Whose Butter Chicken is it anyway?

Butter Chicken has been in the news ever since sections of Indian and foreign media reported a legal spat between two claimants of its invention. Many food historians and butter chicken aficionados waded into the troubled curry, some smelling a gravy train in the event of the court calling for witnesses or expert opinion. But for someone like me, who as per his own confession is not a chicken lover, the entire episode is picking bones out of tomato puree.

Butter Chicken is overrated. Meat uplifts the character of a preparation through a combination of its own juices and by imbibing the flavours of the ingredients. Adding meat simply for its texture or to provide protein mass to the mix is a waste. If that is the intention one might as well dump sponge balls into a thick gravy a la “Veg Manchurian”. Even paneer does a better job because it at least allows some of the seasoning to seep into it. Therefore, any good meat preparation cannot be made without hours of martination and then cooking it in the masala before finishing it. In Butter Chicken the meat and the sauce never quite meld. One could as well pour ketchup and cream over boiled pieces of chicken with some Tabasco or Sriracha to get a similar effect. To say the Britishers have made it iconic means trifle little because they don’t understand food.

The best Chicken Curries according to me are thin. Keeping aside the divine Bengali “Murgir Jhol” and its other Eastern India cousins made with a light touch of turmeric and red chillies — my favourite is the Malvani Kombdi Rassa. The medley of Konkani spices and coconut onion paste makes it distinctive. Further up the North East, I love the use of black sesame which acts with the chicken’s (usually unskinned) own fat to create magic. Down South I find the dry chicken preparations — such as the Pepper Fry — interesting as it captures the essence of black pepper corns and Kari leaves into the meat.

Originally published at https://www.newindianexpress.com on February 3, 2024.