Butter Chicken at Avatar Indian Grill in Salinas, California by Ruth Paget
Butter plus warm Indian spices always sounds good to me when I order butter chicken at Avatar Indian Grill in Salinas, California.
There is more to butter chicken than butter and spices, which merits some sleuthing for ingredients and cooking techniques.
To make butter chicken, you start with Indian tandoori chicken, which is a dish all by itself. Tandoori chicken is marinated in yogurt along with ginger, garlic, garam masala (curry powder), red chili powder, turmeric, and dried fenugreek leaves (these have an onion-like flavor). Tandoori chicken is marinated overnight and is then roasted. (Recipe information source: www.indianhealthyrecipes.com)
Tandoori chicken is the building block for butter chicken Julie Sahni writes in Classic Indian Cooking. Sahni notes that Indian cooks often use leftover tandoori chicken to make butter chicken.
Once you have the tandoori chicken, Sahni advises cooks to cut it into pieces. Then, she puts tomatoes, green chiles, and ginger into a blender to make a tomato purée. Sahni’s recipe calls for browning the tandoori chicken in butter and browning cumin and paprika in the leftover butter once the chicken has been removed.
Sahni next places the tomato purée in the pan and lets it simmer before adding salt, cream, and chicken pieces in her recipe. Before serving butter chicken, Sahni’s recipe calls for adding a large bunch of chopped coriander (cilantro) to the dish to add a fresh tang to offset the rich butter.
Butter chicken is a perfect buffet dish and tastes great with naan flatbread studded with licorice-flavored anise seeds. A perfect place to try butter chicken is at Avatar Indian Grill in Salinas, California.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
