Pressure-Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

The pandemic is in its seventh month. I have stopped counting the months the way I stopped counting the days after Marcus died—the counting becomes a burden at some point, a reminder of what has accumulated rather than what has passed, and I prefer to track by what I have cooked rather than by what the calendar says. By the cooking measure, I am in the month of smothered things: the smothered chicken, the smothered pork chops, the neck bones and the oxtails, the heavy braises that September calls out of me the way it calls the fall color out of the maple trees. The season speaks and my hands respond. This has been true since I was twelve years old and it will be true until I can't stand at the stove.

Dr. Langley says we have made real progress in the counseling. She says this not as encouragement—she is not a woman who encourages for the sake of encouraging, she is a woman who describes what she observes—but as an assessment. We have learned to speak to each other in words rather than only in food. Calvin can say "I am afraid" now without it turning into a sermon on the virtue of courage. I can say "I need to sit with this and not fix it" without it being a defeat. These are not small things. After twenty-eight years, after what these two years have taken, the learning of new words in a marriage is not a small thing. It is everything.

We have also—and Dr. Langley named this, I did not—begun to speak about Marcus with each other in a new way. Not around the grief of him, not through the food of him, but about him: who he was, what we loved about him, the specific things that were his. We have been doing this in the counseling room and then, slowly, at the kitchen table. Marcus stories. The particular, specific, irreplaceable details of a boy who existed and mattered and whose existence is ours to remember and keep. We are keeping him better now. We are getting better at it.

September always calls me toward the smothered and the braised, and this year was no different — except that it was entirely different in every way that mattered. I needed something that would hold heat, something with a sauce deep enough to lose yourself in, something that could cook while I sat at the kitchen table with Calvin and practiced the new words Dr. Langley has been teaching us. The pressure cooker was the right tool for the right month: it does the slow work fast, it keeps everything tender, and when it’s done, the chicken is so thoroughly smothered in warm spice and tomato that it tastes like something that has been tended to. That felt right. That felt like exactly what we were doing.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 can (28 oz) crushed tomatoes
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon fresh ginger, grated
1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons garam masala
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped, for serving
Cooked basmati rice or warm naan, for serving

Instructions

Sauté aromatics. Set the pressure cooker to the sauté function on medium-high heat. Add butter and let it melt, then add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 4–5 minutes until softened and lightly golden.
Bloom the spices. Add garlic, ginger, tomato paste, garam masala, cumin, paprika, coriander, turmeric, and cayenne. Stir constantly for 1–2 minutes until the paste is fragrant and beginning to deepen in color.
Add chicken and tomatoes. Add the chicken pieces and toss to coat in the spice mixture. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and stir to combine. Season with 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt.
Pressure cook. Lock the lid in place and set the valve to sealing. Cook on high pressure for 12 minutes. When the cooking time ends, allow the pressure to release naturally for 10 minutes, then carefully switch the valve to venting to release any remaining steam.
Finish with cream. Remove the lid and stir to break up the chicken slightly if desired. Switch back to sauté mode on low heat. Pour in the heavy cream and stir gently. Simmer uncovered for 5 minutes, until the sauce thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Taste and adjust salt.
Serve. Ladle over basmati rice or serve alongside warm naan. Scatter fresh cilantro over the top before bringing it to the table.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pressure-Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala — The Month I Learned to Braise and to Speak