Indian Cuisine at Home

We love Indian food.  I'm sure I've mentioned that in a previous post.   But, since tree nuts are in many Indian dishes and one of the younger ones has a life threatening allergy to tree nuts, I've been trying to make our own at home.  All of us love curry.  All but one of us likes Butter Chicken.  And that's what I made last night for dinner, along with Naan bread and basmati rice.  I use a recipe that I found on Food Network for the Butter Chicken and adapt it to my own preferences.  That recipe calls for using a rotisserie chicken, which I don't use due to the nut allergy.  Instead, I usually bake up some skinless, boneless chicken breasts.  However, this time I had bought some skin-on and bone-in chicken thighs on sale.  I'll admit, the skinless, boneless chicken breasts is much, much less time consuming, as well as my preference now.  Timing of these dishes is of essence, to be able to sit down and eat them together, so I'll share with you what I learned from last night's experience.

Naan bread needs to be started at least an hour to an hour and a half before starting the Butter Chicken dish and basmati rice, if you are using the rotisserie chicken.  If you are baking your own chicken you will want to do that in advance, so that it has time to cool for cutting or shredding. 

I needed to bake my chicken first.  I actually felt that the chicken I had equaled two rotisserie chickens, so I doubled everything for the Butter Chicken recipe (the recipe that follows is not doubled) last night.  I baked the chicken thighs at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.  Then I let them cool so that I could handle them.

While the chicken cooled, I started working on the Naan.  The yeast needs to be at room temperature, so if you buy it in bulk, like I do, you need to pull it out of the fridge in advance.  I used a recipe I found on Pinterest for the Naan and followed it exactly, except that I used vanilla yogurt.

I have used plain yogurt as well as vanilla yogurt and both have worked well.

The original recipe is from Andrea's Recipes..
Here's what the dough looked like before rising.

Then I started working on the basmati rice.  I have a rice cooker that we got a few months ago.  I absolutely love my rice cooker!  Basmati rice needs to be rinsed first.  Until last night I used to put the rice into a bowl of water and then poor it into a strainer to drain and then repeat the process one or two more times.  I had seen Aarti Sequeira of Food Network use the strainer in a bowl of water and then pull it out of the bowl of water to drain.  Well, that sure is an easier process, especially when you have to rinse it two or three times! 

Here's three cups of bastmati rice before soaking in the bowl of water.

 
The rinsing helps to get rid of some of the starch.  Here's the beginning of the first rinse.

You need to rinse till the water is clearer, which really can take two or three times.  The water looks milky like this:

Rinsed and in the rice cooker with the appropriate amount of water.

Now onto the Butter Chicken!  I use this recipe that I got from Food Network, but adapt it for my family.

My adaptation:

I use the spice blend exactly as it is in the recipe I linked to.

For the sauce, I changed:

• 6 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons jarred minced garlic
• 3 lbs. baked/cooked chicken (breast, thigh or whole chicken with the meat pulled off the bone)

I don't use peas.  Everything else stays the same.

*Remember I doubled the recipe to fit my needs last night, so the pictures are the doubled amounts.  These measurements written here are not doubled. 

The spices before blending (Please excuse the absent minded sprinkling of garlic powder mixed in there, which was mistaken for ginger while I was distracted by a question asked of me):

To make the sauce, I use my Rachael Ray oval cast iron pot with ceramic coating, and yes it is orange. The spices smell!  I hear lots of "ohhhh that smells good" at this point!.

 I recommend breaking your chicken down into the pieces before starting this your first time and then gauge your timing for the next time you try this.

Now, back to the Naan bread while that simmers away.  Here's what it looks after rising for one hour.

Divide the dough into eight pieces:

Then shape into teardrop-like shapes:

I didn't take pictures of the Naan on my pizza stone in the oven, because...well, the heat needs to stay constant and it's a challenge to take a picture while you are putting dough on a hot stone in a hot oven with a baby crawling/walking around.  Here's what they look like after baking.  The shiny ones have the garlic butter and the other one has not been buttered yet.  We've now had it both ways and both ways are very good.

Now at some point during the shaping and baking of the Naan, the Butter Chicken is ready for the heavy cream.  The original recipe I have adapted from calls for peas.  I don't use peas.  Why?  Because the Indian restaurant that I had first tried this dish at didn't have peas in theirs.  So I don't either.  The rice should be ready by now too.  If you have a rice cooker, it should keep the rice warm if it's already done.  If not, then you have a couple more steps to do manually.  Here's the Butter Chicken after adding the heavy cream.

Here's the rice from my rice cooker all ready for plating:

My plate:

Of course, you could serve another vegetable with this, but I didn't.  It's got a some tomato, so I had a little vegetable in there - antioxidants right?

And what does baby think about all of this?

She kept blinking when I took her picture.  Somehow I missed getting a picture of her eating the Naan last night, but I did get a picture of her eating it the first time I made it.

We had enough left over to eat for lunch today.  I did make Naan fresh for lunch.  Just as good the second time around.
I hope this inspires you to give it a try.