Tender chunks of warmly spiced, melt in the mouth chicken fillet marinated in yoghurt and lemon juice with cumin, coriander, cardamom, chilli and garam masala, swathed in a heavenly sauce loaded with tomatoes, ginger, spices, cream and butter.
Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.
Butter Sauce: heat the butter in a pan over a moderate heat. Add the onions, garlic and ginger and cook on a low heat for 5 – 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the vegetables are soft and slightly caramelised.
Add the garam masala, curry spice, chilli, salt, pepper and sugar and cook for 1 minute until aromatic.
Add the tomato puree and water and stir well. Turn the heat quite low, put the lid on and cook for a further 10 minutes, stirring every now and then.
Add the cream and milk and mix thoroughly.
Cook the Chicken: you should start cooking the chicken when you have added the tomato paste and water to the sauce. You can cook it either on a barbecue, the oven or on your griddle. For barbecue and oven cooking see here.
Using a griddle: spray your griddle with vegetable oil and heat over a high temperature. When it is very hot, add the chicken and let it cook for 3 – 4 minutes.
Turn, and cook the other side of the chicken for a further 3 – 4 minutes until just cooked. It is important that the pan is very hot so you can slightly char and caramelise some of the edges.
When the chicken is cooked, take it out of the pan and let it sit for 5 minutes to rest.
After 5 minutes, slice the chicken ready to go in the sauce.
Bring it all together and serve: add the cooked chicken, and any juices from the chicken, to the sauce, mix and cook on a moderate heat until everything is piping hot.
Taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary.
Serve over freshly cooked rice, scatter with fresh coriander and serve a slice of lemon on the side.
Delicious with freshly cooked Naan Bread. For recipe, see here.
Equipment:
To serve:
Onion, Garlic and Ginger:
I chop these in a mini food processor. Its a wonderful time saver and ensures everything is very finely chopped. You can, of course, do this by hand as well.
Naan Bread:
For Naan Bread recipe, see here.
Chicken Tikka:
For Chicken Tikka recipe, please refer here.