A sauce, a sauce, my kingdom for a sauce.

Moving on from the buttered chicken recipe which we did last week we are now moving on to the sauce and you will need.

12 Large tomatoes, you may be better to use 20 as you can freeze the sauce for another time
50 grams Butter
4 Green cardamoms
1 gram Mace
1 tea spoon Garlic paste
1 tea spoon Ginger paste
Salt to taste
1 tea spoon Kashmiri chilli powder
1/2 tea spoon Fenugreek leaves
1 table spoon Honey
3-4 table spoons of Cream

So for the sauce, the tomatoes are cut in half with the seeds and stems removed, chopped up and placed in a bowl then liquidise to a smooth puree. It actually turns in to a lightish pink colour and thats fine.

In a large sauce pan, gently heat the butter and then add the mace and green cardamoms until they become fragrant, then add the garlic and ginger paste and saute for a couple of minutes. Now add the pureed tomatoes add a pinch of salt and lastly the kashmiri chilli powder. Continue cooking for 15-20 minutes on a low heat, stirring gently. The sauce will reduce and become a thicker.

The final part of the sauce is to add in the honey, cream, chopped fenugreek and gently cook for 5 mins and you are done. There is a lot of work in deseeding the tomatoes and making the puree but it is well worth it, this is a delicious sauce, thats why its worth making a large batch of it and freeze what you do not need.

For those of you who would prefer REAL rice "Basmati" as opposed to off the shelf products here is how to cook it.
I use 2-1/2 cups of rice for 3 people and add twice the amount of water 5 cups. Firstly rinse off the rice in cold water to remove the starch.

Bring the pan of water to the boil add a pinch of salt and the rice. Once the water comes back to the boil, stir the rice gently then reduce the heat to low and place the lid on the pan. leave for 10 mins and drain of any excess liquid and leave standing for 5 minutes. Rice is very delicate and is steamed not boiled contrary to what the advertisments tell you, thats why the heat is turned down as low as possible.

So the rice has been left for the 5 minutes, place it in your bowl serving dishes or what ever you have at hand, add the chicken and pour over the sauce. This is a very rich and tasty sauce you will not need to smoother the whole plate with it, believe me.

Enjoy.