One-Pan Golden Butter Chicken Recipe — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:02] foodwishes.com with one pan golden butter chicken. That's right, you've had butter chicken, but you've never had my golden butter chicken, which we're going to do in just one pan in about 20 minutes or so. Plus,

[00:17] later on, I'm going to show you an easy technique for making that perfect fragrant fluffy rice you get at the Indian restaurants. But first things first. And to begin our butter chicken, we will melt some butter in some

[00:29] vegetable oil over mediumigh heat. And then we'll add some diced onion along with a big pinch of salt. And by the way, if you have ghee, use ghee, which is the Indian style clarified butter in which this is traditionally cooked. But

[00:43] don't worry, the oil and butter works perfectly fine. But either way, we'll saute our onions for a couple minutes until they start to turn translucent and start to take on a little bit of color. At which point we'll transfer in our

[00:55] some boneless, skinless thighs that I cut in about one and a half inch pieces. transferred in is kind of push them down flat against the pan in one single nice even layer. And while the meat starts to sear a little bit on the bottom, we'll

[01:10] go ahead and start sprinkling our spices over the top. Starting with some garam masala, which is the key ingredient here. So make sure you find some, which should not be hard. And then we'll follow that with some smoked paprika,

[01:23] some ground cumin, plus a spoon of turmeric, which is one of the things that makes this golden butter chicken, as is the next addition, which is a little bit of cinnamon. And what we'll do is give this a good stir. And then

[01:35] we'll let those spices cook onto the surface of the chicken for a few minutes just to wake up the flavors and infuse that oil, butter, and chicken fat in the pan. All right. Classically, you toast the spices whole and then grind them and

[01:49] add them like that. But this shortcut method works really well. And once we've we'll make a space in the middle. And we'll drizzle in just a touch more oil. amount of finely minced or grated ginger along with some crushed garlic. And

[02:04] we'll sizzle that in the middle for about 30 seconds before we stir it all together and cook it for another minute or so. And the idea to add the turmeric and the cinnamon and this more than usual amount of ginger was actually

[02:17] inspired by the warm drink called golden milk which I make for Michelle once in a while. And I had an idea for brazen chicken in that. But I also wanted to make butter chicken. So I merged the two ideas. And as you'll hear later, I was

[02:30] thrilled with the results. But anyway, after we cook our ginger and garlic, we'll make another space in the middle. And we will add our tomato paste. And we'll cook that for a little bit before mixing everything together.

[02:42] And by the way, I like using the paste because it's already concentrated and intensely flavored, but there are versions with this using fresh tomato or tomato sauce or tomato puree. So, if you don't have tomato paste, but you have

[02:54] instead. And once we've cooked that starting to caramelize onto the bottom of the pan, we will finish this with a splash of chicken broth as well as a cup of cream. And we'll stir everything

[03:08] together while this comes up to a simmer, making sure we're using our spatula to scrape any goodness off the bottom of the pan. Since we absolutely want that dissolving into our sauce. And once that's been accomplished and our

[03:21] sauce is simmering enthusiastically like this, we'll reduce our heat to medium low. And we'll let this cook for like 3 or 4 minutes, at which point our sauce should have thickened nicely, not to mention be looking absolutely gorgeous.

[03:34] And at this point, we're basically done, except for one last very important step, which is to reduce our heat to low and stir in a chunk of cold butter just to add a little bit of extra richness and to add some additional shine to the

[03:48] appearance. Plus, this is butter chicken after all. So, we'll stir that in. And of course, as always, we'll give it a taste. And you can adjust the seasoning if you want. I mean, you are after all the sedartha of making this as good as

[04:01] Martha, who I've heard makes a great butter chicken. Oh, and before we serve this up, let me quickly show you a great technique for getting that perfect Indian restaurants. And what we'll do is take a couple cups of that and we'll put

[04:15] it in a bowl and take it to the sink where we're going to rinse it very thoroughly with cold fresh water. And after we fill it up and swish it around, we'll drain off the starchy water and we'll refill it. And we'll repeat that

[04:27] process three or four times until that water is relatively clear. Or it doesn't have to be crystal clear, but hopefully it looks something like this. And what we'll do is not pour off the water this time, but we'll simply let that sit and

[04:41] soak for exactly 20 minutes while we bring three quarts of water up to a simmer. And while that's happening, we'll add some salt as well as one bay leaf and a couple cardamom pods, which are optional, but they do add a gorgeous

[04:55] waiting for our rice to soak, we might as well simmer those in the water. And after our rice has soaked for 20 minutes, we'll drain off the water. And we'll transfer that rice in. And we'll give it a quick stir. And we'll set our

[05:08] timer for exactly 7 and 1/2 minutes. And while the rice cooks, we can give it a couple stirs. And once our timer rings, we will dump that into a strainer. And we'll let that drain for like 30 seconds before we very carefully, but very

[05:23] potter dish. at which point we're going to cover it tightly and let it steam for six minutes. And it's that trapped in steam cooking. And because the top of this dish wasn't perfectly flat, I added a

[05:37] towel to get a tight seal before I put the plate over the top, which worked great, except I forgot to dampen the towel, which prevents the rice from sticking. So, when I uncovered this, guess what? Oh, yeah. The rice stuck,

[05:50] which is fine. That little bit of towel rice made for a nice chef's snack. And fork and we'll give this a proper fluffing. And if everything goes according to plan, you're going to have some gorgeous, perfectly fluffy rice

[06:04] where all the grains are still a little bit firm but perfectly tender. And they should be all separate and not sticky and clumping together. And by the way, I used a California basmati rice. All right. If you want the real deal, you

[06:16] have to get imported Indian age basmati rice, which works even better. And the grains are longer and even more beautiful. And that's it to serve our golden butter chicken. I do like to garnish with some freshly torn cilantro.

[06:29] Although Michelle wants me to tell you it's not just a garnish. It's actually a key ingredient since that freshness helps cut through the richness of the chicken. And before I plated it up, I had to take a couple bites, which really

[06:42] were phenomenal. I mean, for a quick shortcut method, the chicken was perfectly cooked and the flavor was deep and profound. And that's it. I went ahead and served some up in our perfect basmati rice. And after you serve up the

[06:55] chicken, you're going to want to add an extra spoon or two of sauce. Okay, if you ever find yourself in the unlikely scenario where someone forces you to choose between the chicken and the sauce on the rice, I know it sounds crazy, but

[07:07] sauce. And after you make and try this, you'll know what I'm talking about. And yes, if you have to, you can use chicken breast for this, which is even faster since that will cook through quicker. But I hope you don't since the thighs

[07:22] stay moistister and I think have a better texture. But anyway, suit yourself. And besides the fact that this was very fast and easy to make and as I've already mentioned, could not be more delicious, I think the color of

[07:36] this is just so gorgeous and so enticing. So, if you're a fan of Indian food and butter chicken in particular, I think this is an absolute mustake, which is why I really do hope you give this a try soon. So, please follow the links

[07:50] below for the ingredient amounts, a printable written recipe, and much more printable written recipe, and much more info as usual. And as always, info as usual. And as always, enjoy.