Month: June 2026

Butter Chicken

I have been searching for many years for a butter chicken recipe that tastes like an authentic restaurant experience. I don’t mean authentic Indian experience, just something I would get in New Zealand or Australia if I got a really nice takeaway. This is my best approximation of that! I print and laminate all my recipes out to use at home, but mum wanted this one so here it is, with pictures.

Ingredients . shopping list

Things you will need:

  • Pressure cooker, slow cooker or big pot

Per 1.2kg of raw chicken, makes about 2kg food in total, good for 2.5 meals for 2 people

  • 1.2 kg chicken thigh fillets (no bone, “cutlets” typically have bone in them)
  • 2 x 400g canned tomato
  • 1 x 400ml can of coconut cream
  • 1 x 240g Greek yoghurt
  • 1 onion

Consumables

  • tomato paste
  • ghee (clarified butter – you can use normal butter instead)
  • crushed garlic
  • crushed ginger
  • cashew nut butter
  • garam masala
  • cumin (ground)
  • chilli powder
  • sweet paprika (ground)
  • turmeric (ground)
  • salt
  • sugar

Method

Early prep:

Put the Greek yoghurt into a medium sized bowl

Add to the yoghurt:

  • 1 tsp sweet paprika
  • 1 tsp garam masala
  • 1/2 tsp tumeric
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Cut the chicken into cubes about 1 inch in size

Toss chicken in the yoghurt mix

Put this in the fridge for up to 24 hours

In the moment:

Add 2 cans of tomato to the pressure cooker, set to heat up the pressure cooker (you can skip this if using an ordinary pot)

Measure spices into a small bowl:

  • 2 tsp sweet paprika
  • 2 tsp garam masala
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp tumeric
  • 0 – 2 tsp chilli powder (0 for not hot, 2 for hot)

Dice 1 onion and start browning it in 1 tablespoon of ghee (or butter) in a stainless-steel pot

Add 1 tablespoon each of ginger and garlic

Brown the onion, ginger and garlic

Dump spices, and bloom them (you want them to darken and become fragrant, not to blacken

Add cooked onion / spice mix to pressure cooker

Brown the chicken from the fridge using ghee in small batches in the same stainless-steel pot.

Add chicken to pressure cooker, cook on high pressure for 10 mins. Alternatively cook in normal pot for 40 minutes

Add and mix through

  • 2 tbsp cashew butter
  • 3 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tbsp ghee (or butter)
  • 1 can coconut cream

add a pinch of sugar and salt to taste

Simmer to thicken the sauce

I tend to freeze in portions for 1 or 2 people, it actually tastes better the next day!

Borer

After removing the wall that separates the lounge from the kitchen, the structural engineer drew my attention to a piece of steel under the carpet “I didn’t put that there!” he asserted.

Now, we were already a little suspicious about the floor, once we started removing the plaster from the walls Tim accidentally put his knee through the floor at one point. Was that just an unlucky piece of wood or a more sinister systemic problem. Let’s find out together shall we?

We had an expert come in (from Bear Bottom inspections, tee hee) to inspect the floors and tell us what is going on. Turns out that the floorboards are riddled with borer.

Apparently the borer beetles lay their eggs in the wood while it’s in the timber yard and then some time after it’s installed the larvae hatch and eat their way out of the wood. Pretty much all the floor boards are suspect. The good thing is that the insects themselves are long gone.

You can really see how much damage they do to the wood if you cut it, the image below shows a piece of flooring that has been cut, the bit that’s been eaten by borer (left) may as well be cardboard, you can see a little sliver of solid wood on the right hand side.

Am I a little annoyed at the previous owners from not selling anything? Yes, I am, but it’s an excuse to re-do the floors properly with more modern flooring, so I am not too upset.

See below for the progressive discovery of borer in the bedroom as well, from the glossy sales photo through to bare floor through to uh oh.

Note that some floor boards are painted black? Apparently back in the olden days you would have a rug in the centre of the room and then paint the bit around the outside of the rug.