Matt Preston risks riling haters to name No.1 butter chicken

Courier-Mail

6 hours ago

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It seemed such a simple assignment. Australia loves no other curry like it does butter chicken. It's the only curry to turn up regularly on lists of the country's most-cooked dishes. So why not go to India and eat the best butter chicken?
It all started with my understanding – backed by extensive research – that butter chicken was invented as a way to sell last night's tandoori chicken that was now a little dried out.
The orthodoxy (challenged by some) is that a young chef, Kundan Lal Jaggi, cooking in the Gora Bazaar in Peshawar had invented the dish. When Partition came in 1947, he and two mates from the restaurant, Kundan Lal Gujral and Thakur Das Mago, moved to Delhi and opened a restaurant, the Moti Mahal. Here this delicious smoky chicken in a sauce singing with tomato, yoghurt, garlic and butter became a hit.
I tracked down what was purported to be an original recipe when little was used to spice the dish other than chilli and cumin. And that's where the problems started.
You see, Indians take their butter chicken very seriously. An internet storm erupted when I said dried fenugreek leaves weren't used in the original recipe – hundreds posted that I was an idiot for even suggesting it. Some questioned the role of Peshawar in this epic culinary success.
Butter chicken is a favourite for Australians - but in India, it's serious business.
I was also berated when we had Saransh Goila on MasterChef back in the day – he'd done a pop-up with his butter chicken as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival and I had the temerity to say I enjoyed it. Again with the angry emojis.
The almost religious fervour butter chicken seems to inspire fuelled my desire to get to Delhi. I arrived to be told by my local expert that the Moti Mahal had been sold to new owners and was now a pale imitation of the original that created not just butter chicken but also the wonderfully rich lentil dish dahl makhani and the tandoori-roasted lamb chop barra kebab.
The trouble was a massive legal stoush had erupted between descendants of two of the original partners at the Moti Mahal. They'd both started butter chicken businesses, Moti Mahal Delux and Daryaganj, and had turned to the Delhi High Court – and I'll simplify things here – to decide who had the right to claim their butter chicken was the original (the case drags on as far as I know). So I thought it'd be fun to taste both of the bitter butter chicken rivals on camera with my ol' mate Gary Mehigan and then ask viewers on Instagram to vote for which they liked best.
An astonishing 26,439 people voted, but more amazing was that 23 per cent nominated a 'better' butter chicken. Two names were the most suggested: Havemore and Gulati. It was supposed to be simple – go to the place where butter chicken was invented and write about it. Now I had due diligence to do.
Next time I was in India, the chef at the restaurant where I was doing a couple of dinners organised couriers to collect 10 of Delhi's most notable versions, including from Moti Mahal Delux (nice cardamom hit) and Daryaganj ('chunky, onions, traditional' are my notes). They were all pretty good – some sweeter, some more tomato forward. The smoky one the chef made was up the top along with the buttery version from Havemore. Gulati was recovering from a fire so it wasn't represented. Yes, this is a saga.
India's greatest chef Sanjeev Kapoor described butter chicken to me as 'a restaurant dish' so I felt I needed to taste the favourites in situ. This search continued over the next year when I visited India four more times. Whenever I met someone from Delhi, I'd ask them for the best butter chicken. Gulati and Havemore almost always popped up. Conveniently, the two restaurants are no more than 20m apart in a small neon-lit market off the Pandara Road.
On my next visit I went to Havemore and was blown away. Not just by the butter chicken but also the breads and the murgh malai (creamy marinated tandoori chicken that's gnarly at the edges from the oven's heat but still incredibly juicy). None of the six of us dining had ever had butter chicken as good.
I ate at the renovated Gulati on my next visit and it too was wonderful – slightly sweeter and more tomatoey. It was too close to call with just the one visit to Havemore so I went back this April. How could I have predicted the looming disaster?
Delhi was in the middle of the Navaratri festival when it's typical to adopt the sattvic diet. Meat and grains were off the menu so Havemore was only serving a vegetarian menu. No murgh malai. No garlic naan. No butter chicken.
I was crestfallen. Does 15 months on this journey end here? Without the confirmation I crave? If this was a doco we'd cut to an ad break here – and you'd be left holding your breath at the drama of it all.
The butter chicken at Havemore restaurant rates as Matt Preston's No.1.
As I wandered back to the car one of the waiters rushed out to say they have another Havemore on the other side of the road in Bikaner House, an old mansion that's now a cultural centre. I was elated. The dining room was pumping and the bread and murgh malai were on the menu and as good as at its sister restaurant.
And the butter chicken? With two mouthfuls it was confirmed. Even better.
I can happily say the butter chicken at the Havemore on Pandara Road is the best I've ever tasted – and when the miffed fans of Gulati and the other great butter chicken versions of Delhi come at me I'll say, 'You do you! But I'm happiest eating the butter chicken at Havemore.' And, boy, will they come!
Originally published as Matt Preston fires shot in bitter butter chicken battle