There is nothing I love more than a good creamy butter chicken. It was my go-to curry whenever I ate Indian for a number of years pre-Bangladesh. Post-Bangladesh, I knew better.
There are a couple of great Indian places in the various food courts around Auckland - I'm particularly thinking about the ones in the mall downtown and at St. Lukes. My friends and I would eat there and head off to a movie afterwards. I learned quickly that if I tried eating a whole portion, I would have to lie down afterwards, the butter and the cream are so rich so I would save half for the next day. I also learned the hard way that I had to hide my left over curry because the movie attendants wouldn't let me take it into the movie theatre, as it was considered dangerous.
Because we don't really eat out these days, I try to make sure I can make some take-out type meals so that we're not missing out. I frequent the Indian store in Sandringham, Auckland, and bring what I can over here. My spice cupboard is fully stocked. Without a car, finding a decent Indian store here can be tricky, and I don't want to pay supermarket prices. We finally found one in Nashville and bought some yummy looking mango chutney. Also, we live in the mid-west, the whitest place in the world. I have heard that bigger cities can be a little bit more diverse but I am yet to discover this for myself.
The secret to the velvety-ness of the butter chicken sauce, it turns out, is the cream added to the sauce. Jbird says I have a vendetta against cream and it affects my cooking. Huh. I know this is true. I don't care. Anyway, in my usual style, I substituted in Greek yoghurt for the required cream tonight. I still used (almost) as much butter as I was meant to but of course, it had a strong yoghurty zing to it. This I didn't mind, knowing how much healthier it must be. Plus the chicken and sauce were succulent and flavourful. It just wasn't butter chicken. Perhaps half and half or whole milk would be a slightly closer substitute.
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