Recipe Review - Butter Chicken (Indian Cookbook)

[ElsieD]

What is the milk fat content of single cream?  Thanks!

[Cornish Cream]

Single cream has a minimum fat content of 18%.

[ElsieD]

I just made this chicken.  As I stated in another post, this is my first "meal" using the TM so I'm doing it in 2 stages.  The chicken first, then I will make the rice and vegetables using the Varoma.  Now that I have a better sense of what using a TM is all about, I have a question:  Can I cook the rice and the vegetables (in their proper containers) while the chicken was cooking for it's 20 minutes?  

I have to say that I can't stop eating the sauce.  We still have a couple of hours to wait for dinner but I'm pretty sure that when my husband comes home from work I'll have to pry him away from the pot, too.  This is fabulous.

My impression so far of the TM?  Where have you been all my life?

[Tasty]

My experience with butter chicken last night was rather frustrating. Firstly, I hadn't read through the recipe before (but apparently it's the one from the Indian Cookbook) so I didn't realise how long it would take to make the paste and then actual butter chicken.

I decided to reduce the tikka paste recipe by 1/4 as I didn't have sufficient ingredients to make the full amount or even half of it. So, when you reduce it by 1/4 - it's hard for the TMX to accurately measure some of the ingredients so I'm not sure if that worked out properly. Can't we just have measurements like 1 teaspoon instead of 10g of this and 10g of that? Also, I just put everything in and forgot about heating certain parts and blending others so I guess I made a total disaster out of it.

When making the actual butter chicken, I almost had double the amount of chicken necessary so I just used it. Probably a good thing as otherwise there is too much sauce.

So the final product tasted alright but it just didn't taste like butter chicken. It was rather bland. I feel reluctant to make this again, mainly because of how the ingredients are in grams rather than teaspoons etc. The little jars I buy don't come in 100g as needed but 25g. Any tips/hints? What do you use? Did you make the full amount of tikka paste and where did you buy your ingredients from?

[passionflower]

We had this last night along with nan bread made in the thermie as well. It was delicious very authentic tasting and very very nice. Only thing I will do next time is chop my chicken a bit more chunkier

[em]

hi elsie d. how did you go cooking this the other day?  i am always the same with the sauce so tasty, its hard to stop eating it.  i have  never steamed the veg and rice at the same time as the butter chicken, but it sure would be handy to be able to  do.  has anyone else done it with this recipe? to be honest i am wondering if it would all fit in the jug as the butter chicken fills the majority of the jug.

hi tasty
sorry to hear you had trouble with this recipe. when i first got my tm i found it abit strange that most of the recipes are written in grams too but it doesnt bother me as much now. 
i usually make the paste recipe in advance, when i know i am going to make this for dinner, it lasts in the fridge for ages so i have never had to throw it out cause it has gone off or anything, we generally use it up so quickly i find i need to make more!
possibly the reason it tasted bland was because you didnt have enough ingredients to make the full paste recipe, definantly give it another go when you get a chance, its a winner in this house and is usually so tasty! i usually find most of the ingredients at coles or local supermarket. hope this helps

[judydawn]

Tasty, everyone who tries this recipe loves it so I wouldn't give up on it.  Most of us make the full quantity of tikka paste or at least half of the quantity - I freeze mine in ziplock bags of 100g so that it is always on hand, I don't have to worry about whether it is out of date and it saves a whole heap of preparation just having it there.  I usually go to an Indian supermarket for spices etc as they are so much cheaper than our supermarkets and the packets are larger too - cheaper and larger, can't beat that.

[ElsieD]

em, yesterday we had the Creamy Garlic Shrimp Risotto for dinner and it was perfect.  I also made chocolate pudding that someone had posted but it did not set up so I am going to re-heat and add more cornstarch and see if that does the trick.  Tonight I want to cook fish using the Varmoma.

I did cheat a bit on the butter chicken and used a purchased tikka paste.  A good brand here in Canada is Patak so I used that.

One thing I have been doing is measuring everything after weighting.  We are much more used to cooking with measuring cups and spoons than we are by weight.  So, I have no idea, for example,  what volume is represented by 500 grams of something or 50 grams of something else.  And, of course, density affects volume/weight so 100 grams of one thing will not have the same volume as 100 grams of something else.  So I thought I would do up a chart with these conversions as a reference for future use.

[passionflower]

Oh Elsie D I am finding I have the other problem. I can understand grams ok but have no idea what a cup is  and with the thermie is so easy to weigh everything by the grams needed. Is funny isn't it depends what you've been used to.

[ElsieD]

passionflower, a cup is 8 fluid ounces.  One teaspoon is about 5 ml, a tablespoon about 15 ml.  It takes 16 tablespoons to make a cup.  I expect that once I get used to cooking by weight I'll have a better idea of the volume of various ingredients and their relationship to weight.

[teagg]

Just a quick note-
There are metric cups (250ml)
And imperial (American) cups (suggested 240ml but actually 238ml, I think)

Then there are tablespoons (15ml or 3x 5ml teaspoon) and Australian tablespoons (20ml or 4x 5ml teaspoon). So just check the recipe or the front of the recipe book where it will normally tell you the size of the tablespoon being used. Again the American spoon volumes are slightly less than the metric equivalents.

On the basis, however, that the TMX only works in five and then ten gram increments, there is a tolerance level for errors automatically built into the recipes. 

I will often use my separate digital scales, which increase in one gram increments, and weigh everything in advance into little bowls...

[Tasty]

Ok, I think I might try this again but next time I might make the full tikka paste in advance and then the butter chicken some other time. It has to be good since so many of you have tried it with success.

I don't normally have a problem weighing ingredients using the TMX but because the quantities were so small sometimes I was putting in a whole lot and the scales didn't change. I might try teaggs suggestion.

I don't think I'll be trying this for a while though as it's springtime now and I have a baby on the way that is due today!

[judydawn]

Oh wow, due today - I wouldn't start anything then Tasty.  Good luck and I hope you don't have to wait too long for it to happen.

[ElsieD]

teagg, that's interesting.  I didn't know that Australian teaspoon/tablespoon measures were different.  I'll have to keep that in mind when looking at Australian recipes.

[medusa]

Made this recipe tonight for dinner and it was really yummy.  Even kids loved it.  I followed the recipe to a tee well actually I thought I had brought enough fresh coriander but I hadn't, it was a huge bunch but it didn't register on the scale at all.  Oh also I used a pataks tikka paste and it was fine.

five out five from us.