Butter Chicken

A delicious Indian dish so easy to make it almost feels like cheating

I made this dish as a lunch on the last day of my recent section hike.  We had planned to eat it the night before, but we were still too full from our late lunch of bacon cheeseburgers and fries at Brushy Mountain Outpost, and by lunch the next day we were at Woods Hole Hostel.  However, hostels don’t provide free lunches, so we broke this out and cooked it up in their kitchen.

They key component here is Kitchens of India Butter Chicken Curry Paste. You can find it at Amazon.  It comes in a 3.5 oz. packet that merely requires reconstitution with water; several other ingredients will make it even better.  Be forewarned- KOI says that this is “mildly spicy,” but it’s hotter than that.  But it’s so good that I’ve since made it for dinner at home.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup Basmati Rice in snack-sized ziploc

approx. 5 oz. freeze-dried chicken chunks (such as Redwick’s).  Feel free to use a little more if you want.

1 small onion

2 small packets of ghee

1 packet Kitchens of India Butter Chicken Paste

1 TB Amore tomato paste

3 heaping TB of Hoosier Hill Farm heavy cream powder in small ziploc

DIRECTIONS:

Add enough water to rehydrate the chicken, set aside.

Add 4 oz. water to the ziploc with heavy cream powder.  Mix thoroughly and set aside.

Cook the rice in a separate pot with 1 1/2 cups water.  A 0.6L pot works nicely.  You’ll be using a larger pot for the chicken (I found a 1.3L pot worked very well).  Set the rice aside in a pot cozy once cooked.

Dice the onion and saute it in the ghee.

Add 1 cup of water.  As it warms, add the butter curry paste and slowly break it up and mix it until it looks like a slurry.

Add the chicken and tomato paste.

Simmer for about 10 minutes.

Just before serving, stir in the heavy cream.

Serve over rice.

Feeds two hikers and makes each of them feel like a Raj.