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Making Indian Butter Chicken....what goes with it?

Tomarrow night I am making Indian Butter Chicken served over basmati rice and was wondering what to serve with it. I will be feeding 7 good eaters. Salad? Side dishes? I am fairly new to Indian food and am coming up blank. Help!!

15 Comments:

naan and beer. samosas as an app if you feel like it. saag is also good, but at least given my restaurant experiences, you don't get like, a main dish and then sides (salad, extra veg, etc) like meat/veg/bread. If you've got seven people to feed though, having another option might be nice in case some folks aren't big on meat.

I'd reccomend getting papaddam for an appetizer and serve with Indian chutneys. All this can be bought from any Indian market. Also, cut up cucumbers and carrots and serve with mint raita.

Since Butter Chicken is heavy you can roast any veggies you like and sprinkle with garam masala for a nice accompaniment to the meal.

Aloo gobi - potatoes and cauliflower - goes really well with the chicken.

I second Simon - aloo gobi would be terrific and easy to find in an Indian recipe book - also, don't forget the naan!

Great ideas so far. Got to admit I've been Googling like crazy as you all stumped the hell out of me! But that's OK as I love to learn about and cook new foods. Yeah the aloo gobi does sound tasty and the mint raita seems like the perfect accompaniment. I'd like to work in some chick peas and gotta see about obtaining some naan.

Naan is easy to find in Canada, being in the bigger supermarkets as well as Indian and Asian specialty shops - I am sure you will find it in supermarkets that are loved by US serious eater posters, such as Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, etc.

I make a dish by frying onions in oil, adding some curry paste and mixing, then a thinly sliced raw potato, some fresh, ripe tomatoes and chick peas (I usually use a can of chick peas and throw in most of the juice) cover and let it simmer until potato is cooked - a little parsley chopped or coriander - delicious. You can work out the amounts by the number of people you are having.

In my family, we usually have a chicken dish and a veggie dish. I think spinach would be a good dish to make.

If you are new to Indian food, I can't highly recommend Raghavan Iyer's Betty Crocker's Guide to Indian Home Cooking. It sounds ridiculous that Betty Crocker can teach you Indian food, but Raghavan Iyer did such an amazing job with that book. He offers suggestions for not commonly found ingredients and does it with actual measurements.

A hot Indian pickle, such as mango pickle or mixed pickle in oil. It's a brilliant way to add some heat to the meal -- those who like hot food can use a lot, and those who don't can abstain.

I would recommend adding a chich pea salad with yogurt dressing and baked samosas as an appetizer.

chick-pea salad

combine canned chickpeas, diced cucumber, carrot, onion,tomatoes. Top with crushed pita chips, cilantro before serving.
Dressing: yogurt, salt, paprika or pepper, diced green chillies if preferred hot, chopped or pureed mint and cilantro leaves.

Samosas: buy them frozen in the Indian store and bake even though it says to fry.

For naan, Deep brand frozen naan is pretty good as is Trader Joe's naan. I haven't tried the Whole Foods naan. We don't eat meat but generally you would serve a main dish along with a vegetable like @inothernews suggested. You might consider making a simple daal to go along with it. For a really really simple daal, buy some lentils (maybe red lentils or if you're going to an indian grocery store toor daal, a yellow lentil) then:

1. Wash the lentils. Put about a teaspoon and a half of cooking oil into the bottom of a pressure cooker. Add the lentils, water (1 cup lentils/2 cups water), a diced onion, a diced tomato, a teaspoon of cumin powder, coriander powder and turmeric and a half teaspoon of red chili powder and garam masala.

2. Pressure cook for one whistle.

3. Make a tempering of mustard seeds, cumin seeds, chopped garlic, curry leaves if you have them and dried red chili peppers or green chilis. Add to the lentils after pressure cooking.

If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can do this on the stove but it'll just take longer to boil.

Or make spinach with chickpeas or this chickpea dish (chole) which is the easiest chole I've ever made but one of my favorites.

and I second @joyyy's suggestion - serve beer for sure and not wine. i've never liked wine much with Indian food even though I know there are wines that pair well with spicy food.

I love drinking sweet mango lassi with my Indian meals, but I'm a weirdo too. I third aloo gobi or any other aloo *** dish.

I'm not sure if you have access to papadum, but those are great to have around on the table.

A nice dessert would be a very milky rice pudding with pistachio and cardamom, similar to http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/indian-rice-pudding-recipe/index.html

I've always found halwah to be too heavy. I suppose there's always mango ice cream.

I suppose beer goes great with just about everything =D. As mentioned above, I think daal or chana masala (chole) would make a simple and tasty second dish. Raita would also be great. You could do mango lassi's for dessert?

Thanks all for the great suggestions! Going to go with cucumber/carrot mint raita, aloo gobi, curried chickpeas, roasted eggplant, pineapple chutney (a request) and lots of beer (a big thanks for that heads up!). Still working on that naan and as far as dessert, DH tasked a guest to make it when he asked what he could bring. BTW the correct answer DH is: "Bring the beer!" After 25 years he is still learning........ Oh well it's a crappy, rainy day here in central Florida, the perfect day for cooking! Oh, some of the suggestions sounded very interesting and I will be trying them only not on guests. Mmmmm samosas!

@finsbigfan - sounds like a lovely meal. good luck!

btw i thought of one more easy, yummy side you might make if you change your mind or maybe for another dinner party - we usually have a salad with a big Indian meal. It cuts the taste of all of the spices and let's you serve something fresh and crispy. Just cut a peeled cucumber into slices, slice a tomato or halve cherry tomatoes, cut a red onion into thin rings and if you have them add either beets or daikon radish. Shower with salt, black pepper and chaat masala then pour on ~ a tablespoon of lemon juice. Shake it all up and serve.

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