After trying for my first time the butter chicken in an Indian restaurant, I know that I had to do it at home (you won’t guess how many Indian recipes are naturally gluten-free!). After many attempts, I could finally reach a balanced recipe that could please everyone, even the people that hate spices and hot food!

My wife and I cannot eat spicy hot food since it harms our stomachs. As well, we know loads of people, especially from Latin America, who are not used to spicy food and cannot tolerate it. But guess what, they went crazy with this one!

My final test was to give a cooking class for my whole family including my aunt, cousins and my grandmother! After all the chaos you would expect from an Italian family in a video call (on Zoom, of course, cause, you know… COVID) as everyone was talking, some shouting, some left behind and a lot of laughter, they managed to finish their cooking. I can’t explain their reactions when they tried the food they made themselves. They were totally amused saying that this was the best thing they have tried for a long time. I was so happy with the results that actually, that was the kickstart I needed to start this blog.

This recipe is quite easy to make and you need a few things only:

• A skillet
• A pot with its lid
• A blender

You need to know that you have to marinate the chicken for at least an hour before starting to cook (you can also leave it overnight). This step is essential to have a flavorful chicken and the yogurt and spices will make it tender as well.

Also, please read the labels. This recipe calls for a lot of spices, and I have seen quite a bunch that have either gluten ingredients or cross-contamination. So be careful!!

We will use a classic Indian spice mix called Garam Masala. You can buy it ready from your store or make it yourself (a future post coming for it!). Speaking with my Indian colleague, he told me that the quality of the garam masala is crucial for this recipe. Lots of brands that they sell here and not good enough and quite bland. He even brings his own garam masala from India! So my recommendation is to try to get an Indian branded spice. It will make a difference, trust me (I have tried).

Now, enough talking, let’s go to the recipe!

Simply the Best Butter Chicken

Recipe by Giovanni PamparanaCourse: Indian, MainsCuisine: IndianDifficulty: Medium

Servings

6

servings

Prep time

15

minutes

Cooking time

30

minutes

Just OMG this Butter Chicken. It has flavor, creamy texture, the right amount of spices… everything!

Ingredients

• Chicken Marinade

• 800 g chicken thighs (boneless and skinless)
  You can use breasts also but I firmly recommend thighs

• 3/4 cup plain yogurt (if you can use 2% fat or more is better)

• 1 tbsp finely grated ginger

• 1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic (around 8 cloves)

• 2 tsp garam masala

• 1-2 tsp chilli powder (depending on how hot you like your food, with 1 tsp you won’t feel it spicy)

• 1 tsp ground cumin

• 1 tsp turmeric

• 12 g salt (1 1/2 tsp kosher salt)

• Sauce

• 2 tbsp ghee (you can replace it with 1 tbsp of butter + 1 tbsp vegetable oil)

• 1 onion (diced)

• 1 1/2 tbsp minced garlic (around 8 cloves)

• 1 tbsp finely grated ginger

• 2 tsp garam masala

• 1 1/2 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp ground coriander seed (or 1 tbsp dry coriander)

• 1-3 tsp chilli powder (depending on how hot you like your food, with 1 tsp you won’t feel it spicy)

• 550 g diced tomatoes

• 16 g salt (2 tsp kosher salt)

• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar

• 1 cup heavy cream

• 1 cup unsalted raw cashews

• Fresh parsley to garnish

Directions

• Cut the chicken into 2×2 cm cubes and mix with every ingredient in the marinade section. Cover up and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour (can be overnight as well).
• Heat a large pot and melt the ghee (or butter + oil mixture) and fry the onions on medium heat until they start to sweat (they will start to look a bit translucent) stirring occasionally. It will take around 5-10 minutes, but be careful, don’t let them brown.
• Add the garlic and ginger, and continue cooking them for 3-5 more minutes until you feel the fragrance of them. Continue stirring occasionally.
• Incorporate all the spices and fry them for 1 minute so they release all their fragance as well!
• Now add the tomatoes, salt and sugar. Give it a good mix and put the lid on. Keep the heat on medium so it simmers (you will see some bubbles coming out from the sauce, it’s like a low boiling). Let it cook for 15 minutes stirring once in a while so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
• Meanwhile, heat up a large skillet with 2 tbsp of olive oil. When it’s hot, start frying the chicken on medium-high with all the marinade (it has all the flavour!!). Just cook it until the sides are cooked, since we are going to finish it with the sauce!
• When the sauce finishes cooking, put it on the blender with the cashew nuts. Blend it until it becomes a smooth sauce. If you see that the sauce is too thick to be blended, you can add a little water to help it (no more than 1/4 cup, we still need a rather thick sauce).
  Tip: Be careful with this step, since the sauce is hot, steam bubbles can be produced and splash out sauce everywhere and can burn you!
• Return the sauce to the pot, transfer the chicken with all its juices to the sauce and add the heavy cream. Cook everything together at medium heat so it simmers for about 10 minutes until the chicken is fully cooked and the sauce has thickened.
• And now, serve over hot basmati rice, garnish with chopped parsley and a jet of cream! Enjoy!

The post Simply the Best Butter Chicken appeared first on The Gluten-Free Corner.

Indian food has a lot of recipes that are naturally gluten-free. Personally, I don’t like too much spiciness in my food so the only Indian food I eat is butter chicken (and this one is naturally gluten-free :D). Although this, I always envied my friends that were eating their Indian food with this bread with an incredibly nice buttery smell. So I tried to give it a go and it turned out great!

Here I present to you my version of the Indian Naan Bread made gluten-free. The nice thing about this recipe is that you don’t need special equipment to prepare this bread. Also, the flour blend is simple and easy!

I would say the only ingredient that would be kind of difficult to get is the ghee. Lots of stores nowadays have it, but I the ones I have seen have gluten on them (read the labels!). You can make your own ghee at home (I’ll upload a recipe soon to help you with that), or you can use a mixture of butter + vegetable oil.

I’ll upload the step-by-step instructions and pictures soon

Gluten-Free Naan Bread

Recipe by Giovanni PamparanaCourse: Lunch, DinnerCuisine: IndianDifficulty: Easy

Servings

8

servings

Prep time

1

hour 

30

minutes

Cooking time

20

minutes

This gluten-free naan bread will help you eat your Indian food like you should!

Ingredients

• 100 g cornstarch

• 75 g tapioca starch

• 75 g white rice flour

• 100 g brown rice flour

• 4 g xanthan gum

• 10 g instant yeast (2 tsp)

• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar

• 4 g salt (1/2 tsp kosher salt)

• 235 ml warm water (1 cup) (105-110ºF / 40-43ºC)

• 20 g honey

• 42 g melted ghee (3 tbsp)
  Can be replaced with 28 g of melted unsalted butter (2 tbsp) + 1 tbsp of vegetable oil

• 1/3 cup plain yogurt

• Some more ghee or butter + olive oil mixture to fry the bread later (at least 3-4 tbsp of ghee or the same amount of butter and olive oil mixture)

Directions

• Start by mixing the water, yeast and honey and leave it there to bubble! If you see that foam is starting to form, it means that your yeast is active and ready to go (around 3-5 minutes).
• Homogenize the dry ingredients (flour, starches, salt, xanthan gum and cream of tartar) using a whisk. This is really important so the xanthan gum is well distributed.
• Now mix everything together!! Using a silicone spatula start mixing and scraping the borders until you can’t continue with it. Now it is time to knead the dough!
• Transfer the dough into a silicone mat and start kneading for around 10 minutes so everything is well mixed and homogenized. The dough will be kind of firm, but not sticky. If it sticks a bit, you can oil your hand a bit and everything will be ok.
• Give the dough a ball shape and transfer it to a previously oiled bowl and cover it with plastic film. Place it in a warm place with no air currents to rise. The dough should rise until it doubled its size.
  (I preheat my oven to 120ºF (48ºC), turn it off, leave the door open for about a minute, and then I leave the dough inside with the oven light on until its ready)
• Once it has doubled its size, transfer the dough to a silicone mat and cut it into 8 equal pieces. Cover them with a moist towel so they don’t dry up!
• Use a rolling pin to flatten each piece in the silicone mat giving them the classic rounded (or oval) shape of naan. Leave them with a thickness of about 0.5 to 1 cm.
• Place the rolled naan bread into a tray, cover them with plastic film and let them rise a bit more for about 30 minutes.
• Preheat a skillet (you can use an iron skillet to get a nicer browning) and melt around 2 tbsp of ghee (or 1tbsp of butter + 1 tbsp olive oil).
• Meanwhile, melt 2 tbsp of ghee (or melt 1 tbsp of butter and then add 1 tbsp of olive oil) and have a brush in handy.
• Start frying the naan in batches with high heat. You should start seeing that some of them develop air bubbles inside. That’s great!
• After 2 or 3 minutes depending on thew power of your heating, they should start to develop a nice brown colour (see the picture of how the browning is distributed). Brush the white side of the naan bread with the melted ghee (or butter mixture) and turn them over so they can start browning too.
• When both sides have a nice colour, take them out and pat them with papel towel to remove the excess of grease.
• Now enjoy while they are still warm! Or cover them up with a linen cloth so they remain warm until you eat!

Notes

• Please be careful when buying ghee, lots of brands have gluten when they should!
• If you don’t have ghee to fry the naan, you can use the butter + oil mixture that I wrote about. I would prefer to use olive oil since it has a higher smoking point than other vegetable oils (do not use extra virgin olive oil!).

The post Gluten-Free Naan Bread appeared first on The Gluten-Free Corner.