If anybody ever asked my what my favorite type of food was, for the longest time I didn’t have the answer and consequently gave the generic one: pizza. That answer is the safe answer but, thanks to a good friend of mine I finally have my answer: Indian food.

All the spices, variations are accepted. Photo by Ana Martinez-Ortiz

Indian food tastes amazing, from its simplest recipes like naan to its more complicated ones like Tikka Masala Chicken. And by complicated I mean more ingredients, specifically spices. In honor of my favorite cuisine I’d finally decided to actually make a dish.

This time the recipe came from Buzzfeed via their Tasty videos. Tasty has released several different tikka masala or butter chicken recipes all with the same basic concepts and varying degrees of “difficulty.” I chose what many would deem as the simplest version.

The first course of action is to assemble all the necessary ingredients. Really this means double checking you possess all the spices. I surprised myself with how many were already in the kitchen.

Once that’s done the marination process can begin. I view marination time as prep time, so while your chicken soaks up all the heavenly flavors you can chop up the onions, grate that ginger and mince some garlic.

Raw chicken does not look appealing but it must be marinated. Photo by Ana Martinez-Ortiz

Whenever a recipe involves marinating it always gives a length of time usually varying from 20 minutes to an hour, it apparently doesn’t matter what matters is that you can’t over-marinate, I least I don’t think you can.   

While you’re marinating or starting to brown the chicken, in a huge pot mix all your vegetables and spices and that single cinnamon stick, and have it simmer over low to medium heat. Time to get your multi-tasking freak on!

Check out that double burner action #multitasking. Photo by Ana Martinez-Ortiz

Side note, this recipe, in any version, is ingredient heavy, so after measuring I put that spice away so I don’t double up. Though in recipes like this you can add as much as you want. If you like it hotter add more cayenne, but you’ll want to be careful with the strong spices although ultimately more is better.

Once your onions seem transparent, pour your tomato sauce or in my case tomato paste and water into the onion mixture, add cream or coconut milk and mix to combine. If you desire a thicker consistency no need to use all the liquids, it’s up to you. When you’ve reached your desired thickness let it simmer, using all the liquids means it has to simmer longer if you don’t want it soupy.

Again, during your wait time you can make the rice, prepare the garnish, clean the dishes or set the table.

Add the chicken, simmer a little longer and ta-da you’ve just made butter chicken! Add some rice to your plate, top it with chicken and eat up.

The final product! Photo by Ana Martinez-Ortiz

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