It is nice to ease into fall. There are meals that have the ability to ride the line between seasons. Butter Chicken is one of them. It plays nicely in the early weeks of September. The color is fall. It is that one pot dish that says cozy, but it is not quite as heavy as a deep fall stew. It has a brightness to it, maybe even sharp when you add the yogurt sauce on top.

This month’s recipes played with the chicken thigh and flatbread. With the Butter Chicken I made Naan. We have made Naan before and I will link the formula here. It is not hard, it only takes planning I suppose, as the process is three days. Little work is done on day one and two. On day three you roll and bake. To make things more interesting, we are going to stuff our Naan this time, with spinach and feta. This is a new process for me so you will be joining me for the experiment. It was a bit of a ‘see as you go’ sort of situation, but, as with anything, you only get good by trying. After a couple of rolls and stretches I found my groove. I have to remind myself sometimes that we can be too delicate. The messier and more hands on, the better. It is best not to go into a project looking for perfection. I think it is better to go in looking for adventure.

I believe this is a New York Times recipe from some years ago. I have taken liberties, as I have decided I don’t really need the tomato paste and I did away with the almonds. I give you the recipe in two pieces below. The first piece is the marinade. This is done the day before. The second piece is the recipe for butter chicken to be made the day of.

PROCESS FOR DAY TWO:

In a pan melt the butter with the olive oil. Add the onions and saute until translucent. Add the garlic, ginger and cumin seeds. Cook for a few minutes more until the onions start to brown. Add the cinnamon stick, the tomatoes, and the jalapeno pepper. Salt to taste. Cook until the pepper is soft, roughly 8-10 minutes. Add the marinated chicken thighs. Pour all of the remaining marinade into the pan over the chicken. Cook for another 5 minutes. Add the chicken stock and bring it all to a boil. Drop the temp and bring back down to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes. Add the cream and tomato paste. I might skip the tomato paste because mine turned out so delicious after I forgot it. I will leave it in here, just in case you would like to use it. Your choice. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through, 10-15 minutes. Garnish with cilantro leaves. Serve with rice and yogurt sauce.

The process can be seen in the video tutorial at the bottom of the page.

As mentioned above, we have made this naan dough before. I will put down the formula and a brief summary of the process below, but for a full video tutorial click here. We are going a step further with this dough by stuffing it with spinach and feta cheese. You can use whatever cheese you like, such as mozzarella or cheddar.

A quick synopsis. A three day process, but it is so easy. Mix your dough on day one, let rest 2 hours and refrigerate. Scale and shape your dough into balls on day two and refrigerate. On day three remove dough from fridge. Make your spinach filling. Let it cool. Roll out dough into disks, fill with spinach and pinch into a ball again. Then press and stretch each ball into a thin oval or rectangle. Heat a skillet over high heat. Brush water on both sides of the stretched naan dough. Place in pan and cook until browned on both sides and cooked through. Remove from skillet and brush with ghee and garlic.