Miso Butter Chicken Curry, made with SN1

The richness of butter, the depth of miso. Creamy, full-flavoured, and hard to put the spoon down 🍛.

SPICE CURRY SPICE PACK (Spice Curry Spice Pack Symphony No.1 / SN1) — a miso butter chicken curry.

Adding miso to the butter chicken everyone loves gives it real depth. One mouthful and you hear yourself say it out loud. We would like as many people as possible to taste this one.

Ingredients (serves 4)　　

• SN1 / starter spices (the whole-spice sachet): 1 sachet
• SN1 / powder spices (the ground-spice sachet): 1 sachet
• Onion: 1
• Garlic: 2 tsp (about 1–2 cloves)
• Ginger: 2 tsp
• Tinned tomatoes (whole): 400g
• Chicken thigh: 200g (roughly 1 thigh fillet)
• Miso: 1 tsp (use whichever miso you like)
• Unsalted butter: 100g
• Double cream: 100ml
• Salt: 1 tsp
  
  

Preparation

• Grate the garlic, then the ginger, in that order
• Cut the onion (halve it, halve it again, then slice)
• Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces
• Splitting the cardamom in the starter spices (the whole-spice sachet) lengthways with scissors or a knife lifts the aroma
  
  

Points to watch

• Always use unsalted butter.
• Use the full 100g of butter. Add only a little and you end up with a curry that merely uses butter as a background note.
• And this is the important one: hold this picture in your head — “butter and miso finish the onion and the chicken; tomato and cream make the spice curry.”

💡Spices and miso both have strong characters, and mixing them tends to blunt both, leaving the flavour vague. In this recipe, though, the butter and miso are worked thoroughly into the onion and chicken as they fry, sealing that savoury depth in, while the tomato and cream carry the scent of the spices instead. Done that way, you taste the miso and butter coming through the chicken and onion even within the aroma of the spices.

Method

1. Put the unsalted butter: 100g into a pan and set it over a low heat.
   
   
2. Once the butter has melted, add the “starter spices (the whole-spice sachet)”.
   
   
3. When the mustard seeds start to crackle, add the grated “garlic and ginger” and stir them through the spices. Keep stirring for about 30 seconds.
   
   
4. Add the “onion”, stir it in, then turn the heat to medium and cook for about 10 minutes, until it is a light golden brown.
   
   

   There is a lot of butter here, so you should not need much water, but if it looks as though it might catch, add a splash of water and keep cooking gently.

   
   
   
5. Once the onion is deep golden brown, add all of the “chicken thigh: 200g” and fry it in.
   
   
6. When the chicken is nearly cooked, push the ingredients to the side of the pan to make a space in the middle, add a little water, dissolve in the “miso: 1 tsp”, then fry everything together.
   
   

   Think of it as frying the chicken and onion thoroughly in the miso and butter so the flavour soaks in. Keep going until it looks like something you would happily serve on a plate just as it is.

   
   
   
7. Add the tinned tomatoes and salt: 1 tsp, crush the tomatoes, stir everything together and bring it to the boil.
   
   
8. Once it is bubbling, add all of the “powder spices” and stir them in.
   
   
9. Add the “double cream: 100ml”, bring it back to the boil, then turn the heat to low and simmer for about 3 minutes.
   
   
10. Adjust the salt and it is done.

The topping here is toasted kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves), scattered over. It adds a toasted note to the miso butter chicken curry.

About the miso used in this recipe

We used an organic hatchō miso from Nagoya. It was superb.

Inspice spice curry spice sets contain none of the usual sources of heat — chilli, cayenne pepper or chilli powder — so please add heat to your own taste.