We were lucky enough to eat at Dishoom in Edinburgh this past summer and when we went down to London and discovered that a Dishoom branch was in our neighborhood and delivered, we had it again. For New Year’s Eve, we did a “cook the book” where we made a ridiculous number of recipes from the Dishoom cookbook, cooking for two days, and celebrating with a table of 8. All of the food was incredible, but the hit was the Chicken Ruby, marinated and grilled chicken with this makhani sauce.
As delicious as the food was, Dishoom is very clearly a restaurant cookbook. There are recipes with recipes and instructions that are an aggravating mixture of hyper-precision and unhelpful vagueness. This is why, despite owning the book, I am writing the recipe here, to get it into a form that is easier to use.
To make the full dish, start by marinating your protein using this recipe. We made it with chicken but I’m going to experiment with tofu this second time Once your protein is marinating, you can make this sauce.
INGREDIENTS
20g fresh ginger or ginger paste
175 ml vegetable oil (avocado worked fine for us)
6 green cardamom pods
2 black cardamom pods
2 cinnamon sticks
28 oz or 800g can crushed tomatoes, ideally fire-roasted
1/2 to 1 1/2 tsp Kashmiri (deggi mirch) chili powder, or to taste
30g butter
1 tsp garam masala
20g granulated sugar (1 TBSP plus 2 tsp)
21g (1 TBSP) runny honey
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried fenugreek leaves, crumbled to a powder between your fingers
1/2 c (~130 ml) heavy cream
DIRECTIONS
- Finely dice the 4 cloves of garlic. You can certainly skip this part but doing so just adds that one extra layer of flavor to the sauce. Make a paste of the remaining garlic and the ginger and set aside
- Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium high. Add the garlic and fry until golden brown but not burned. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel. Set aside
- Keeping the heat on medium high, return the saucepan to the burner and add the bay leaves, black and green cardamom and the cinnamon sticks. Cook for about 1 minute until fragrant
- Lower the heat to medium low add the garlic-ginger paste. Cook for 5 minutes, allowing it to brown but not burn
- Add the tomatoes, salt, and chili powder. Bring to a boil then reduce to a rapid simmer and reduce by about half. This should take around 30 minutes. Stir frequently so it doesn’t stick
- Add the butter and simmer 5 min
- Add the garam masala, honey, cumin and dried fenugreek and cook 15 minutes
- Turn the heat to low until you’re ready to continue
- When your protein has been grilled and you’re ready to continue, turn the heat to medium low and add the grilled items and cream and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Feel free to add in a cooked vegetable at this point, such as riced cauliflower
- Serve with rice
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