Scrape in any marinade left in the bowl. Stir well, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. Just before serving, stir in the additional two tablespoons of butter.

Serve over rice. Garnish with cilantro, if you’d like. 

Serves 6. 

Enjoy!

Do you like to recreate dishes you've eaten in restaurants or on your travels? Do tell!

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

TO ERR IS CUMIN: A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, coming July 16, 2024 in paper, ebook, and audio)

From the cover: 

One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.

Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.

On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.

Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.

One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .

Available at Amazon  * Barnes & Noble  * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest book is Between a Wok and a Dead Place, the 7th Spice Shop mystery.  Watch for To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery, in July 2024 and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. 

A past president of Sisters in Crime and national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

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