Chicken Makhani

Ingredients

 * 2 pounds of (bony) chicken
 * 1 cup yogurt (dahi)
 * 1" piece of ginger
 * 8 cloves garlic
 * 2 tbs lime juice
 * 4" stick of cinnamon
 * 8 cloves
 * 8 cardamoms
 * 10 black peppercorns
 * 1 tbs oil
 * 2 1/4 pounds tomatoes
 * 1 tsp. dried fenugreek leaves (optional)
 * 1 tbs. white pepper powder (essential)
 * 1 ounce cream (optional but recommended for a touch of class)
 * 1 !!pound!! butter. You can get away with 0.6 lb if 1 lb is too much.
 * salt to taste if you use yellow butter, then scale down the salt accordingly. If you use white butter, then you will need more salt.
 * coriander (cilantro): optional topping.

Directions

 * 1) clean chicken and remove the skin
 * 2) make a smooth paste of yogurt, garlic, ginger, lime juice, cinnamon, cloves, cardamoms, peppercorns and the oil. Marinate the chicken in this for 6 hours.
 * 3) Bake the chicken in a preheated oven for 10 minutes at 250 F (130 C). Put it aside. It kind of makes sense to finish steps 1-3 before starting step 4.
 * 4) We need to get a tomato sauce. Cut tomatoes, put 'em in a pan (no water) and boil. When the quantity has dropped by half, strain through a fine sieve. What comes out of the sieve is the tomato sauce. (This is hard work with a clumsy sieve).
 * 5) Take a pan, start heating the sauce, add the butter. When the butter is melted, add the white pepper powder, salt, fenugreek leaves and cream.
 * 6) Mix the chicken pieces into this sauce. You may like chopped coriander (cilantro) as topping. Serve hot. This works best with good rice (i.e. basmati).