Butter chicken is the kind of dish that needs almost no introduction—but Meherwan Irani happily gives it one in his new cookbook, calling it “so iconic and beloved by so many people that Indians have gotten into lawsuits over who invented it.” The ambitiously named No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World: At-Home Recipes from the Streets, Truck Stops, Villages, and Palaces of India, brings together culinary inspiration from all the corners and strata of Indian society.
In the cookbook, the James Beard Award–winning restaurateur behind Chai Pani, Botiwalla, and Spicewalla brings the riotous, spice-slicked pleasure of Indian street food into the home kitchen with the confidence of someone who has spent nearly two decades proving that Indian food in America can be joyful, specific, deeply flavorful, and anything but generic.
Out this week from Ten Speed Press, Meherwan Irani’s debut cookbook—written with Jamie Feldmar—moves from chaats, sandwiches, and rolls to grills, curries, home cooking, and roadside canteen fare, all with the same party-at-the-table energy that has made his restaurants cult favorites.
Irani’s butter chicken is no timid crowd-pleaser, but he has endeavored to create a version if the indulgent-sounding dish that is “not incredibly heavy and over the top.” He skips the traditional cashew and poppy seed pastes, using charred bell peppers for body and smokiness instead, then finishes the sauce with cream, butter, jaggery, garam masala, and optional kasuri methi. The result is silky, smoky, and surprisingly light—a weeknight-worthy version of one of Indian cooking’s most beloved icons. Below you’ll find Irani’s butter chicken recipe—plus guides to making that most-misunderstood Indian spice mix, garam masala; the perfect basmati rice; and chapati to accompany your main dish.
Butter chicken is to Indian food as the drum solo from “In the Air Tonight” is to a certain era of pop music. It’s so iconic and beloved by so many people that Indians have gotten into lawsuits over who invented it. Mohti Mahal in Delhi claims it, but that’s ferociously disputed by a number of other parties. So how do you make a dish with butter in the name not incredibly heavy and over the top? As hard as it is to believe, my version of butter chicken is actually delicate, relatively speaking. I replace the traditional cashew paste and poppy seed paste (which I find excessively cloying) with charred bell peppers that give the sauce body and smokiness without heaviness. Yes, there is butter; yes, there is heavy cream. But when you find yourself going back for more, you won’t pay by feeling awful the next day.
Ingredients
Method
- To marinate the chicken, combine the chicken, ginger- garlic paste, turmeric, ground chilli, salt, and oil in a large bowl. Mix together well to fully coat the chicken. Cover and store in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes or up to overnight.
- To make the sauce, heat the oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot over high heat until very hot, almost smoking. Turn the temperature down to medium-low and add the cumin seeds. Let them sputter until they darken a bit in color, 10 seconds. (You can check the temperature of the oil by dropping in one seed. If it doesn’t wiggle and start darkening in color, the oil isn’t hot enough.) Quickly add the onions, the green chilli, and a pinch of salt and increase the heat to medium.
- Cooking the onions in a certain way really matters. This step takes time and patience, and it may require finessing the heat level. Stir the onions into the oil frequently but not constantly, keeping them in an even layer. Make sure they’re sizzling but not scorching, melting into each other, and not frying. As the water cooks out of the onions, they will eventually start to resemble a marmalade with a rich bourbon color. This is good! The goal is to get the onions so jammy and reduced that they almost become one with the sauce (as opposed to being an ingredient in the sauce). Keep an eye on the heat; if the onions are starting to crisp on the edges, turn the heat down and add a teaspoon or two of water to stop the frying.
- Once the onions have hit the state described above— after about 10 minutes— add the bell pepper and continue cooking, stirring often, until the peppers are starting to brown, another 4 to 6 minutes. Add the ginger- garlic paste and turmeric, stir in well, and cook for about 1 minute, until fragrant.
- Reduce the heat to medium and add the ground red chilli, coriander, and cumin powder. Stir and cook for about another minute.
- Stir in the crushed tomatoes, hot water, and 1 teaspoon of salt. Cover and cook over medium- low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes. The crushed tomato has a tendency to bubble up like molten lava as it cooks and thickens, so be careful not to burn yourself. You want the mixture at a simmer, not bubbling hard; be careful because the natural sugars in the onion and tomato can cause it to scorch.
- Remove the pot from the heat and, with an immersion blender, carefully blend the sauce until it’s completely smooth. No immersion blender? Let the sauce cool a bit, puree it in a standard blender, and pour it back into the pot.
- Stir in the jaggery, garam masala, kasuri methi (if using), heavy cream, and butter. Put the pot back over medium heat, cover, and let it simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you’re employing the auntie hack to add more smoky flavor, now is the time to do so (see right).
- When your sauce is ready, keep it at a low simmer while you cook the chicken. In a large nonstick skillet over high heat, heat the oil until it shimmers. Working in batches to avoid overcrowding, cook the chicken pieces through, about 5 minutes, then add the chicken to the sauce. Stir to combine, taste for salt and sweetness, and adjust to your liking.
- Serve piping hot with basmati rice and/or chapati or naan, and garnish with cilantro if you like.
Auntie Hack for Butter Chicken
- To give your butter chicken sauce an extra dose of smoky flavor without actually smoking the chicken, use the Dunghar technique.
- Rest a small metal bowl with the cinnamon stick, black and green cardamom, and black peppercorns on top of the sauce (or whatever you’re smoking). If the sauce is the right consistency, the bowl will float!
- Using tongs, heat a single piece of char smokiness. Immediately cover the pot and the bowl with an airtight lid. Let everything sit for 10 to 15 minutes.
- When you remove the lid, the charcoal should have stopped glowing, and the sauce (or the lentils, or the eggplant) in the pot below will be infused with a smoky flavor that’s so soft and buttery it’s almost impossible to describe. (Run cold water over the coal over your gas stove until it’s glowing hot all over.)
- Place the charcoal in the small bowl with the spices, then pour the ghee directly onto the charcoal. The heat will instantly vaporize the ghee, causing a blast of smokiness. Immediately cover the pot and the bowl with an airtight lid. Let everything sit for 10 to 15 minutes.
- When you remove the lid, the charcoal should have stopped glowing, and the sauce (or the lentils, or the eggplant) in the pot below will be infused with a smoky flavor that’s so soft and buttery it’s almost impossible to describe. (Run cold water over the charcoal to make sure it’s completely out before dumping.)
Notes
Note: Kasuri methi are dried leaves of fenugreek, a savory- aromatic- sweet herb that is somehow reminiscent of maple syrup (butter chicken will still taste good without it, but it does help give the dish its signature taste).
If there is one recipe from this entire book that you seek to master, let it be this. GGP is the savior of flavor, the mortar between the bricks of Indian cuisine, the most cherished combination of ingredients in a country with one billion highly opinionated cooks. This stuff is pureed gold, and you’ll see it called for in dozens and dozens of recipes in this book, lending its flavor to various recipes in unexpected and delicious ways. Here is just a partial list of how we use GGP: to marinate; to tenderize; to sauté with; to fry into a delicious fond that you can scrape off the bottom of the pan and add to a sauce; to stir into curries and chutneys; to smear across toast; and so on. Good luck doing all that with sliced garlic. Although store- bought versions are available at many South Asian grocers, GGP takes all of two minutes to make at home, lasts for weeks in the refrigerator, and is pretty much always worth having on hand. I’m giving amounts of each ingredient below because my co- author says I have to, but the real recipe is just this: Equal parts peeled garlic and peeled ginger, both preferably freshly peeled, blitzed together with a few tablespoons of oil until it forms a coarse paste.
Ingredients
Method
- Combine the ginger, garlic, and 1 tablespoon of oil in a blender or mini food processor and blend until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add more oil if necessary to get an even paste.
- Store GGP in a glass container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. GGP will keep for longer, though after a week I recommend mixing in a teaspoon or so of distilled white vinegar to keep the flavor and color fresh.
Notes
A mini food processor or blender will make your life easier, but you can also hand-mince it in a pinch. Either way, store the finished product in a glass container, not plastic, otherwise you’ll never get the smell out.
Ah, garam masala. The Indian spice most misunderstood by American cooks. Listen up: Garam masala is not—I repeat, NOT—the taste of Indian food. I can’t tell you how many home cooks I’ve met who tell me they love cooking with garam masala. That’s how I know they’re full of it. Garam masala, as you can tell from the following ingredient list, is a highly aromatic, non-spicy finishing spice blend, traditionally used to give certain North Indian dairy-based dishes a pop of aromatics at the end of cooking. This blend is rarely used in everyday home cooking (though savory variations used in other parts of India are also called garam masala, confusing the issue). Garam masala recipes vary widely by region—Parsi and Maharashtrian styles often include cumin and coriander seeds to make it earthier, while in South India, garam masalas might include more black peppercorns. Sometimes other aromatic spices like fennel and mace show up just to confuse matters further. The garam masala recipe I’m including for this book’s purposes is the North Indian aromatic version—the one that my mom scribbled down on a piece of paper when we were still learning how to cook before Chai Pani opened.
Ingredients
Method
- Place a large dry skillet over low heat. Add the green and black cardamom, peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and dagad phool (if using) and toast, stirring often, until the spices are lightly toasted and aromatic, 2 to 3 minutes. The minute the spices are toasted, transfer them to a cool plate or bowl to keep them from scorching.
- Once the spices are cooled to room temperature, grind in a spice grinder (or coffee grinder exclusively used for that purpose) and store in an airtight container for up to 4 months.
Notes
Dagad phool, better known in the US as black stone flower, is a small lichen that grows wild on rocks and trees, both here in the Smoky Mountains and in Indian hill stations. It has an earthy, musky smell and a dry, light texture, and it may or may not have some medicinal value. It’s used as an additive to spice blends in India, or, as an old geezer in the Appalachians once told me, as a thickener for soups and stews. I’m not entirely sure why my mom adds it to her garam masala, but my best guess is that it reflects her tendency to use traditional Maharashtrian ingredients while still satisfying her North Indian leanings toward more aromatic spices. It’s totally optional, but if you can find it, give it a shot!
My mother, Amrit, is from the town of Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas, which is considered the basmati capital of India. She knows her rice so well that she makes it entirely by feel, though when she’s forced to measure, she does so by checking the space between the top of the rice and the top of the water based on the knuckle lines in her index fin ger (the water line should be halfway between the first and second knuckles). I do not yet possess her level of skill, so I use this recipe instead.
Don’t skimp on rice quality. Buy good long-grain basmati rice, such as India Gate or Nirav brands. Basmati is usually aged for at least a year before being sold, and aged rice will yield much longer grains. It should say on the bag how long your rice was aged; don’t buy a brand that doesn’t include this info. And though the addition of butter is optional, I highly recommend it— the fat coats each grain, making it fluffier and keeping the grains from sticking together. And also: It’s butter. It’s delicious.
Ingredients
Method
- Place the rice in a large heavy-bottomed pot. Wash with cold water to remove excess starch: stir the rice lightly with your hand while rinsing, then drain the water completely. Repeat two or three times; the water on the last rinse should be almost clear. Drain the water completely after washing.
- Pour 3 cups of clean water over the rice in the pot, add the salt and butter (if using), and cover the pot. Bring to a boil over high heat and boil until about 80 percent of the water is absorbed—there should be no water on the top, and the surface layer of the rice will start to form small craters or holes.
- Once you see the craters, very gently bring the rice from the bottom of the pot toward the top so that everything cooks evenly. To do so, slide a spat ula between the side of the pot and the rice and gently fold the grains from the bottom up to the top. Do this 3 or 4 times—no more. Cover the pot again, turn the heat down to low, and let the rice cook for another 7 to 8 minutes.
- Turn off the heat. Do not remove the lid—the rice needs to absorb the remaining steam in the pot. Wait 10 minutes, then remove the lid and fluff the rice with a fork. This ensures that no grains will break from excessive mixing. Serve hot.
- Leftover rice keeps, tightly covered in the refrigerator, for 2 to 3 days, but nothing compares to freshly made.
Before there was bread, there was flat bread. Before there were ovens— clay or otherwise— humans were mixing unleavened flour with water, patting or rolling it out, and cooking it on a hot surface. In India, chapati and roti are the simplest forms of flatbreads; whether you’re making chapati or roti, the rule of thumb is about two parts flour to one part water. The main difference is that chapati contain a bit of oil in the dough. This little bit of fat makes for a softer, more pliable flat bread that is more effective than roti for mopping up curries, sabjis, vegetables, and more.
This ancient recipe is still the daily bread of choice for hundreds of mil lions of Indians today. Most Indian moms and aunties are in the habit of making fresh chapati at home every day; after a few practice rounds, you’ll be right there with them.
Ingredients
Method
- In a small bowl, dissolve the salt in the warm water (the salt doesn’t get as evenly distributed in the dough if it’s added directly to flour).
- Place the flour in a large bowl and make a small well in the center. Pour in the oil and half of the salted water and stir to combine. As the water gets absorbed, continue pouring more in in a slow stream, mixing and kneading until a dough starts to form. The ideal texture is a bit of a Goldilocks moment— it should be soft, not crumbly (not enough water), nor sticky and shaggy (too much water). Add a touch more flour or water as necessary if the dough feels too wet or too dry.
- Once you have a dough ball that’s neither crumbly nor sticky, wet your hands and run them over the surface of the dough, then cover the bowl with a cloth or with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes (but no more than an hour) at room temperature.
- When you’re ready to make chapati, knead the dough on clean lightly floured surface with damp hands until it’s soft and pliable, 1 to 2 minutes. Don’t overknead, or it’ll make the chapati hard; as soon as the dough feels soft and easy to divide, stop kneading. If the dough feels hard or dry, wet your hands and knead again. Don’t splash water on the dough directly— at this stage this may add too much water!
- Divide the dough into 8 evenly sized balls, set on the same surface you kneaded them on, and cover with a damp cloth. Let the balls rest for about 10 minutes.
- While the dough rests, heat a tawa (carbon-steel griddle), seasoned cast- iron pan, or nonstick skillet over medium heat and brush lightly with ghee or butter.
- Working with one ball at a time, dust the dough lightly with flour and shake off any excess. (Too much flour will make the chapatis dry out.) On a clean work surface, press the ball gently into a flat disc and use a rolling pin to roll out the disc into a circle, using as little force as possible. (Too much pressure with the rolling pin will either make the chapati too hard or cause it to stick to the rolling pin.) If the dough starts to stick, dust with a tiny amount of flour and start again. To make the disc into a circle, roll two or three times, then move the dough clockwise a quarter turn and roll again.
- Once you have a chapati about 8 inches in diameter, transfer it gently to the hot pan. When a few bubbles start to form— about 1 minute in— flip the chapati and brush the top with a little bit of ghee or butter. After a minute or two, flip it back over and brush with ghee again.
- If you notice burnt spots or the chapati feels hard, lower the heat. If it’s taking more than a minute or so for bubbles to form in the chapati, turn the heat up a tad. Regulating heat while making chapati is part of the process, and you’ll get the hang of it quickly once you make a couple.
- Press the chapati down with the spatula (being careful not to puncture it), and you’ll notice it starting to puff up wherever you press it. Do this a few times around the top surface, then flip over after a minute and press with a spatula on the other side.
- After giving it one last swipe of ghee, remove the chapati and wrap it in a towel or cloth napkin to stay warm and soft while you make the rest.
- Do note that the ghee on the hot griddle will make a little bit of smoke; that’s normal. Wipe the griddle with a slightly damp paper towel in between baking the chapati to remove any ghee or flour.
- Serve warm. Chapati are really meant to be eaten fresh, but they will keep, tightly covered in the refrigerator, for a day or two. To bring them back to life, drape them with a damp paper towel and nuke them in the microwave for a few seconds.
Notes
Indian whole wheat flour is known as atta. It’s milled from a wheat variety that has a higher protein content than either Western whole wheat flour or all- purpose flour. Atta is also stone milled (look for “chakki atta” on the label), which allows it to absorb more water, making softer, more pliable parathas and rotis.
No. 1 Best Indian Cookbook in the World” Text copyright © 2026 by Meherwan Irani. Photographs copyright © 2026 by Tim Robison, Poras Chaudhary, and Mikey Files. Photograph on page 2, copyright © 2026 Mehera Kleiner. Photographs on pages 193 and 257, copyright © 2026 Daniel Peach. Illustrations copyright © 2026 by Mikey Files. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
