Pioneer Woman's Butter Chicken

I've really been into expanding my spice cabinet lately. Even though I have an entire cabinet dedicated to spices, I still need more. Recently, I have purchased saffron, cardamom, turmeric, and curry powder. I had fun cooking with the saffron and loved the pretty color it imparted to each dish. This week, I opened up my cardamom and was instantly in love. Who knew cardamom had such an intoxicating smell? That stuff is delicious and I'm on a mission to find new uses for it.

The first recipe I made with my cardamom was Pioneer Woman's Butter Chicken. I will tell you now that this chicken is absolutely delicious. I love the somewhat complex flavors of this dish and found it to be very comforting. I definitely suggest that you make this chicken, but only when you really want to be naughty. Why? Well, right before serving the meal, you pour in ONE PINT of heavy cream. Yes, one pint. The entire recipe serves four. I almost cried when I did it. Notice I said almost. Then I remembered that I had a pint of cream hanging around that just needed to be used up. Not one to waste food, I instantly felt better about the dish. Or at least that's what I told myself.



The chicken is marinated in a mixture of garlic, salt, black pepper, cumin, cayenne pepper, cardamom, ground coriander, and the juice of a whole lime. It needs to marinade overnight (a step that is well worth it and makes the chicken exceptionally tender). The next day, you saute an onion with butter and cook the chicken for 10 minutes before adding tomato sauce and diced tomatoes. The chicken simmers for 30 minutes. Right before serving, you pour in one pint of heavy cream and garnish with cilantro. You can find the link to Pioneer Woman's recipe HERE.

You should definitely make this chicken if you have heavy cream that needs using up OR if you feel like indulging. I'll definitely be making this chicken again one day! In the meantime, I've used up all my heavy cream and will get back to lightening things up. Summer is fast-approaching.

I wanted to submit this recipe to Foodie Friends of the Pioneer Woman, but the weekend got away from me. This is definitely a great site worth checking out! The next roundup is in two weeks and will be featuring desserts.

SPECIAL NOTE: A couple of you asked whether or not I had hot pink legwarmers and other 80's gear just hanging out in my closet. The answer is yes. We have a lot of "costume parties" at work so I have a little costume section in my closet. I wish I had pictures to share, but we forgot to take pictures on Saturday. I had some 80's pictures from our previous 80's party, but I lost them when my hard drive crashed awhile back. I'm sure there will be a next time! Over the past few months, we've done 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's parties. In addition to that, we've done beach parties, pajama parties, fairytale parties, and Greek parties. I'm going to need a bigger closet soon!