Butter Chicken Recipe:

Being a Hindu Bangladeshi I have had way too much chicken over my life. Beef is not allowed in hindu households, and mutton is not the healthiest when it comes to food. My father has been discouraged from eating mutton due to high levels of cholesterol. So chicken is the meat that is most cooked and eaten in Bangladesh. And it is truly a versatile dish as all of you know. You can make almost anything using chicken. So though plain chicken curry is kind of mundane to me due to having it during so many breakfasts, lunches, and even dinners – some unique chicken recipes are what I live for.

And today’s recipe is not something astonishing, but it’s delicious enough to stand out from just another chicken curry dish. The dish is what the name suggests, the two main ingredients are chicken and butter.

While normal chicken curry would use soybean oil, sunflower oil, or any other edible oil (not olive oil though) butter chicken skips out on the oil and replaces it with butter. So this makes the curry less oily, and more creamy and rich. It brightens the color of the curry as well.

But the difference between chicken curry and butter chicken is not in the taste due to changing oil with butter. Butter chicken tastes more sour, tangy, and mildly spicy; whereas normal chicken curry would have a stronger spicy taste. Sweeter, tangier taste of butter chicken is due to yogurt, lemon juice, whipping cream, and sour cream.

You see these are not typically used in Bengali style chicken curry. The dairy products are more prominent in mughal or other medieval middle eastern dishes. Korma, roast, badam chicken, dahi chicken – are dishes where you use yogurt, sour cream and such. And all of them have their origin outside of Bengal. But today these have become a part of the Bengali cuisine, but they still garner more fanfare in other parts of the Indian subcontinent.

Butter Chicken Ingredients

Butter chicken is a dish commonly found in Bangladesh, but the popularity here is nothing compared to the popularity in some parts of India and Pakistan. My knowledge in this regard is limited to the Indian and Pakistani media I have consumed throughout my lifetime. So these are not solid facts, speculation on my end.

Back when I was just a little toddler, the cartoon channels we used to get were from India and Pakistan. So I got more familiar with Pakistani and Indian advertisements. And I swear there were at least a few ready made butter chicken recipes. Back then, I had no idea what the dish was, nor had I ever seen it being served anywhere locally. So in my head it registered as a foreign dish. And it still kinda is.

In any restaurant in Bangladesh, butter chicken will often not be present in the menu. Butter chicken is not a household item either. You won’t find it on a dinner table at the house of an average joe. Even my most recent encounter with butter chicken was an advertisement on Youtube. In the ad a boy ran away from his vegan household to have butter chicken for lunch in a friend’s house. So again, based on my speculation of the media, I am guessing butter chicken is really popular in India, particularly Punjab, and Pakistan. Anyone more familiar with their culture, and cuisine please leave a comment saying if I am right or wrong. You can even leave your recipe for butter chicken, I would love to try a different variety of the dish.