Indian Butter Chicken

Our Indian spices are some of our most popular items. And with good reason! Curries, masalas, spices, and aromas come together to bring a pack of flavor and color. Everyone, except my mom, loves curry!

I've written about this before but I really discovered Indian food in college. My roommate Kendra and I would go eat lunch at an Indian Buffet sometimes. Her choices were much more varied than mine, mostly because she is one of those people who can eat the spiciest food of all and not think it's hot. She would enter wing competition in college just for the free food. I really just stock to the Tandoori chicken and rice and yogurt dishes where the spice was more manageable. But since then, I don't eat it all the time but it is fun when we do.

A friend of mine when I was living in France was from Bangalore, India. She was and is so cool. I have this vivid memory of her, one night all of our friends were over for dinner, and Tannaz was cooking. I have no idea what she was making, some chicken curry dish. I walked into the kitchen and Tannaz is holding this like, I dunno, six cup bag of Chile powder, she was cooking for 6. "I was like, what are you doing with that?" She said, "It's for the chicken." I looked down, there were already other chilies in the chicken.

I said, " You can't add all of that, we will die." I think she ended up adding half.

The food she made was the most delicious Indian food of my life and also the spiciest thing I have ever eaten. No amount of creme fraiche and milk could handle it. But it was amazing, and authentic, and so cool!

So coming away from that, I do my best with my Indian spices. Tannaz set the bar, and (shamless plug) MarnaMaria tries to meet it. From our Garam Masala blend to our Tandoori Masala mix, my goal here really is to do Tannaz proud.

Up until recently, there was like one Indian restaurant in Hawaii, Cafe Maharani in Honolulu. And because there was like one Indian restaurant, it was always packed. So like Buca di Beppo, that was another reason I hadn't gone very often. So going was a treat. The food is incredible, it's hot, the tables are smashed together, it's a beautiful thing.

In addition to Cafe Maharani, there is another, say similar restaurant that has existed for ever that people love called Himalayan Kitchen. I bet you can guess the cuisine? So Himalayan Kitchen is also uber popular and another fun night out in Honolulu.

A few years later, India Cafe opened in Kailua, it was more of a counter with takeout but it was also pretty good. It closed after a couple of years but the sign remained, the space empty.

Then, a few years after that, it was Christmas.

Christmas the last few years has meant hawking spices at trade shows. Which seriously is really fun, but also a bit tiring and you are smelling spices all day, which is great, but also can be a bit intense with some sensory overload as you can imagine.

So after selling spices for three days straight, we come home and are looking for a place for dinner. It was late and everything in Kailua closes early. The only thing open according to the phone was Himalayan Kitchen in Kailua.

So the obvious question for me was, "When did Kailua get a Himalayan Kitchen?" And honestly, the last thing I wanted to eat was anything to ethnic or spiced. I wanted like, unsalted bread and water.

Hood was determined. So determined in fact that he determined that Himalayan Kitchen Kailua was operating in the old India Cafe space. So we went. And we show up to find that in fact, it's not really Himalayan Kitchen either. It some guy cooking some screaming good Indian food in a place called Himalayan Kitchen on Yelp, under the India Cafe sign. I am still not sure what his restaurant is actually called, but I don think it's either of the two names just mentioned.

There is no menu. Well, there is a menu, but it is irrelevant. You go, you talk to the guy, and he brings you food. The garlic naan is nuts.

So I was pretty won over and back on the Indian food train after that dinner.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, end of December. Christmas had just ended, the spice hawking was done and I was sitting on beach. (Honestly, I was sitting on a beach because Hood needed to stay two nights at a hotel before the end of the year to get his points and everything is Hawaii in hotel world is half off or more due to covid.

So, I am sitting on a beach at the Ko`olina Marriott, I have my allowed once per day, 2 hour chair reservation and my mom had joined me since Hood was working. My mom, being a good mom, had actually come prepared.

Actually, the whole story is this. My mom offered to give me a ride to the hotel so I didn't have to pay for overnight parking, and right before she picked me up, when I was supposed to be packing, my washing machine outlet broke and while trying to pull the towel out, I flooded my wood floor laundry room.

Yes. Let that sink in. Literally.

And I had no towels because the towel we the culprit of the flooding. You have no idea just how crucial that spin cycle is when washing towels.

So my mom comes to get me, I am totally unprepared, and we have to go because my brother is also in the car as he is hitching a ride to the airport and wants to get pie on the way.

So, I grab my unpacked carryon from a trip to Yellowstone we had taken October, full of who knows what but hopefully somethings good and relevant to a beach staycation because Yellowstone Wyoming is so similar to a Hawaiian Beach and threw what ever was in sight inside.

My mom kept asking why my bag was so heavy and I honestly had no idea because I had no idea what more the 50% of the contents of the bag was.

But Milda is a good mom, so here were are sitting on the beach and she has food, and magazines, and sunscreen, and water. She even had a beach bag which I needed having to borrow from her because all I had was my Tumi carryon. On the magazine happened to be All Recipes. Full disclosure, that is not usually my go to resource. I love Bon Appetit and the New York Time Cooking. But beggar can't be choosers.

So, on page 100 of Allrecipes January 2021 issues, I find a recipe that is very, very relevant to (shameless plug) MarnaMaria Spices and Herbs. In fact, the recipe called for not one (Green Cardamom Pods), not two (Yellow Curry), not three (Madras Curry), not four (Tandoori Masala) but five (Garam Masala) MarnaMaria items.

Well, that obviously became something I had to try. So try the recipe I did.

Holy cow.

I understand why this recipe has been saved 89,238 times. Now, I didn't make it in the slow cooker but rather in a cast iron on the stove. But, however you make it, you should make this recipe. And when you are having trouble finding the five random Indian ingredients it calls for you, you should visit MarnaMaria.com and get yourself stocked up. Because there is no double you will be making this again.

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