armadillo cheesy garlic bread

Maybe right after everyone makes their new year’s resolution to eat healthy is not the ideal time to post this recipe but it’s just sooo good.  Plus I haven’t blogged since October…but to be fair we moved from Moose Jaw to Comox, BC for Rock’s work in November and then it was the holidays.  And so yes, technically we’re not Eating in Moose Jaw anymore, but I can’t change the name of the blog so the name is staying!

Anyway, I had been wanting to make this recipe from Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings book ever since I got it many months ago but it’s so excessive that even I couldn’t justify making it for just us. So my family’s Christmas Eve dinner was the perfect time and I made two loaves of these bad boys!  The recipe says one loaf serves 8 and I actually agree with this ‘cus while you could definitely split one between a few people (‘cus it’s so delicious that you just wanna scarf all of it), you would probably hate yourselves for the rest of the day.

1 x 1-lb round loaf French bread (we used a sourdough)  /  3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese  /  1 and 1/2 cups finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese  /  3/4 cup butter, room temperature  /  1/2 cup mayonnaise  /  4 cloves garlic, finely minced  /  1 tsp red pepper flakes (which I skipped just ‘cus I didn’t have any on hand)  /  1 tsp salt  /  1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F and in a bowl, combine all of the ingredients except for the bread. With a serrated knife, cut the bread in a crosshatch pattern with the cuts about 2 inches apart and without cutting through the bottom of the loaf.

Spread a sheet of aluminum foil on a baking sheet and put the bread in the middle.  Stuff the cheese-garlic mixture into all the cracks of the bread and spread any remaining mixture on top. Doesn’t this look AMAZING?!

Take another sheet of aluminum foil and lay it over top of the bread, crimping the edges with the bottom sheet of foil to seal in the bread. (The recipe says to spray the top sheet of foil with cooking spray but I guess I simply didn’t read that part ‘cus I was too excited… anyway it didn’t stick so you can skip this step if you want.)  Bake for 20 minutes and then turn down the heat to 375F and take off the top sheet of foil.  Bake for another 15 minutes or so.  Then dig in!  The diet can start tomorrow.

my go-to baked salmon

I haven’t blogged in months!  But to be fair, we’ve hardly spent any time at home in months (not that I’m complaining).  Last night I whipped up some baked salmon the same way I’ve been making it for as long as I can remember.  It’s honestly too easy and you only need 4 ingredients.  It does involve a healthy/not so healthy dose of mayonnaise but don’t let that deter you. I looooove mayo, but Rock, not so much. The first time I made this for him he was visibly grossed out like the hater that he is but that was before he actually tasted it!  Just try it; it’s so good.

for 4 servings:

4 salmon fillet portions (since we’re in MJ far away from any oceans, I like to use the wild BC sockeye fillets that come frozen from Costco)  /  4 heaping tbsp of Hellman’s mayonnaise (you can use more or less it’s up to you. I really have to restrain myself from piling on a mountain of mayo)  /  salt and pepper

 

Preheat the oven to 400F and spread a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Season the salmon fillets with salt and pepper and then spread a heaping tbsp of mayo on top of each fillet. It’s not the prettiest thing right now, but it’ll get better!

Bake for About 12 minutes or until the salmon is cooked through.  Then switch on the broiler just to brown the tops a bit, making sure to keep an eye on things so you don’t end up with a burnt dinner. And voila!

rock’s post: lenox almond biscotti

I always liked to drink coffee or tea with a cookie; but the biscotti is a way better option !  Like the name says, a biscotti is a twice-baked cake that you can dip in beverage.  Because they are dry and could be stored for long periods of time, they were particularly useful during long journeys and wars, and twice baked breads were a staple food of the Roman legion; just a little history interesting fact.  This recipe is from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours.

(for about 30 biscotti)

1 and 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour  /  1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder  /  1/4 tsp of salt /  1/2 cup yellow cornmeal  /  8 tbsp of butter  /  1 cup of sugar  /  2 large eggs  / 1 and 1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract (the original recipe was calling for almond extract but I made a substitution)  /  3/4 cup of sliced almond blanched or not

Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and cornmeal together in a bowl.  Then separately, I used the stand mixer with the paddle attachment to beat the butter and sugar together until very smooth, takes about 3 minutes at medium speed.  Add the eggs to the butter mixture and beat until smooth and creamy.  Add the vanilla extract, reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients until integrated.  You should have a very sticky dough.  Add the almonds and mix just to blend.

Good time to turn the oven to 350F with the rack centre.

Split the dough in two.  On a baking sheet lined with a piece of parchment paper, work the half the dough into a log about 12 inches long by 1.5 inches wide. Don’t try to shape the dome, just a very nice rough, uneven, bumpy rectangular.  Work the second half on the other side of the baking sheet.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the logs are lightly golden but still soft when to push on it.  Transfers the sheet to a cooling rack for at least 30 minutes.

Re-heat the oven to 350 F if you turn it off.

With a lot of care, transfers the cakes to a cutting board.  Cut the log the into 3/4 inch thick slices.   Re-transfer the slices to the baking sheet, standing side by side.

Bake them for 15 minutes or golden and firm.  Back on the cooling rack for the last time!  Let them cool down to room temperature if you can wait that long !  They will stay good  for a week.  You can store them on the counter but they won’t last long…

 

meissner quarktorte

This is a German cheesecake made with quark, a type of fresh cheese that is common in numerous European countries.  It’s lighter than North American cheesecake and has a very different texture; maybe kinda like a cross between a cheesecake and a spongecake.  If you’ve never had it before it’s definitely worth trying.  We had eaten this type of cake when we were in Germany last year except we had no idea what we were eating at the time.  But now we know!  This recipe was graciously passed on to me by my German friend here and is an old family recipe of hers.

You can find quark packaged in plastic tubs and it’s available at Save-on-Foods in Regina.  The recipe also calls for packaged vanilla sugar, which along with quark, is something I didn’t even know existed.  Apparently it’s really popular in Germany and you can find it here too (I think I saw it in Safeway) but I just made some myself since I already had sugar and vanilla beans.  I filled a 250 ml mason jar with granulated sugar and scraped the seeds of 2 vanilla beans into the sugar. I rubbed the seeds into the sugar with my fingers and buried the pods in. Then I popped the lid on, gave it a shake and let it sit for a week or so.  You can do that or I guess it may be easier to just buy the packaged stuff!  OK, onto the actual recipe.

125 g unsalted butter, room temperature  /  6 large eggs, yolks separated from the whites  /  200 g granulated sugar  /  1 pkg or 9 g vanilla sugar  /  1 lemon (which I forgot to include in the photo, oops!)  /  1 kg quark  /  100 g semolina  /  14 g baking powder  /  1 tbsp all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 356F.  Using  a stand mixer, cream the butter.  Next, mix in the sugar until well combined and then mix in the egg y0lks, again until well combined.  Then add in the juice and the zest of your lemon.  Now mix in the quark, semolina, flour and baking powder until you get a smooth batter.

Next, you have to whisk your egg whites until they form stiff peaks.  Obviously I wanted to use my stand mixer ‘cus my arms are pretty damn weak so I transferred my batter into another bowl, washed out the mixer bowl and then used that for the egg whites.  Switch to a whisk attachment and whisk the whites until you get stiff peaks, being careful not to over-whisk and deflate them.  Next, gradually and gently fold the egg whites into the batter until all mixed in.

Gently spread the batter into a well-greased springform cake pan (I think mine is 9 inches) and bake for 1 hour.

After an hour the centre of my cake was still a bit jiggly in the centre so I thought it wasn’t done and popped it back in for a few minutes but it quickly browned up within those few minutes.  In hindsight, the centre would’ve kept cooking a bit even after taking out of the oven so don’t be concerned if your centre doesn’t seem fully set yet; it’s still ready.  Let it cool in the pan which will take at least a few hours.  Don’t be surprised as the centre will deflate as it cools.  After it’s cooled, wrap with clingfilm and set in the fridge.  Since cheesecakes usually need to be chilled, I left it in the fridge for I think about 5 hours before slicing into it.

I had to give away cake to keep Rock from eating it all and my toddler would not stop stuffing cake into his mouth with his hands.  So, success!

crispy baked zucchini fries

These unbelievably crispy, fat zucchini wedges are from Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings cookbook and they are so good!  They remind me of zoo sticks from White Spot (every native British Columbians’ fave restaurant chain) except they’re baked instead of deep-fried.  Which makes these…healthy?  Healthier?  Whatever, I think these may be even better than zoo sticks.

Makes enough for 4 as a side.

1 lb of zucchini (that was 2.5 medium zucchinis for me)  /  1 and 1/4 cup all-purpose flour  /  1/2 tsp cayenne pepper  /  2 tsp salt  /  1/2 tsp black pepper  /  2 eggs (original recipe calls for 3 but I had a lot leftover)  /  1 cup panko bread crumbs  /  1 and 1/4 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese  /  3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat the oven to 425F and trim the ends off the zucchinis.  Halve the zucchinis crosswise and then quarter them lengthwise to make fat chunky wedges.  You’ll need 3 large plates or shallow bowls for breading the fries.  The first plate, mix together the flour, cayenne, salt and pepper.  The second plate, the eggs whisked together.  The last plate, the the panko breadcrumbs, the grated cheese and olive oil all mixed well together.

Now is the most laborious (but totally worth it!) part, breading the fries one at a time. Take each zucchini wedge and first coat in the flour mixture.   Next, dip in the egg and then press into the panko mixture, making sure it’s well-coated.  Evenly spread the fries out on a baking sheet.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until they are golden brown. You can season with a bit of salt and pepper to taste but I didn’t bother.  The recipe suggests serving these with sriracha caesar dressing (which I’ve made multiple times and is really yummy) but I was kinda lazy so just tossed together a sriracha mayo and called it a day.  The fries turned out crazy crispy and we couldn’t stop eating them.  Will definitely be making these again!

herb & garlic crusted rack of lamb

I’ve only had lamb once or twice before and had never cooked it but Rock out of the blue this weekend couldn’t pass up picking up a rack of lamb at Costco.  He’d never cooked lamb before either so I had to figure out what the fuck to do with it.  The one time I can remember eating lamb I’m pretty sure there was mustard involved and a coating of breadcrumbs, but we’re talking over a decade ago so who really knows.  So I had my lamb, wanted to use mustard and breadcrumbs, and wanted to use some of the fresh herbs we’ve been growing in our garden.  I think these are pretty classic flavours to go with lamb.  In the end I threw together bits and pieces from a whole bunch of recipes; whatever recipes came up when I googled ‘rack of lamb.’  Happily, my rack of lamb actually turned out really good.  The lamb did take quite a while longer to cook than what the multiple recipes I read said so definitely use a meat thermometer to check doneness.  Oh and somewhat related, in the past I have been known to stuff mushroom caps using basically this same breadcrumb mixture mixed with some grated parmesan.

1 frenched rack of lamb  /  1 tbsp olive oil  /  1 tbsp butter  /  salt and pepper to taste  /  2 tbsp Dijon mustard /  2-3 cloves garlic, minced  /  1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs. /. ~ 1 tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley  /  ~ 1/2 tbsp finely chopped fresh thyme leaves  /  ~ 1/2 tbsp finely chopped fresh rosemary

Preheat the oven to 400F.  On a plate, mix together the breadcrumbs, garlic, parsley, thyme and rosemary.  Generously season both sides of your lamb with salt and pepper.  Heat up the olive oil and butter in a large skillet over medium heat and sear all sides of the rack of lamb until nicely browned.  Next, brush the mustard all over the seared meat and then press on the breadcrumb mixture until you have an even coating.

Rock took that ‘action shot’ above.

Place in a roasting dish and slap it in the oven for about 20 to 25 minutes.  This is longer than what most other recipes call for but thats how long it took for me.  Just in case, start checking with a meat thermometer around 15 minutes.  For medium rare, you need the lamb to have an internal temperature of 145F.  You definitely don’t want to overcook it ‘cus Rock says overcooked lamb ends up being really tough and that would be pretty damn disappointing.

Tent a piece of aluminum foil over the meat and let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes.  Using a sharp knife, cut into single or double chops.

Not bad for my first time cooking lamb!  We had the lamb with just a simple mixed greens salad and some smashed potatoes.

cheesy black bean dip

I don’t know what’s going on.  I don’t even like beans but I found myself craving this dip that we had at my friend’s house about a month back.  It’s probably ‘cus I love anything with cheese in it and, really, who doesn’t love a good dip?  My friend graciously shared her mom’s recipe for this dip with us.  I may or may not have used a lot (almost double) more than the amount of cheese the recipe calls for.  (I did.)

1 tin of black beans, drained and rinsed  /  1 tsp canola (I used avocado) oil  /  1 small onion, finely chopped  /  2 cloves garlic, minced  /  1 large tomato, chopped  /  1/2 cup salsa  /  1/2 tsp cumin  /  1/2 tsp hot chilli powder  /  1 tbsp lime juice  /  1 cup old cheddar or monterey jack cheese (I used both)  /  1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I just garnished with a few sprigs ‘cus my cilantro plant hasn’t grown enough for 1/2 a cup yet! )

Mash the beans with a potato masher or a fork until they’re kinda chunky.  Heat up the oil in a pan over medium heat and sauté the chopped onion and the garlic for a few minutes or until the onions have softened up.  Next, add in the beans, tomato, salsa, cumin and hot chilli powder and cook for about 5 minutes, giving it a stir every so often.

Take off the heat, and If you want your dip kinda chunky, now stir in the lime juice, cheese and cilantro.  Since I’m easing myself into eating beans (I don’t like the texture of beans, but I’m suddenly wanting to eat them…what is happening!?), I decided I wanted a pretty smooth dip so before adding in the cheese, etc., I pureed the dip with a hand blender.  Then I added in the lime and cheeses and garnished with cilantro.  Up to you if you want the dip chunky or smooth, it’ll taste great either way!  You can serve this warm or at room temperature with some tortilla chips.

chicken paprikash

Although I’ve been to Hungary twice, for some inexplicable reason I never had chicken paprikash (paprikás csirke) until I made it myself.  I really don’t know why since I love paprika, chicken and sour cream so it’s kind of an obvious sell for me.  Anyway, I was inspired to try make it for the first time this past winter after seeing Lynn Crawford make it on her Food Network show.  I’ve made this a number of times now and we love it though, since I’ve only had my own chicken paprikash, I cannot say how authentic it is or how it tastes compared to chicken paprikash you’d get in Hungary.  Guess we need to go back to Hungary for a visit in the future to find out!

Anyway, I’ve scoured the internet for recipes (for more hours than I’d like to admit) and it seems like there’s a hundred variations on how to make this.  I guess it’s like spaghetti sauce; everyone thinks theirs is the best.  I adapted this recipe from Lynn Crawford’s and while I’m pretty sure wine and red peppers are traditional ingredients, I like how this turns out so I’m sticking with it.

Just a couple of things.  You must use Hungarian paprika, not the generic shit you can get at the regular supermarket.  I’ve tried it before with regular paprika, which in comparison is pretty flavourless, and it’s just not even worth your time.  We had really great hot paprika and sweet paprika that we brought back from Budapest but I used it all up so I had to hunt some down.  There’s none in Moose Jaw but I did find some at the Italian Star Deli in Regina and it shouldn’t be difficult to find in any specialty grocery shops that sell imported items.  I also like to add some tasty Hungarian paprika paste called Piros Arany (translates to Red Gold) that I picked up in Vancouver.  I’ve been told by some Hungarians here that it’s a super popular condiment back home.  If you can’t get a hold of any though, that’s totally fine.

This makes enough to serve 5 to 6 people so feel free to halve the recipe.  But this is actually great as a leftover meal and we think the paprikash sauce is possibly even better the next day.

~ 4 lbs chicken thighs and drumsticks with the skin on and bone in (this was 6 thighs and 8 drumsticks which is what happened to be available at the supermarket)  /  1 tbsp olive oil  /  1 tbsp butter  /  2 red peppers /  2 small onions  /  4 cloves garlic  /  4 tbsp Hungarian sweet paprika  /  3-4 tbsp Hungarian hot paprika  (use more or less depending on how much heat you want and can substitute with more sweet paprika if you’d like)  /  2 tbsp Piros Arany paste (optional)  /  4 heaped tbsp all-purpose flour  /   3 – 4 cups low-sodium chicken stock  /  1/2 cup white wine  /  2 cups full-fat sour cream  /  salt and pepper to taste

First for your prep; dice up the red peppers and the onions and mince the garlic.  Now in a large dutch oven or pot (minimum size 5 quarts), heat up the butter and oil over medium-high heat.  In 2 separate batches, sear the chicken on both sides until the skin is starting to turn golden brown.

After searing the chicken, take out the chicken and set aside on a plate.  You’ll be left with a sizzling hot combo of butter, olive oil and chicken fat in the dutch oven which is obviously awesome.  Throw in the red peppers, onions, garlic and sauté until the onions are turning translucent.  Next, mix in the hot and sweet paprika and the flour and let that cook for another couple minutes.

Splash in the white wine and let it simmer off a bit and then stir in your chicken stock.  You only need as much stock as to mostly submerge the chicken pieces so you can add maybe 3 cups or so first and then see how that works out before adding more.  Season with some salt and pepper to your taste.  Then add the chicken back in and reduce the heat to a simmer.  Pop the lid on and let it simmer away for about 35 to 40 minutes.  The chicken should be cooked through by then but of course you should check.

Take the chicken pieces out of the sauce and then for the final step, you add the sour cream.  Apparently, according to my obsessive chicken paprikash research, sour cream can curdle if you just add it straight to your hot sauce so you have to temper it first.  You can do this by gradually stirring in some of the sauce into the sour cream to bring its temperature up and then adding it to the rest of the sauce.  Stir in the sour cream and just let it cook for a couple minutes.  Add the chicken back to the sauce and you’re all done.

You can eat this with egg noodles, spaetzle, potatoes, rice… We had it this time with a nice sliced up baguette to sop up all the yummy paprikash sauce.

spaghetti with mizithra cheese & browned butter

I haven’t been in probably a few years now but I’ve eaten at the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurants in Vancouver and Victoria more times in my life than I could possibly count.  My absolute favourite thing to order there is the spaghetti with mizithra cheese and browned butter.  Mizithra (or myzithra) is a Greek cheese made from sheep’s milk and it is sooooo good.  Anyway, I am obsessed with this dish and I had been recently full on fantasizing about eating it again.  I used to bring back a wedge or two of mizithra from Vancouver whenever I went but I figured there must be somewhere that sells the stuff in Regina.  And then last weekend I discovered the most magical place!  We had driven by  Italian Star Deli a million times and I always said we should check it out but never did.  Then this past weekend we finally did and they had lots of imported stuff from Italy, Greece, Hungary, South Africa, that I had been wanting to get my hands on, including mizithra.  I told Rock it was the happiest day of my life, which is not true, but that’s how excited I was about this deli.

OK, now that I’ve rambled on I’ll get to it.  I’ll be honest, I never was patient enough to actually brown butter and more like just melted it.  But last night I finally took the extra like 3 minutes or so to actually brown butter and it really does make a huge difference.  I’ll never be so impatient with butter again.  This copycat recipe wasn’t so hard to figure out since the dish is literally just spaghetti, mizithra and browned butter but somehow these 3 things together is just the best thing ever.

2 portions of spaghetti  /  ~ 1 cup finely shredded myzithra cheese  /  ~4 rounded tbsp of unsalted butter  /  fresh parsley, finely chopped (optional)

Cook your spaghetti in salted boiling water until al dente.  In the meantime, in a small saucepan over medium heat, brown your butter.  After the butter has melted, it will start foaming a bit.  Keep an eye on it ‘cus it will quite suddenly brown and you don’t want it to burn.  You can use a spoon to kinda push the foam to the side to check but you’ll see the milk solids at the bottom of the saucepan start to brown and you’ll smell a sweet, kinda nutty aroma.  That’s what you’re waiting for and as soon as you’ve reached that point, remove from the heat.

And then all you have to do is toss your drained cooked spaghetti with the browned butter and then toss in the mizithra cheese and parsley.  The cheese itself is a bit salty so you can taste it first but if you want you can add a bit of sea salt.

Butter, cheese and carbs.  Everything I love, together on my plate.

best butter chicken ever

I know when butter chicken is good for the sole reason that I’ve had some pretty atrocious butter chicken over the years.  (It was really good in India and a handful of times not in India.)  Sometimes it’s bright red and tastes just like tomato sauce, sometimes it’s sickly sweet. Gross.  But a few weeks back, our friends made a really, really, really yummy butter chicken and perhaps best of all, it didn’t have any cream in it which kept my now increasingly lactose-intolerant belly nice and happy.  Instead of cream, this butter chicken is cooked with cashew butter and coconut cream. The serving dish it was in didn’t have a single drop of sauce left on it by the time we were done; that’s how good it was.  We got a copy of the recipe from them but it is honestly confusing. as. fuck.  I can’t even explain how confusing it is.  Apparently our friends make it differently practically every time anyway so I figured we could riff (quite a bit) on it.

Just a few notes, the recipe calls for Kashmiri red chilli powder which gives the dish its bright red hue.  But it’s still pretty spicy (taste it first!  I learned the hard way) so adjust the amount according to how much heat you want.  If you don’t have any on hand or can’t find any, the internet says the standard substitution would be a combination of 3 parts paprika and 1 part cayenne pepper.  If you want your butter chicken super mild though, I’d opt for substituting completely with paprika.

For garlic-ginger paste, I’ve seen both garlic paste and ginger paste in the ‘international’ aisle of the supermarket so you can buy them and mix them.  But I just got Rock to whip some up by pureeing equal amounts of fresh garlic and ginger with a splash of avocado oil.  Homemade garlic-ginger paste should keep in the fridge for a few weeks. And if you want this butter chicken to be lactose-free, use ghee instead of butter.

The recipe has 2 parts, the chicken and the sauce.  I started making the sauce just before Rock cooked the chicken so it could all come together at the same time but it’s up to you if you want to cook the chicken first.  And one last thing, the sauce I made is quite thick, though not in a bad way.  However if you prefer a thinner sauce I’d just reduce the amount of cashew butter and coconut cream.  You could also substitute coconut cream with coconut milk which would reduce the fat and make the sauce thinner.

This makes enough for 4 to 6 people.

Tandoori chicken: 4 chicken breasts  /  ~1 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder (adjust according to your taste buds)  /  2 tbsp garlic-ginger paste  /  3/4 cup plain yogurt  /  juice of 1 lemon  /  salt to taste  /  (If you’re going to barbecue the chicken, you’ll also need skewers.)

Butter chicken sauce:  2 x 796 ml tins of whole tomatoes, drained  /  4 rounded tbsp butter or ghee  /  ~ 1/2 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder  /  1 tbsp garlic-ginger paste  /  1 tbsp garam masala  / 3 tbsp cashew butter  / 3 – 5 tbsp coconut cream  /  1 tsp ground cardamom  /  2 tbsp dried fenugreek leaves, crushed  /  1 tbsp honey  /  salt to taste

For the chicken: In a large bowl, combine the Kashmiri chilli powder, garlic ginger paste, yogurt, lemon juice and salt.  Cube your chicken into bite-size pieces and toss into the marinade, making sure the chicken is all well-coated.  Slap a piece of plastic wrap over the bowl and stick it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

To cook the chicken, you can skewer the chicken and grill it on the barbecue (which is what we did) or simply grill or fry it on the stove. Just cook ’til the chicken is cooked through.

For the sauce: In a large pan or wok, cook tomatoes with 1 tbsp of butter over medium to medium-high heat until they are turning into, for lack of a better word, mush.  In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the remaining 3 tbsp of butter and stir in the chilli powder, garlic-ginger paste and garam masala.  Let this cook for about a minute; it will smell awesome.  Add this spice-butter mixture to the tomatoes, turn the heat down to medium, and toss a lid on for about 7 minutes or so. Next, add the cashew butter, coconut milk, cardamom powder and fenugreek leaves.  Put the lid back on, and let it all simmer together for about 5 to 7 minutes and then add the honey.  You don’t really have to do this but I dragged a hand blender through the sauce just ‘cus I wanted to get it super smooth. You could of course also pour it into a regular blender and puree it that way.

With the heat turned down to medium- low, add the chicken to the sauce and let that simmer for yet another 5 minutes or so.  Finally, serve with warm naan or some basmati rice.  SO good.  I’m telling you, the photo does not do this butter chicken justice.