ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) (04/22/91)
The Bombay Taj recipe for Chicken Makhani! Ingredients: 2 pounds of (bony) chicken 1 cup yogurt (dahi) 1" piece of ginger 8 cloves garlic 2 tbs lime juice 4" stick of cinnamon 8 cloves 8 cardamoms 10 black peppercorns 1 tbs oil 2.25 pounds tomatoes 1 tsp. dried fenugreek leaves (optional) 1 tbs. white pepper powder (essential) 1 ounce cream (optional but recommended for a touch of class) 1 !!pound!! butter. You can get away with 0.6 lb if 1 lb is too much. salt to taste if you use yellow butter, then scale down the salt accordingly. If you use white butter, then you will need more salt. coriander (cilantro): optional topping. Precision demanded: pretty high Algorithm: 1. clean chicken and remove the skin 2. make a smooth paste of yogurt, garlic, ginger, lime juice, cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, peppercorns and the oil Marinate the chicken in this for 6 hours. 3. Bake the chicken in a preheated oven for 10 minutes at 250 F (130 C). Put it aside. It kindof makes sense to finish steps 1-3 before starting step 4. 4. We need to get a tomato sauce. Cut tomatoes, put 'em in a pan (no water) and boil. When the quantity has dropped by half, strain through a fine sieve. What comes out of the sieve is the tomato sauce. (This is hard work with a clumsy sieve). 5. Take a pan, start heating the sauce, add the butter. When the butter is melted, add the white pepper powder, salt, fenugreek leaves and cream. 6. Mix the chicken pieces into this sauce. You may like chopped coriander (cilantro) as topping. Serve hot. This works best with good rice (i.e. basmati). If you don't like struggling with chicken bones, this recipe works perfectly with boneless chicken. You need to estimate how much boneless chicken to use: I guess 2 pounds of chicken is around 1.25 pounds of boneless chicken. Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu