Black Pepper Butter Chicken or Kali Mirch Murgh Makhni is a dry kind of chicken recipe. A super hit chicken recipe by my mother, although she is a pure vegetarian, but she loved to cook for us. Very easy to make and superbly delicious in taste. Great as appetizers to be served with drinks!

My mother is a pure vegetarian, while my father is a pakka wala( big fan) non vegetarian. Marriages are made in heaven, well my mother never had problems with papa eating non veg. Before marriage my mother had never cooked or even seen any one cooking chicken or mutton. Well she was married in a family where except my grand mother, everyone else was huge fan of non veg food.
As My Dadi ( grandma) didn’t cook or eat non veg, there was a help at our paternal house who used to cook non veg food items. I dont know how my mother learnt from him and started doing experiments with chicken and mutton. Gradually, she started cooking awesome chicken and mutton even better that anyone else.

This is her own recipe of butter chicken and believe me you will lick your fingers if you follow the recipe and make the chicken exactly the same way. The method is very simple. First you have be sure that the chicken is fresh. I use halal chicken and then marinated it in two steps. The marination includes dahi ( yogurt) , ginger garlic, black pepper and salt. After marination, the chicken is cooked in butter on low to medium flame uncovered. Read the recipe below for exact measurements and method.

Marination time 2-3 hours| cooking time 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1 lb or 500gms Fresh Chicken( I used Fresh Halal chicken)
4 tbsp Hung curd or greek Yogurt
2 tbsp Ginger Garlic paste ( for marination) + 2 teaspoon for stir frying
2 tsp crushed black pepper ( add more if you like more spicy)
1 tbsp. Lime juice
Salt to taste
3 tbsp unsalted Butter

You will also need a heavy bottomed non stick pan or a ceramic pan.

METHOD
1. Wash and pat dry chicken using a paper towel.
The marination for this chicken is done in two steps. First make small slits in the chicken and rub salt, pepper and lime juice to all the pieces of the chicken. Keep this aside in a bowl for 20 minutes.

2. In another bowl mix curd or yogurt, little salt and ginger garlic paste. Be careful with the salt as you have already added salt in the first marination. Take out the marinated chicken pieces and now marinate in this yogurt and ginger garlic mixture. Make sure that all the chicken pieces should be well coated with the mixture.

3. Cover this bowl containing chicken pieces with a plastic wrap or you can also transfer the entire chicken into a zip lock pouch and then place this into fridge for 2-3 hours.

4. After 2-3 hours, take the chicken out and keep aside for 15 minutes.

5. In a heavy bottomed non stick pan , heat butter. Add a 2 teaspoon of ginger garlic paste and cook it until it turns brown, add the marinated chicken pieces one by one so that the butter and ginger garlic mixtures coats each and every piece.

6. On medium flame start cooking the chicken. keep flipping the pieces after every 5 minutes. This way your chicken will be evenly cooked. Once you think that the chicken is properly cooked ( just check with a fork , there should be no redness in the chicken), take the chicken out and drizzle some drops of butter and lime juice. Serve hot with onion rings and mint chutney.

Enjoy!
Thanks,
Swati.

FOOT NOTES
1. The most important tip to make a delicious chicken recipe is to roast it properly. If you are making gravy chicken or dry chicken, don’t add water unless the chicken is properly roasted in spices.
2. for this recipe make sure that the pieces are not too big and the chicken is fresh.
3. You can add more yogurt and ginger garlic if you have more chicken or you think that the marination is not enough to cover all the pieces.
4. To add more flavor you can add chaat masala on top or mint chutney too.