This is another of the blogs from 2015 that I rescued from my external hard drive- I hope you like it:
Neil’s recipe book
Back in 1976 my mother gave me a recipe book to put all my favourite recipes in. It has been so well used over the years that it was falling apart . My favourite recipes were covered in tomato sauce, cherries, flour and other ingredients. In December 2012, when on holiday in Sydney, Australia I decided to start to type all the recipes and add photos of the dishes as I made them. The huge task was finally finished in December 2014 and I had it professionally designed and printed and distributed 50 copies to my friends around the world. The feedback has been great so I thought I would share some of my favourite recipes with you .
This is the first dish I learnt to cook in Bahrain, taught by my great friend Anis Nadeem. I love chicken and I love mild curry so he introduced me to this mild creamy curry from his native Pakistan. Before I give you the recipe I just wanted to discuss the use of the word curry.
Did you know that the word "curry" does not appear on menus in South Asia?
There is no such thing as “Indian Cooking” either.
It is such a vast and varied country and so there are enormous regional and cultural variations (e.g. in the south the staple is rice whereas in the north a great variety of breads is more commonly eaten).
My special thanks to my second Curry teacher, Rehana Gardiner – we will have some of her delicious “Indian” recipes on the blog later!
Back to the butter chicken curry.
The only problem when the recipe got typed for the new recipe book was that instead of saying one and a half teaspoons of Red Chili powder someone typed one and a half CUPS of red chili powder- which made it VERY HOT!
My apologies if you followed the recipe exactly! The correct version is given below:
Butter chicken curry- a favourite in Pakistan
Ingredients
150 ml natural yogurt
50g ground almonds
Half a teaspoon chili powder
Quarter teaspoon crushed bay leaves
Quarter teaspoon ground cloves
Quarter teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon Garam masala
4 green cardomen pods
1 teaspoon ginger pulp
1 teaspoon garlic pulp
400 g can tomatoes
Quarter teaspoon salt
1kg chicken, skinned, boned and cubed
75g butter
1 tablespoon corn oil
2 medium onions sliced
2 tablespoons fresh coriander, chopped
4 tablespoons cream
Method ( or Procedure as my Kabayan say!)
- Place the yogurt, ground almonds, all the dry spices, ginger, garlic tomatoes and salt in a mixing bowl and bend together thoroughly
- Put the chicken into a large mixing bowl and pour over the yogurt mixture
- Set aside and melt together the butter and oil in a wok and add the onions and fry for 3 minutes. Add the chicken mixture and stir fry for 7- 10 minutes
- Stir in half the coriander and mix well. Pour over the cream and stir in well. Bring to the boil. Garnish with the remaining coriander and serve
Tzatziki, yogurt and banana, pot plain yogurt and tablespoon sugar, cinnamon mixed chilled dip, grated cucumber, mango chutney, poppadoms.etc.
Best wishes and I hope you like it.
Chef Neil
And in 2022, TBK cooks the Butter Chicken Curry in my Adagio apartment in Dubai. Watch the vlog below.
Special thanks to:
· Anis Nadeem for the recipe
·
Jane Frost for the apron for
Anis ( see Recipe book photo)
· Corleen Duero for the original Chef Neil apron
· Jenan for the graphic design on the 2014 recipe book
· Adam Eddie- Original Apron photography and recipe book printing
Editor's footnote- I lost the original photos so I added new ones from 2020 when I cooked this dish as part of our curry feast when Rakesh and Suresh came for lunch.
Until the next ( old or new ) blog this is the British Kabayan signing out , as usual, with:
Ingat Palagi
Mahal Kita
Kita Kits
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Hello, I am The British Kabayan! Feel free to read my stories.
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