Butter chicken sauce

 Ingredients

1. Onion - 2 big finely chopped
2. Tomato -1 kg,diced
3. Cashew nuts-10-12 whole
4. Ginger - 3 inch piece crushed or minced
5. Garlic- 2 bulbs crushed or minced
6. Green chilly-5 small
   
7. Star Anise -1 small
8. Cinnamon sticks -2 inch pieces x2
9. Cumin seeds- 1/2 tbsp
10. Turmeric powder -3/4 tbsp
11. Coriander powder -4tbsp
12. Red Chilly powder -4 tbsp
13. Salt-as needed
14. Vegetable oil -3-4 tbsp

Instructions

1. On a wide thick bottom pan,heat oil as required.
2. Splutter cumin seeds,make sure the heat is medium to low to not burn the cumin seeds
3. Add Cinnamon and Star Anise
4. Add Onion,green chilly,ginger,garlic and cashew nuts.Saute the mixture until the onion turns brown
5. Lower the flame to low and add turmeric powder,chilly powder and coriander powder.Saute until the raw smell of the spices disappears
6. Add diced tomato to the above mixture
7.  Cover and cook on medium heat until the tomatoes are will cooked and mushy
8. Turn of the heat at let the gravy cool down
9. Grind the above mixture to smooth paste.
10. Transfer the paste to smooth dry pan
11. Turn on the heat on low and cook the above mixture for another 30 minutes
12. Once the mixture is cooled down you can transfer into portion sizes and either refrigerate or freeze and use as required.

Note:

I will cover how to make butter chicken with the above paste in another post