Eat Pip-Life

How To Make Lazy, Easy Butter Chicken-Inspired Chicken

July 16, 2017
Pip's Butter Chicken

I just made this for a very late-lunch. I used to make it for the kiddos all the gosh-darned time when we lived in Fitzroy, but haven’t made it for an age. Today was the day. I KNOW! Woot!

Pip's easy Butter Chicken

 

You know, sometimes you want something that’s a LOT like Butter Chicken, but you don’t want to diddle about with all the required spices or hand over half your bank balance to order a very small and quite sparsely chicken-ed dish in?

Does that sound familiar? You could make this dish, some of those times? Perhaps?! If you want to.

This particular recipe is super easy and has always been a hit with my Butter Chicken-loving kids. Double bonus.

It’s not super authentic (hence I shall not ACTUALLY call it Butter Chicken) #HelloJarOfPaste But the results are GOOD! Your kids – and you – might like it too!

Lemme know if you make it?

x Pip


Lazy, easy Butter-Chicken-inspired Chicken

Serves 4 with rice on the side and takes 15 minutes to cook

what you need:

1/2 jar of Sharwood’s Tandoori Paste (290ml jar)
200ml of greek yogurt
1kg chicken thigh fillets
one tablespoon of tomato paste
50g of almond meal
100ml of cream
salt and pepper to taste
coriander – if you don’t hate it. I like it.
Rice to serve on the side.

what you need to do:

Put your rice on to cook first. I use a rice cooker and that’s really the best way.
Next, mix the tandoori paste and the yogurt together in a big bowl.
Chop the chicken up into bite sized pieces and plonk it into the tandoori paste/yogurt mixture. Allow to marinate – for a wee while or even overnight – whatever you have time for. A wee while is FINE. Don’t feel bad.
Put the chicken and all the marinade into a pan. I used a heavy, wide-based one. You don’t need to add oil or ghee.
Simmer over a low heat for 10 minutes, stirring often. It will get saucier as time ticks on. Simmer it uncovered and slowly so the yogurt doesn’t separate.
After the ten minutes, stir in tomato paste and the almond meal.
Cook for another couple minutes. Stir in the cream.
Simmer gently – stirring now and then – for a couple more mins until the sauce looks nicely amalgamated and it’s all cooked nicely and piping hot.
I like to grind some black pepper on at this point. Taste it and see! Add salt if you want to, too!
Note: You can thin the sauce down a bit with 1/2 cup of stock or water if you want it to go a wee bit further or are just the saucy kind.

Serve with rice or delicious roti or naan, even.

Variation: If you like a more roasted and less simmered flavour and have a bit more time – take DOUBLE the tandoori/yogurt marinade – use half to marinate the chicken thigh pieces, and then roast them in the oven until a bit golden – use the other half of the marinade to gently simmer up as a sauce (add 1/2 cup of stock) and then plonk the tandoori-roasted chicken pieces into (simmer for a few minutes to let it all meld together nicely, once you plonk the chicken in!)

6 Comments

  • Reply Lucy Kalstrom July 26, 2017 at 6:08 PM

    Cooked this tonight. Turned out nice and spicy! Used coconut milk as was out of cream, Served it with mango chutney and yogurt. Will make it again 🙂

  • Reply Nana July 17, 2017 at 6:10 PM

    Love your recipes. A wee bit of this and a plonk of that…. Hahaha! 🙂 Sounds like the recipes I give out to friends. THIS I’m going to try.

  • Reply Kate July 16, 2017 at 5:43 PM

    This sounds like my kind of recipe these days. I shall definitely put it on the menu this week. Thanks

  • Reply Kate@OneSmallLife July 16, 2017 at 5:08 PM

    I’m going to try this Pip. Thanks! Just wondering. My kids have nut allergies (annoying.) so can you suggest anything to replace the almond meal that’s not nutty? Is it just a thickener, ie would cornflour suffice or is it more for a nutty flavour? Thanks again, xk

    • Reply Pip July 16, 2017 at 5:23 PM

      It does flavour it and thicken it up, yes! BUT you could just leave it out, I reckon. You would just have not quite as thick a sauce – and a different, but still nice, flavour. x

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