Butter chicken

Before you start

• marinate 1 hour ahead
• a blender, and a sieve if you want it silky

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 320gchicken thighs, boneless
• 60gnatural yoghurt
• 50gbasmati rice — naan is the proper answer; rice is the one on hand
• 25gcashews
• 20gbutter
• 40mlcream
• 1 tintinned tomatoes
• 1 thumbginger and garlic
• 2 tspkashmiri chilli and garam masala
• 1 tspfenugreek leaves — kasuri methi — crushed between the palms, and the taste nobody can name
• 1 tspsugar

Method

9 steps

1. fold · 6m

   Chicken cut large and turned through the yoghurt, chilli, ginger and garlic.

2. rest · 1 hour walk away

   An hour in the fridge. Longer buys nothing here — this marinade is for colour and tang, and the tenderising is the thigh doing it by itself.

3. grill · 16m

   Spread under a grill at full heat, or on a dry pan hot enough to smoke, and left until the edges go black in patches. Cooked right through: cut the thickest piece, no pink, juices clear.

4. simmer · 15m

   Tomatoes and cashews together in the pan with a splash of water until everything falls apart.

5. blend · 6m

   Blitzed, then pushed through a sieve. The sieve is the entire difference between this and a nice tomato curry, and it is two minutes.

6. simmer · 12m

   Butter melted into the sieved gravy with the garam masala and the sugar, then cooked until it darkens a shade and stops tasting of raw tomato.

7. boil · 12m walk away

   Rice on meanwhile: rinsed, twice its volume of water, lid, lowest heat.

8. fold · 4m

   Chicken in with every scrap and juice from the grill tray, then the cream off the heat.

9. finish · 2m

   Fenugreek leaves crushed between the palms over the top, and salt last.