Butter Chicken

I don't know why, but I'm kind of embarrassed about the success of this recipe. Partly because it's from Pioneer Woman, partly because it's called "butter chicken" and partly because of the large amount of cream it contains. I've been wanting to make Indian food at home, and even though the tandoori chicken I made was a success, I'm still gun shy from my Jamie Oliver curry failure and wanted to try something easy. Well, this was definitely easy and, as the multitude of commenters noted, delicious. I didn't end up marinating the chicken overnight; I don't imagine there would be a huge taste difference, but starting with cut-up marinated chicken would definitely be a time-saver on a weeknight. As commenters noted, this does make a huge amount of sauce, so next time I would halve the tomato sauce and halve the cream (and use light cream or half and half instead). I think the reduction of the liquids will also intensify the spice flavors and make this less American-ized.

Tandoori Chicken Kebabs

One of the other shows I've started watching on Cooking Channel is Indian Food Made Easy. As a result, I'm proud to say I made my first successful Indian-style dish! Anjum made lamb and chicken tandoori wraps in one of the season one episodes, and I made just the chicken part as a kebab this week. I made the yogurt sauce the night before and marinated the chicken overnight. (The recipe on the website is for lamb; on the show, Anjum used the same base for both chicken and lamb, but amped up the spices for the lamb since it's a stronger meat. I like strong flavors, so I used the full flavored sauce for chicken). The result is an instantly recognizable flavor profile that grills or bakes easily. I could see the skewers easily translating as an appetizer as well.