Butter Chicken

Last night, I made two Indian dishes for dinner. It was a bit of an undertaking for a mid-week dinner, but hey, there are sufficient leftovers for a complete second meal!

The main dish was butter chicken (which has so much more tomato in it than anything else, I think it should be called tomato chicken). I found a recipe online and made my own adjustments to it, so I know this is like... Alex-ized butter chicken. Go with it.

Butter Chicken (which I think should be called tomato chicken)

Ingredients
3 chicken breast filets
garam masala
coriander
ground ginger
cinnamon
2 tsp minced garlic
8 oz peas (I got a steam-in bag and nuked them)
3 Tbsp butter
15 oz can of diced tomatoes in juice
14.25 oz can of tomato sauce
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 an onion, diced

Equipment
skillet, stove

Instructions
Cook your chicken. Technically this should be made with baked or rotisserie or tandoori chicken, but I made mine like this but with garam masala and some salt. Take out your chicken and let it cool and absorb its juices for a while. (This is time I spent paying attention to the samosa filling.) Dice your onion. Melt butter in the pan and add onion, cooking until they're golden. Add the garlic, tomato paste, and about 1/2 tsp each of garam masala, coriander, ginger, and cinnamon. Stir constantly for a few minutes, until well blended. Add the diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, mix thoroughly, let it heat through. Add the chicken and let it heat through. Add the peas and cream, mix thoroughly, let it heat through but don't boil.

Yields
SO MUCH. Probably about six servings.

Total time
30 minutes if you're making it by itself*

Cleanup rating 3/5
It can be a messy dish, but it's mostly tomato sauce so it comes off fairly easily when you clean it right after dinner.

Difficulty rating 4/10
There are a lot of ingredients to keep track of, but if you play the cooking show game (set out all your ingredients ahead of time) it's a lot easier.

Flavor rating 7/10
I had never had butter chicken before, so I don't know how accurate I was, but I thought it was good. I think we could do without the diced tomatoes (I like tomato sauces but not pieces of tomato) so I'll probably experiment with this one in the future.

*I made this with samosa filling so it actually took about an hour to make dinner.