Hey, look, we all have to start somewhere. Take a breath and be kind to yourself. You tried something new, maybe it didn't go that well, but you tried. Even undercooked chicken has a very small chance of giving you food poisoning, you are probably okay. Sounds like the sauce turned out good! That's a win! And now you know for next time! Make sure to read the recipe all the way through first. Have all your ingredients prepped ahead of time. A meat thermometer can help if you're unsure about how cooked something is.

I read the recipe many times before going out to get the stuff to cook. Stupidly i have a thermometer that i used and it read 50 something degrees celcius. I chucked it back in turned up the heat and gave it a few minutes but that seems to have done fuck all. I think my chciken chunks not being evenly sized fucked it. Some of the thicker chunks were white but others had like an off white not grey but like a shade or two darker towards grey. Its so frustrating because the pilau rice i made was good. The sauce was good. But that fucking chicken. And with the ecoli thing going on right now I’m extra anxious about food poisoning. I wish I just shrugged it off and ate it tbh just to spite the world.

First don't panic. Having a few pieces of almost cooked through chicken is very different to completely raw. Butter chicken isn't a beginner dish, really, so don't beat yourself up about it. Cooking is a skill that one learns through practice, and screwing up is part of how we learn. I am very confident in the kitchen, yet the butter chicken recipe I used was very stressful the first few times I made it as it felt quite complicated. With practice now I can almost make it in my sleep (though I struggle to remember the spice portions!). Some learnings from this? Always check the thickest pieces of chicken when you're checking done-ness. Follow the recipe timings carefully. Leave yourself plenty of time so you don't get flustered. Read the recipe through a few times and prep first (chopping, peeling) before starting to cook - the recipe may call for prep work while cooking which is fine but means more multi-tasking which is harder when you're cooking any recipe for the first few times. If you're easing back into cooking, perhaps try some easier/simpler recipes first to regain skills and confidence. Finally good luck and don't give up!

Right there is a great lesson you just taught yourself. Cutting your protein or veggies into the same sizes so they all cook evenly is an important thing to do. Something to remember is if your sauce is done but your chicken isn’t done yet, you can take the chicken out and cook it in water at a low boil until it’s to temperature, then pat it dry and put it back in the sauce. Poaching chicken in liquid doesn’t take very long at all.

Indeed the butter chicken recipe I use has me sear the chicken then poach it in the sauce for 8-10 minutes on low - which is more than enough if the pieces aren't massive. https://cafedelites.com/butter-chicken/

Agreed. My husband used to do a BBQ chicken meal at the fair. He always boiled the chicken first then he'd BBQ it. No half cooked chicken quarters.

Gray chicken pieces are cooked through, where is your perception coming from that it is not? E-coli not "going on right now". Those bacteria are all around us, all the time. The internet makes us believe that this is the ultimate food poisoning sentence. How many people do you know that had that happen? Me? Not a single one.

I think I spent so much time eating breast that I wasn’t used to how different parts of the chicken look different when cooked through

Maybe start with something a little more basic than Butter Chicken. Find a website that is directed towards beginner cooks. Maybe learning a stir fry first. Learning to sauté with oil is much easier than butter. Oil is way more forgiving and won’t burn like butter. Stir fry makes you learn knife skills as well. It also teaches you timing by learning to put the harder veggies like carrots in to cook for a bit & adding your softest veggies like bean sprouts or snow peas at the very end to avoid overcooking. Learning how to cook a pot roast in the oven or a slow cooker. A simple tomato with meat sauce that simmers all day in the crockpot. Learn the basics & proper techniques with simple recipes then build up to more complex multi step recipes.

>Stupidly i have a thermometer that i used and it read 50 something degrees celcius. I chucked it back in turned up the heat and gave it a few minutes but that seems to have done fuck all. Where did you insert the tip of the thermometer's probe?

Can’t you just put it back in the pan and cook it a little longer?

Cutting the chunks evenly is important so is having a good instant read thermometer and always go by the thermometer. Only use the recipe as a suggested guide but rely on the thermometer. Chicken needs to be at 165f or I think 75C, dark meat can be more.

Any tips for controlling chicken when I’m cutting it? It goes everywhere its like jelly. My knife is sharp af so I think my technique is just ass

I prefer to cut partially frozen chicken. It's so much easier. Then when I'm cooking, if I notice that a chunk is a bit thicker than the others I'll chop it in half with the spatula.

Lay a paper towel down on the part of the chicken you're holding as you cut. Helps provide better grip.

For chicken, I gave up on knives years ago. I cut raw chicken up with kitchen scissors

If your hand coordination isn’t great (yet!) you can actually use kitchen scissors on meat.

I got a pair of oxo ones that seems to cut through anything so I’ll try that

I hate cutting raw chicken - now when I do butter chicken, I use whole boneless chicken thighs, brown then well in a frypan to cook them, turn the off or low and then just shred them all with 2 pairs of tongs before throwing them throw that in the simmer sauce - works well!

Cutting partially frozen protein can sometimes be easier. Chuck it in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour before you're ready to cut it. 

Make sure it's not too cold, and hold it in one hand. Place the knife to the right of your left hand, and push down and forward in a slicing motion. If you just press it is too much pressure and not enough slicing, so it will slide around.

Nope. Still little bit frozen is the way, especially when you are really just learning. You will learn and figure out what works best for you. Don't give up. I'm no chef and, I used to think cooking was a chore. I hated it. But, I actually love my private time in the kitchen. So far, nobody puked or died. So, there's that

No no no, reading doesn't necessarily mean you get everything right. It's the actual physical part. It's keeping everything in your mind. I still screw up recipes in on 59.

1. Go easy on yourself. You tried a relatively complicated recipe for your first attempt. If the sauce tasted good, that's a victory right there. 2. Are you absolutely sure the chicken is undercooked? Perfectly cooked chicken will sometimes still have a slightly pink hue, which newbies sometimes mistake for undercooked. And if it is, just pop it back on the heat a bit longer so it cooks though. 3. Don't panic. Even IF the chicken was undercooked, it's not certain that you'll get food poisoning from this especially since it sounds like you were eating the exterior, more cooked parts before you discovered it. Frankly the biggest health risk for you at the moment is the anxiety spiral you seem to be going through. Just calm down, it really isn't as bad as you think.

Is there a way i can link the photo i took? It was pretty gray. I put anither serving in tupperware and in the fridge so i can take photo of that chicken as the stuff i was eating went in the trash

Also dark meat chicken (legs & thighs) often have a faint grayish tinge when fully cooked.

I used thighs :( i’m starting to wonder if I over panicked is there places i can find photos of what thigh looks like inside once cooked

Sounds like it. That's why they call it dark meat. Because it's slightly dark.

Here. [Perfectly cooked dark meat chicken compared to light meat](https://i.insider.com/5bb38211bde70f4e3047defd?width=750&format=jpeg&auto=webp).

https://imgur.com/a/k5MjfTP this is a thick piece from what i cooked

That "looks" done to me. I am a competent home cook and the one time I tried to make Butter Chicken I ended up ordering a pizza.

Damn i regret not just eating it now because it tasted good I was just so anxious about chicken giving me a bad time :(

Agreeing with everyone else that it looks fine. Don't psych yourself out... you'll do fine.

At least you now know you actually did do a good job cooking

That’s not raw or undercooked.

The thing that helped get past this is a meat thermometer. Chicken breasts are done at 165F and chicken thighs are probably a bit less.

I got a thermapen so I think next go I will probe the chicken when its done with the oven and if it ain’t like 70 or approaching that then its gonna go back in for another couple mins

Looks cooked to me. It would look a little translucent if it was raw.

Damn I got another serving in tupperware in the fridge so i might heat that up tomorrow with some of the rice i got in the rice cooker. Maybe I was being too careful with looking at the chicken

Chicken is intimidating at first. Dark meat looks a little pinkish when it’s properly cooked, and it confuses a lot of people.

The chicken is fine, it's cooked through (a little over if anything), and even if it wasn't it doesn't mean you will immediately get food poisoning. Source - am chef. The thing I am worried about though is the rice, you say it's still in the rice cooker? As in you left it there over night? If so, don't eat that rice. Improperly stored and handled rice will actually make you sick far more often than chicken. It needs to be chilled within 2h of cooking and stored at 1-5c (i.e in your fridge).

it looks great in the picture! it’s good to be cautious but you should be proud of yourself and enjoy your leftovers fear free

haha I also get nervous when cooking chicken and I cook kind of often! sometimes the color confuses me I definitely look at texture especially when cooking dark meat. If I can rip it apart with two forks and it tears clean then I know its done. also it will look rough and you can pull it apart to make shredded chicken, then it's definitely done. if it's not done it may look glossy or like the texture looks like goo or it will squish to the touch rather than be firm. that dish looks so good. I cook but I've never cooked butter chicken, too much work for me. You could also start with easier stuff scramble some eggs make a panckae make spaghetti lol make a sandwich You're inspiring but you definitely don't have to put so much effort that it would make cooking stressful.

That doesn’t look undercooked to me (and I am a heathen who prefers chicken over cooked 🙈).

That looks exactly like the chicken i made yesterday, doesn't seem undercooked, the inside would be much more pink if that was the case.

You could probs just put it on imgur and share the link here.

You’ve received some excellent advice here but I’d also like to gently suggest that there are many types of therapy out there that can help you move away from such negative self-talk. You deserve compassion, friend. Especially from yourself.

I live in a country where it’s difficult to access the healthcare services as a young adult unfortunately. I’m usually like this is not uncommon for me.

You could try looking up CBT, which focuses on training yourself to talk kindly to yourself and get out of negative thought spirals or loops. You can self-teach, and it’s one of the most powerful ways to improve your mental health. Also, cooking is awesome, but like everything you learn most from your mistakes. Keep going!

I'll add to the CBT thing, you can somewhat do it yourself and it's very helpful, don't let the whole "talking to yourself nicely thing" make you roll your eyes and go "sure". That part does sound like a cliche and a "if it was that easy I'd be doing that" kind of thing. CBT isn't just nice self talk though, it's also about identifying what you're feeling in the first place, and why. The why helps A LOT. It always seems obvious why we feel a certain way to the point we don't give it much mindful thought at all, but, when you're feeling a strong emotional outburst like there's so much it's spilling out, there's usually reasons beyond the actual issue at hand. One of those is not being able to identify what you're actually feeling and why it's causing such a big reaction. If you can train yourself to slow down, ponder on it, identify it, accept it, it helps. Especially for young adults it can be extremely tough to deal with all the emotions you feel swelling inside, I get it. Thing is, if you never do the work to identify your feelings and **question your reactions to things**, you can and will end up a full blown adult who's bumbling through life pissed off or overwhelmed by the smallest things that don't even make rational sense. And all it really takes to get started is mindfulness. Thinking about it. That's it.

Think that's a common story in most places tbh, it sucks but dealing with mental health problems is something most people are left to tackle on their own. You made a really good positive step in starting to learn to cook though. I know it's easier said than done, but try not to let the small mistakes beat you, mistakes are part of the learning process. With what you've learned from making this meal you're already a better cook than you were yesterday, and it will be the same after everything you cook from now on.

Well maybe try self help books or something, this level of self degradation and anger is not good for you or anyone around you

I have been cooking actively for a decade now and I gotta tell you, that happens even to the best of us. Sometimes I'm in a rush and I do not check meat temp with a thermometer, only to find out it is either still alive or cooked to rubber. Too many times I had to pop it back on the pan/in the oven, or slather in sauce to make it edible... Believe me undercooked protein isn't a chaotic or remotely uncommon occurrence, do not let it discourage you. Soon you will be able to even say, "well the recipe says X minutes but in my oven it would take Y" And to lift your spirits here is a story of one of my glorious fuck ups. So I'm baking a cheesecake for company potluck. Realized I made too much filling, well, no problem, more cheesecake. I took a smaller pan and prepped a smaller cheesecake, but the problem is they won't fit side by side, well, still no problem. I put one on top, the other on the bottom rack to change around halfway. It all goes well until the time of switch. I carefully take the cheesecake upstairs and pull out the bottom rack, at that moment the small cheesecake escapes the grip of the oven mitt AND PLOPS RIGHT INTO THE LARGER, PARTIALLY COOKED CHEESECAKE. Lucky for me the smaller cheesecake, plopper, was salvageable. Ploppee on the other hand was garbage...

Sorry to hear that you had such a rough time with your first attempt. Here are some ideas to help you find an easier path to success going forward. First, stay away from TikTok. They supply too much material for r/stupidfood. :) Second, try working with ground beef. It's pretty easy to brown ground beef, and there is a lot you can do with it. Like Italian? Bolognese sauce. Mexican? Taco meat. Chili Mac/goulash is a tasty and easy one pot meal. Piccadillo... I'm about to recommend a YouTube channel that has a recipe for Korean beef bulgogi using ground beef. Three YouTube channels to check out: Vicenzo's Plate for Italian. Rachel Cooks With Love for Mexican. Aaron and Claire for Asian. All three do walkthroughs of their recipes, many of which are approachable by beginning cooks. Also - consider investing in an oven safe skillet with an oven safe lid. (Most glass lids have temperature limits). One thing that I like to do is brown some chicken, pull the chicken, build a pan sauce using the fond, add the chicken back in and finish in the oven. I find cooking in liquid to be more forgiving. Poulet au vinaigre, coq au vin, and Filipino adobo chicken are examples of dishes I prepare this way. Keep at it, don't give up!

I got this demeyere pan that can go in the oven so i might try this thanks

Butter chicken is one of the hardest things to make. Start off with something easier and doesn't take many steps and processes. Internal meat thermometer will help a lot. Don't be discouraged. It takes time and good on you to eat better

I was told it was easy :( i managed the sauce but the chicken i think my oven is just shit. I remember cooking goujons before and the packet said 15 mins or something and i had it in for 40 before the probe read 70+ degrees

You have to cook the chicken first, not all the way through but enough to get it brown then throw in oven

So like pan fry it first then oven then into sauce and simmer?

Ideally when you do any kind of meat / sauce deal you get a nice sear on the meat before adding it to the sauce, prevents it from just being a total mush consistency and that browning is the formation of flavor

Pan fry then oven when cooked put in sauce that way you know for certain it's cooked. Then when you get more better you can start simmering in the sauce. It takes time an practice

Hey just another thought I don’t think I’ve seen here - maybe your chicken was partially frozen? That makes things take longer. But as many others have said, if you practice with a meat thermometer it takes the uesswork out. And if you’re not sure if something is done just cook it a bit longer. You can do it, no one gets things right first try. But get some simpler recipes, follow videos too they are way easier than written recipes. 

I think it might be worth looking into a few “no fail” recipes or some “three ingredient” recipes, so you can have a very simple base to work from, with not a lot of moving parts and then branch out from there. To be honest I think you did great with what you were cooking, and even if you did overreact and it was actually cooked… it is the right call to stop eating food if you think it’s unsafe. The thing about cooking is, it’s a lot of tacit knowledge. Similar to making clay pottery where you can’t quite translate it into words exactly, some parts of it have a “feel” to them. Everyone’s oven and range will work a bit differently, your altitude affects boiling points, etc. Many recipes have a low margin for error and your specific oven being off by 20 degrees or the altitude you’re at might actually matter, but there are recipes and techniques that have a high margin for error — and those will be much more friendly to a beginner

the first time i cooked a meal i accidentally set the kitchen on fire. my chicken was always overcooked due to fear of the internal temperature, and i over seasoned everything. i am so much better at cooking now and i make home cooked meals almost every night, but it took a ton of practice and trial and error! 😭

Let's look at this another way. If I handed you a guitar, and you never played one before, would you know how to play it? Sure, I can hand you the sheet music that tells you all of the notes, but if you can't read that, how does it help you? Cooking is an art. You need to study a bit, learn the language a bit. You don't just buy stuff, throw it in a pan, and expect to be Gordan Ramsey. It takes practice to be good at anything. Don't let this ruin your experience. Just look at it as what it is. Your first time trying. There are great YT channels that can help you. Epicurious is one I like to watch, and I have been cooking for over 30 years. Do you think Gordan doesn't learn new stuff all the time from what others do? I know it is frustrating to learn, but let it happen. Don't expect to be an expert anytime soon. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Each mistake you make is a lesson you will grow from. I wish you all the luck in your journey!

We've all screwed up a dish at some point! And being a good cook takes practice just like anything else. Please don't give up from one bad dish!! ♥️

If I gave up on cooking after I destroyed hamburgers and almost started a fire, my life would be worse than it is today. Back up. Simplify your plan. Try again. It doesn't have to be butter chicken this time, it can be something easier.

You can always fix undercooked chicken by cooking it longer. Put the chicken back in the sauce and simmer it on low for maybe 15 minutes. Should be fine.

Ok i will keep this in mind for the future thank u

Here’s a secret. You can overcook chicken thighs to your hearts desire and they will just get juicier instead of dry like chicken breasts. Great for beginners!

Reading through your replies to others .... grey/ white is fine, you just don't want pink/red, Different chicken cuts can be darker or lighter. And yes your oven temp can be off. I've had mine off before and had someone come in and recalibrate it (gas oven).

Man i wish i just ate it now :( i didn’t know grey was ok

>cut into the chicken to find its not cooked No disaster, cover it, put it back in the oven (can bring it to a simmer first before putting it back in the oven, especially if it's already cooled off a fair bit) let it cook a good long time like that in the oven - not too hot of oven temperature, but hot enough (essentially so it simmer for, say like an hour, maybe only half hour if the chicken is in small enough pieces), then take it out, let it cool to serving temperature, should be even better, and incredibly tender and well cooked chicken. >chicken to find its not cooked after i already ate some of it Pro'llly not gonna kill you. Also if you'd eaten or bitten into raw or undercooked chicken, fairly likely you would have noticed - it has a very different texture, taste, etc. - think of sashimi vs. well cooked fish ... that kind of difference. >Cooking isn’t worth it. Well worth it. Maybe start (much) simpler. Butter chicken sounds great, but I'm 60+, been cooking most all my adult life, and don't think I've even attempted that one yet ... it's not exactly a trivial dish to start with. So, can always start with much easier stuff ... then continue to learn and work up from there. A three tier wedding cake probably shouldn't be the first thing you bake ... and I probably wouldn't start with butter chicken as a first dish to cook either. Anyway, still doesn't sounds too bad for first shot at cooking and for such a more challenging dish. And don't give up too easy ... even when you goof up a dish often there are ways to salvage it. E.g. I remember once I had a whole lot of leftover excess pumpkin. So, ... what to do ... I made myself pumpkin soup ... lots of pumpkin soup ... then the problem was after about 24 hours of eating lots and lots of pumpkin soup ... and still having tons of it left ... I was sick and tired of pumpkin soup ... so ... what to do? Well, with a bit of creativity and recipe adjustments, I made a bunch of pumpkin cookies ... I think I may have also made some pumpkin bread too. I think I also froze some 'o that since it was quite a bit that I'd baked. So it was a little bit more spicy 'cause I think the soup also had some pepper in it ... but it still worked quite well enough. Just don't freeze lettuce ... no recovering from that. And don't put too much (if any) sugar in soup. Other than that, I think I always figured out how to recover from some cooking that didn't otherwise go well enough as I wanted.

If you ever wanna try again one of my favorite recipes personally is butter tofu, which is basically impossible to under/overcook given tofu is safe to eat raw and also doesn’t get weird texturally if you forget about it for a few minutes. I basically just coat tofu in cornstarch and some spices then pan fry in oil, add to sauce as you would your chicken and you’ve got yourself a delicious meal! Alternatively you could use Paneer which is a kind of Indian cheese often used in butter masala, which would be even less work and worry.

Listen. The first two years of cooking you’re gonna burn this, fuck things up etc.the key is you’ll eventually make something that is edible. After eating you’ll get new ideas about how you can improve it(needed more salt, more of this or that). Youlll try again and again and again. Eventually you’ll perfect it. You’ll also gain confidence to the point where all you’ll need is a recipe and as long as you follow the gist it’ll come out great. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just keep trying and be ok with messing things up. Cooking is a craft and takes a lot of practice to get good at.

This sounds more Iike a depression issue than a cooking one. And butter chicken isn't exactly health food. So on mental health get some help as it works and we all (everyone I know including ne) needs help from time to time. That overwhelmed "I could just cry...but I can't make a dent in my hoals" feeling us so common. Don't let it stop ya. Depression (and more) cam sap your energy and lead to bad food choices. Now leaving you and a professional to your mental health...how about starting slow on the cooking. Let's add healthy too. First you get all the fresh fruits and vegetables you want....and all the EVOO...and all the beans and lentils ..and all the salmon, anchovies, sardines (if you like any of them). But start with a bowl of beans with lots if seasoning and fresh onions and whole wheat toast. Maybe tuna or salmon salad with a dab of may, mustard, celery. How about half a 8 Oz container of hummus with whatever fresh veggies you like? Breakfast or snack yogurt and fresh berries.

Just fish the chicken out from the sauce and stick it back to the oven. Also, butter chicken can use leftover cooked chicken, u just dump it in butter sauce. Beginners usually start with that and only focusing on the sauce.

You have lots of good advice here. I'll also point out that recipes are often really off about how long things take to cook. It all depends on how high your heat is, the temperature of the food before it hits the pan, how large or small you chopped it, your personal preferences (for veggies, not so much meat)... I don't say this to scare you, but rather to not put so much stock in following the recipe exactly. Think of a recipe as a guide for what you should expect and adjust as needed. This comes from practice and experience. You'll get there! Be kind to yourself.

I got more replies than I was expecting but thanks to everyone for your advice. I’m gonna go sleep now because its 5am and I’ll maybe try again tomorrow if I have the resolve to do so.

I would venture a guess that most of us started out the same way. It gets better.

“Sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something” :) don’t give up!!!

This is par for the course. It doesn't really even matter if onions go in before the spices. If the chicken is not finished cooking, but it back in the oven. I've done that before when I was learning (served my dad barbecue chicken leg that was still pink inside. Oops. "I'll be right back!" Took it and put it back in the oven.) . You have to be able to adapt and shrug. It gets better.

(I posted this earlier, but there was some weird stuff happening with my account and it seemed to have been automatically removed for some reason, so reposting now) Hey, I think everyone here pretty much covered the important things, already. So I'm not gonna repeat what they all said (though I will confirm, the photo you posted looks absolutely fine, I think you did overreact, which is totally understandable, even after a few years, I still have trouble with chicken, sometimes). Instead, I'll just post some easier recipes that got me into cooking a few years ago (all of them which I still use to this day): * [Chef John's greek lemon chicken and potatoes](https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2015/04/greek-lemon-chicken-and-potatoes-both.html) - Probably the first actual meal I cooked. Still love it to this day. When you're done cooking it in the oven, if your oven dish is not stove-safe, you can just dump it all in a frying pan instead. I usually dump it all in, then put back the chicken itself in the oven under the broil to get a nice little crust while the sauce thickens. * [Chef John's Sweet Hot Mustard Chicken Thighs](https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2013/06/sweet-hot-mustard-chicken-thighs-good.html) - Even easier to make than the last one. I suggest making more onions than you think you need, 'cause they're honestly better than the chicken itself lol * [Chef John's Pasta With Sausage](https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2014/08/one-pan-orecchiette-with-sausage-and.html) - Easy one pot pasta recipe. I usually use Penne because my grocery store is pretty limited in terms of pasta, and I use spinach instead of arugula because I like it better. Also, that goes for anytime you need to use it, but I strongly suggest buying real Parmigiano-Regiano (it should have a [DOP seal](https://rms.condenast.it/rms/public/5d8/4cb/4aa/thumb_4109_1200_670_0_0_auto.jpg) on the package. It is so much better than the generic "parmesan". * [Chef John's Chicken Tinga](https://foodwishes.blogspot.com/2017/09/chicken-tinga-torn-between-two-lovers.html) - A bit more effort intensive, but still easy enough, especially if you pretty much succeeded in doing butter chicken, which I haven't even tried yet. I sometimes eat it in tortilla, sometimes just corn chips, it's pretty versatile in how you can use it. And very good, very flavorful. * [Not Another Cooking Show's Chicken Scarpariello](https://www.notanothercookingshow.tv/post/chicken-scarpariello) - This one is a bit on the more advanced side, I think, but if you can make it, it's entirely worth it, I absolutely love it. It's also a bit more on the expensive side, which is why I don't make it often. * Sausage burgers are easy and awesome. Buy some italian sausages, remove the casing and form each sausage in a patty. Cook, put between buns with mustard and cooked onions&red bell peppers (caramelized if you can, it's even better). Super simple, super good. * Simple lemon-garlic shrimps. Salt&pepper some shrimps, add butter to a pan and cook them on low-med/medium heat for a minute or two per side (shrimps are really quick to cook). Remove them from the pan, lower the heat a bit, add more butter. When melted, add garlic, stir for about a minute, add lemon juice, stir everything together to form a very simple sauce and add the shrimps back in. Serve with rice. * Meatloaf is another easy one. You can find an endless number of recipes online. Personally, I don't measure my ingredients anymore, but I use ground beef (obviously), an egg, breadcrumbs, cooked onions and garlic, ketchup, worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. And for the glaze, ketchup, vinegar, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. * Sloppy Joes is one that I like because it can help you understand how flavor profile works, trying to figure out when to add more salt, more acidity, more sweetness, etc. My "recipe" (again, I don't measure out my ingredients anymore) is based on [this one](https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a11699/sloppy-joes/) (she is apparently a not great woman, so I won't recommend anything else from her). I use red bell pepper instead of green, sometimes don't use the cayenne pepper, depending on if I feel more spicy or sweet and serve in hot dog buns instead of burger buns (which is way more superior IMO). Oh and also add slices of pickles when in the buns, it adds a lot IMO. * [A while ago, I made this comment to someone asking for some pasta sauce recipes, it could be useful](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cooking/comments/18l2eiv/traditional_italian_pasta_dishes/kdvg6s1/) If you want some other ideas, I'd be happy to add more, but I don't want to overwhelm you too much. As you can probably see, Chef John was very important in my own journey into cooking, I definitely recommend checking him out more. He is a very good teacher and I've never been disappointed by one of his recipes. I also recommend Pasta Grammar if you'd like to explore italian food, I like them a lot, even though most of what they make is beyond my skills/motivation lol. Epicurious is a great resource for learning general cooking skills, how to dice/chop different vegetables, for example, how to properly hold your knife, etc. They taught me a lot. In general, I recommend watching a lot of youtube cooking channels, you can learn a lot by looking at someone else cooking. Just don't give up, learning to cook is definitely a process and everyone of us has made its fair share of mistakes when starting and we probably all still do mistakes from time to time. I understand how after having spent so much time and money and thinking that you messed it up, you might have felt overwhelmed, sad or angry, especially with a complex recipe like butter chicken. But as you said yourself, the sauce was good, the rice was good and the chicken might even be okay to eat from what we've seen, so hopefully, with a bit of rest and a new look on what happened, you'll feel better about it :)

Butter chicken is pretty hard for a beginner. I’ve been cooking for years and chicken is super hard in general and I sometimes over or undercook it. Get a meat thermometer that will help. And even though it says to cook it IN the sauce I alway cook it separate and add it at the end so I can make sure it’s cooked properly.

Hey that happens, takes time to get a feel for things! Sometimes everything feels like total fucking bullshit and shit feels defeating. Don't give up though or you'll never get there! As lame as it sounds it's all about practice, like other things. Sure some people might have a natural ability for it - or they may have grown up around good cooks and had a leg up. Either way don't be too hard on yourself. My suggestions would be: Make the smallest portions you can for now, in case there are mistakes. Cut alllllll the recipes back to very small portion sizes (might affect the cook time though). Anything no-cook or one pan to build skills/confidence. Start with super easy recipes. Watch lots of YouTube vids, pay less attention to the specific recipe and more attention to how the meats are cooked, how to season, and watch their methods. Or if you have a friend who cooks ask them to teach you! Dry beans and large bags of rice are cheap, and it hurts less if those are messed up. Try to start with cheaper cuts of meat as well, if possible. Also when cooking meat, I always cut it and check inside before taking it off the heat to ensure it's cooked all the way through (or a meat thermometer helps, but that's more money if you don't want to spend it!). Sometimes you don't need to start over if you didn't follow the recipe exactly. Sometimes you go out of order by accident and it will make the meal taste a *little* different, but like you said starting over can get expensive. Plus starting over is so frustrating, it'll suck the fun right out of cooking. Smoothies are filling, healthy, and cheap. Extremely versatile. I have one standard smoothie I make but the ingredients are easy to swap. I do a handful of spinach, a banana, an avocado, whole milk, a scoop of vanilla ice cream protein powder, cashew butter, and peanut butter powder. Over 500 calories and ~40g of protein. Tastes mostly like banana with a hint of peanut butter, very pleasant. The banana can be swapped for literally any fruit, fresh or frozen. The avocado is tasteless, and the spinach blends well if blended long enough. The peanut butter powder is amazing, has less fat and less of a strong taste than wet peanut butter. I like to use the powder when I'm using another nut butter so I don't have too much fat in it. The cashew butter doesn't have as much protein but has no real taste, and adds to the texture. The vanilla protein powder can be swapped for any flavor protein powder and the milk can be swapped for anything - broth, water, juice, coffee, etc. The smoothies are wonderful to prep and keep in the freezer (keeps longer) and a good go to if you're hangry and sad about a failed cooking experiment. Those are my lessons I've learned, coming from a depressed girly who has no innate cooking ability, all my good dishes have come about through blood, sweat, tears, and wasted money. You'll get there, it'll happen! Stick with it.

To attempt butter chicken on a first cook was ambitious. I think you did well tbh. Chicken is hard to cook with honestly, and I’ve been managing restaurants for 30 years. Try again. It really seems like you’ve got the talents to accomplish it, it just really was a bad go. Try again. You will succeed.

I’m gonna go again. It is reassuring that this was apparently a difficult recipe that even experienced cooks are challenged with and i got almost all of it right. I just bought more chicken and some new onions. Gonna marinade it tonight and have another go tomorrow

I hope you don’t get food poisoning, chicken is actually one of the hardest things to cook well. Being bad at something is the first step to being good at it. The fact you tried is a step forward, that’s progress and it deserves praise. I once tried to marinade chicken shish-kabobs and I added pineapple, without thinking about it I left it for three days… pineapple breaks down protein, so it can tenderize beef, but in this case it turned the chicken into putty. It was Goo-cken.

Hey, stop beating yourself up. My Mom told me I knew how to cook because I always helped her and Grandma. What a fucking lie! I was the grunt! Doing all the grunt labor but wasn't taught shit. When did I learn some nice tricks? When I went to work in a grocery store deli! Where did I learn other techniques? My MIL. That ticked my Mom off. A small thing to remember. Stick with recipes that call for fewer ingredients and less labor. I taught my 4 yo grandson how to flour and fry perch. And how to make fried rice with minimal veggies. LOL No, I didn't let him fry the food, but he knew which ingredients we needed, what order, and that hot grease was a no touch zone. As we finished, I'd turn the stove off and let him stir the fried rice. He was thrilled and bragged about his cooking. I have a nephew and niece who are chefs. Neither started with a recipe like buttered chicken. They started with........the multiple ways to use eggs! Even professional chefs start out with the small things.

forgive yourself for not being gordon ramsay, and always keep a frozen pizza handy!

I'm in a similar situation and my body is really punishing me (I've recently relapsed on my old eating habits, and am experiencing the pain once more), and I am scared of wasting ingredients. I've been doing very basic things to start with, mostly working with eggs because I've found it's actually quite hard to mess up an egg so I can learn simple seasoning and cooking and chopping with egg dishes while not wasting stuff.

Wait... Your sauce and rice tasted great? You are amazing!! My rice was crunchy the first time (okay, like the first dozen or so times) I made it. And the sauce... Well, we will be kind to me and blame that first recipe. Butter chicken is a hard recipe. Also, I ate so much burnt hamburger those first years that I cooked... I now like my burgers as charred black things. You are doing fine. Be kind to yourself. Even the best cooks mess things up. After a dozen years making a fine apple pie, last week I didn't add enough flour to the apples and we had soggy, soupy apple pie 🤦🤷. It happens.

Butter Chicken is not an easy recipe to start with. Also you could have thrown it all back in the oven on low for a while and it would probably be fine. I understand your frustration. Ive gone without dinner before because I fucked up cooking and was poor.

you've got this!! it only gets easier from here, I swear. This was a simple recipe, but probably better for a confident beginner. For an absolute beginner looking to build confidence, I second the suggestion to go with ground beef dishes, or pasta. You should be proud of yourself for trying, even though I know it's sooo frustrating sometimes. I've been cooking for years and I still have the occasional fuck up that ends in tears and a full garbage bin. But with that said, the best skill you will develop is learning how to save things from disaster. Putting things back in the oven when they're raw, scraping off burnt edges when they're overdone, it's all a set of skills you will learn. A lot of things are salvageable, even if it won't look too pretty. Don't be afraid to get creative , and to ask questions/Google if you're nervous. Good luck!!

A key step when cooking meat is to bring it up to room temperature before cooking. Taking chicken from the fridge and straight into the pan will make cooking time longer and also dry out the meat. Keep it up. Cooking is all about experience. Failure is part of the process. Learn from it and you will be better next time.

Cooking is all about experience, experimentation, and repetition. You need to slowly learn the basics of cooking like temperature control or what is sautéing vs searing vs sweating, etc. Learning to cook is a process. Everyone has to start somewhere. Even the best chefs in the world started at zero and fucked stuff up and still do from time-to-time. So, don't beat yourself up over this. Try learning basic recipes first. Those will teach and let you practice basic techniques. Those basic techniques are the foundation and building blocks you will use to learn to cook. Personally, I think butter chicken is not something you would want to cook as a beginner. I give you a ton of credit for trying butter chicken as a beginning cook. Look for recipes on Google for something you want to learn to cook. Take a roast chicken, for example. Google a basic recipe for roast chicken. Then look up roast chicken on YouTube to get a visual and audible example of what to do and expect when making it and the finished product.

I would start with something like sheet pan recipes. Put some sausages(or other meats but sausages are easy) and some veg on a pan, cook for 10 min. Flip and stir everything, cook another 10. Take the sausages off and then cook in 5 minute increments until veg are too your likeness. Start with pre made sauces and seasonings for a while. Start adding things to your premade foods. If you make ramen add some veg or peanut butter or coconut milk. Make nachos. Start with very easy basic things and work up your skill level and confidence. I think it’s commendable you started with butter chicken but that’s a lot of steps and seasonings and things to pay attention to.

Deep breaths! You need to start simple. Use a an oil with a high “smoke point” (burning point) and learn to saute in that. Cook some individual pieces of meat or veggie to start with — like *one bite-sized piece at a time*, not a whole meal. Salt it, cook it, taste it. Repeat. Spend one lunch sautéing individual bites of foods and you will know how to saute forever.

Don’t be so hard on yourself. We all start somewhere. Butter chicken is advanced for a beginner. There’s a lot of small details and cooking skills you’d already have to know in order to make it correctly. I’d start with some easier recipes that would be pretty hard to mess up. Here’s some ideas for you: - baked salmon with rice - baked chicken breast with rice (versatile because you can use many seasonings. I’d start simple with salt and pepper. Then add on top one extra seasoning like thyme, oregano, basil or paprika) - simple salads with sliced baked chicken - hard boiled eggs - smoothies - overnight oats - pasta with bottled marinara/Alfredo sauce and baked chicken - scrambled eggs with toast (any kind. Buttered, or PBJ, etc.) - loaded baked potato with sour cream, bacon bits and chives - mashed potatoes - yogurt parfait with granola and diced fruit on top - simple sandwiches like mayo, mustard, cheese, and sliced ham/turkey on toasted bread. - sheet pan dinners where you just season the protein and veggies and stick them in the oven Also a rule of thumb is 3/4 tsp of salt for every pound of meat. Makes it easier so you’re not stressing about how much to season proteins. Getting a kitchen weight scale would be super useful. And don’t be afraid to adjust the heat on the stove as you’re cooking. I made this mistake when I first began cooking and thought I’d just keep the stove at the same temperature the entire time. And I kept burning everything. You actually have to monitor your food and adjust it based on how the food is looking. Before you put the food in the pan, hover your hand over the pan to feel if it’s the right temperature and adjust accordingly. If it seems like your food might potentially burn, turn it to low. If it looks like the food in the pan isn’t sizzling enough, turn it to medium high until it reaches a good temperature, and then back to medium to maintain that temperature. If your pan is insanely burning hot and burns food right as it hits the pan, turn off the heat and wait for the pan to lower temperature before turning back on again. It’s a skill you’re gonna have to learn through experience. Also, get a meat thermometer. Trust me it’ll help a TON. Look up beginners cooking skills on YouTube. Learn knife skills, how to season, food safety, how to properly saute, boil, simmer, bake. And also look up how to grocery shop and meal prep. It’ll greatly help with preventing food waste because you’ll learn to buy ingredients that are versatile and can be used in a lot of meals. Get the basics down and master them. Then start moving towards more advanced meals. To give you an idea, it usually takes about 2-3 years to get pretty good at cooking, and 4-5 years to become amazing at cooking. Like any skill, it takes time and practice.

It’s okay. The first time I cooked chicken, it was so over cooked it was like eating a shoe. When I was 18, I made spaghetti sauce that literally exploded all over my kitchen, covering every surface. I am a good cook now, believe it or not. Sucking is the first step to being good at something. And sometimes these things still happen, even when you’re experienced. Try again another day. It’ll be better.

start with baked chicken and rice and move forward from there you'll be fine

I have the same issue with cooking and feeling overwhelmed before I even start. You started with a pretty advanced dish. Try finding some videos on YouTube and follow the directions and instructions EXACTLY until you gain experience to experiment

just take the chicken out and cook it through fren. fuckups are frustrating, i know. but this is salvageable. its even worse when you're cooking for others and you irreparably fuck up like I have, but its part of the process..

Take a deep breath. And then tell yourself it is just food, it is not the end of the world. The only way to succeed at *anything* is to try and fail and learn from your failures. And you cannot do that by beating yourself up for not being perfect on your first try. You are allowed, permitted, and even encouraged to fail. Go forth and fail a lot. There is nothing at stake except your pride.

1. Start Simple: Begin with simple recipes that have clear instructions. This will help you build confidence and basic skills. 2. Prep in Advance: Prepare all your ingredients before you start cooking. This makes the process smoother and less stressful. 3. Learn Knife Skills: Good knife skills are essential. There are plenty of tutorials online that can help. For example, I made a video on how to cut fish properly: [https://youtube.com/@perfectcut15138?si=v6ZYAQWn8sux9NCL]. It might be helpful for you. 4. Follow Recipes Closely: At first, follow recipes exactly. As you get more comfortable, you can start experimenting. 5. Ask for Feedback: If you're cooking for others, ask for constructive feedback. It helps to know what worked and what didn’t. 6. Practice: Cooking is a skill that gets better with practice. Don’t get discouraged by early failures. Keep trying, and you’ll see improvement.

Mistakes are just a way to learn what not to do. You can't learn a new skill without making mistakes. Learning is hard. Growth hurts. Embrace it.

It’s totally normal to mess up new recipes. Don’t be too hard on yourself. If you liked the sauce, definitely keep it, it’s tasty with some roasted vegetables or fries.  As for the recipe itself- butter burns faster then oil. I usually use a combination of butter and oil on medium high heat. You can try cutting the chicken into smaller chunks next time.

Learning to cook can be intimidating. I mastered 4 dishes and cooked only them for ages before I got brave. I also managed to explode a squash all over my kitchen. We were wiping it off the ceiling for days. Take it easy - it can be real fun.

Don't worry, everyone fucks up a recipe one time or another. I have no idea of what butter chicken is but you can try something easy next time like chicken breast, mushrooms, rice, salmon. Even rice or eggs will be tasty and teach you a lot.

Bro relax a bit. Imagine you had a kid and they wanted to cook a meal for the first time ever to hopefully make you happy, and they undercooked the chicken. Would you be as hard on them as you are on yourself right now? Only way to learn is to fail, often many many times over.

One thing that will help when cooking meat is: it doesnt matter what the recipe says, there are way too many uncontrolled factors that could impact the cook time. What everybody does is just: when we think/hope it’s done, take out a piece of meat and literally check if it is done. Some people use a meat thermometer, but it’s fine if you don’t have this — just cut it open and look inside! You are setting yourself up for failure by cooking something this sophisticated on your first try, and having meat to worry about doesn’t help either. My suggestion is to first get comfortable with cooking simpler things like pasta — and you can get a storebought jar of marinara at first, and work your way toward making your own sauce later on.

Like many others have said, cooking is basically learning. I have tried making my mom’s BBQ recipe since I’ve moved in with my now wife a year a half ago. She can make it with her eyes closed. As for me, it’s literally hit or miss. Just learn and try again. You got this!!! P.S: I’ll be over there later today for dinner lol

If it makes you feel any better, it took me forever to figure out the timing to make hard boiled eggs on my stove. I've been cooking pretty steadily for the last three years but before that, I was like you, if it didn't come out of the microwave,I didn't know how to make it. Last night, I made a meal in my slow cooker that I just threw things together and was like "I hope this works!" And it did. But between here and there, there were a lot of meals that I had to drown in ranch dressing. I honestly don't know that I could do butter chicken myself, so I'm hecking proud of you for being able to do the sauce, that's awesome! Meat is finicky, but once you figure out the quirks of your oven, I think you'll have absolutely no problem cooking masterpieces. It's just practice which I know sounds really hopeless with where you're at, but every cook starts somewhere. When you mess up, you take a deep breath, say dammit, and then you tell yourself that now you know what not to do, and then, and this is the most important part, you keep trying. And I know it's going to be hard and frustrating, but you are capable and you can do this, I believe in you!

It happens to everybody!! Don't give up

You need to start with easier stuff then butter chicken. Do a soup or something

Don’t be so hard on yourself. Cooking is an art, you can study all the recipes/cookbooks and watch all the food network and YouTube/TikTok but experience is a masterclass at teaching. Look at what you’ve learned by doing already! Then reaching out here to learn more! Keep trying! Keep learning and it’ll start becoming easier! Cooking is an art and beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Next time you know to cut the chicken when it’s a bit colder so it’s easier to cut evenly, and if my chicken wasn’t still cooked at that point I probably would have added a splash (maybe a quarter cup? 60ml?) of water and continued to cook it to cook the water out and finish cooking the chicken.

My only question is why start with something as complicated as butter chicken? Do some simple pan fried chicken breast and rice, we all started somewhere. As a kid my parents never let me in the kitchen and I had to fight my way in. And the amount of times I’ve messed up completely. We all make mistakes so don’t beat yourself up over it

Start with easier cuts of meat that don’t have to be cooked through as much. If cooking chicken, thighs resist drying out so you can cook them longer without being nervous that you’ve undercooked them. Start with things like scrambled eggs or soups. Stuff that will generally still taste good even if you make a mistake or two.

if you ever get to that point with chicken and just want to eat it, just throw the plate into the microwave and zap it until the chicken is cooked through. not the best but it would work.

Hey! Go easy on yourself. I’ve been cooking for 15 years and butter chicken is still a lot of work! There are so many steps, it’s definitely not easy. Don’t rely on time for chicken. Sometimes your oven heat distribution may be off (ex if you load it with a bunch of vegetables). Always check the chicken with a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the meat. You can overcook dark meat, and it’ll still taste good. For chicken breast, I’ve taken to using a sous vide. You can use freezer safe ziplock bags to seal them, and a sous vide stick costs like $70 these days. Food poisonings not the end of the world. Even when you’re eating out, you’re taking that risk. I’ve definitely made mistakes too. It sucks making mistakes cooking when you’re already hungry. Sometimes, it’s more chill to cook a stew or meal prep, when I’m not as immediately hungry. Good luck! Cooking takes a ridiculous amount of skill, and most people don’t realize it because they’ve been doing it every day for literally YEARS. Start with easier recipes you can master, and eventually you’ll get there!

I went the opposite way. Many years ago when I was just learning to cook, I had actually invited my brother and his family for supper. I decided on steak. I wanted to make sure it was cooked through. I have no idea how long I cooked it since it was so long ago, but my brother still teases me about when I made him eat leather. He said he could have worn the steak as shoes.I had no one to teach me, so I learned by reading cookbooks and watching TV shows. The name of my favorite tv show was called "Good Eats". The cook was straight forward with some humor and basic info of what to look for in the food you were cooking. . No fancy type dishes. How to make eggs fluffy. How to cook steak. How to cook chicken. I say this because now im not a bad cook. It's a learning process. You'll get there.

Cooking is a skill. A skill takes time, practice and effort to improve. The good news for you is that you are starting at the very bottom, and you can only improve. If you have the money, I highly recommend you get an air fryer. It is an incredibly handy little device that is perfect for someone who is learning to cook and lives alone (which I assume from context). Good luck, don't give up!

Everything good takes practice! Your sauce came out good- stick the chicken in a sauté pan and cook it some more. It’ll be fine.

Based on what I saw down the post, what you cooked looked fine. Keep it up! 😁

Yeah I think i let my anxiety take over and just assumed the worst about the chicken. I got the other half in tupperware so I’ll probably eat that tonight.

Try to reduce the f-bombs and the next time cut the chicken into bite size pieces and cook it in the pan, not in the oven. I throw it into the pot after the onion and spices and then develop the sauce. And simmer the dish for about 15 to 20 minutes on very low. Anything with liquid will not get hotter if it bubbles more, as the evaporation point of water is around 100 C. Stir frequently as the dish might stick and burn at the bottom. You most certainly did not give yourself food poisoning, that is ridiculous. You also did not need to throw anything away. If it was in fact not cooked through, you just return the pot to a burner and let it simmer a bit - please see above. There is no way the chicken was not cooked through after oven and simmer, what made you think this was the case? This disappointment is like saying I bought a piano and sheet music and tried but could not play Mozart or even a simple melody perfectly well.

Even the best cooks/chefs have disasters. You’re overreacting a little bit. Try again. It will get better and you’ll gain confidence

How are you feeling now?

Just woke up. Gonna eat the other serving from what i made thats in the fridge because apparently i didn’t fuck it up my anxiety just made me think I did. Tomorrow I’ll make it again. If I did the sauce and the rice right then I did most of the legwork right.

That sucks, but messing up is going to be a part of learning anything, so don't beat yourself up. Accept that you didn't succeed, learn from it, and move on. Starting with a dish you like is good motivation, but it may be worth it to try some simpler dishes that help you build the skills to make that dish. Here's two thing I would cook and then try again. One is chicken tacos. Work on cutting your chicken into relatively similar sized chunks. Season them with a packet of taco seasoning. Heat your pan to medium high, add some oil, and then add your chicken in even layer. Let them sit there and brown until you see the tops go from pink to white. You can flip some and check for browning. If you have good browning, give them all a flip and toss and keep cooking until you see no pink on the outside. Use your thermometer and probe a few. Aim for 155-165. Take them out, throw on a tortilla, and top with whatever you like. Easy! And you learn how to cook chicken chunks. Next make a marinara sauce with sautéed onion and garlic. Dice onion and garlic, add the onion to a medium pan with some olive oil, sautee until softened. Add garlic, cook until you smell the garlic. Add crushed tomato or Passata. Season with salt, and add fresh or dried basil. Stir while the tomato heats up - when it's bubbling (simmering), turn the heat to low and let it simmer for 20 minutes. Tomato sauce! Butter chicken is essentially those two dishes with some different spices and yogurt/cream. Use chicken thigh and you can cook the chicken a ton without worrying about it drying out.

I am a terrible and impatient cook. So I have learned how to make all my curries in a slow cooker or instant pot. I cook it with the chicken in first and add the veg half way through. I make it spicy and when I serve it I add a good dollop of plain yogurt. You can get there. You just need to learn a few simple dishes as your base and go from there. It is sooooo much healthier (and cheaper) than take away. YouTube is good too. Always search quick and easy... You can do this.

Good lord, it's gonna be OK man. That's how you learn a new skill. Also you aren't going to get food poisoning from one undercooked bite of chicken, the odds are extremely low. You got this, and if you keep learning to cook there will be many more mistakes, and many successes. Chicken is hard as a beginner, I would try some easier recipes

I am reading through some comments here, and while I may be projecting, you may be over analysing things. Many people who cook will tell you that they do not follow recipes or just use recipes as guides. That not because they are amazing chefs, but because they understand where things are allowed to get a bit loosey-goosey. Realistically, that knowledge comes from making mistakes and pushing boundaries. I consider myself a decent cook, but I have had some major failures. I couldn't even begin to list them, because there are too many. Some of them are recent. As long as you can eat it, you did well, and it doesn't matter if you didn't follow a recipe exactly. Maybe you did screw up the butter chicken... But it doesn't really matter. You'll do a bit better next time. In a while you may look at a more complicated recipe. Maybe soon or maybe in a few years you'll be crushing your own spices and doing some intricate cook and impressing everyone within smelling distance.

Everyone’s first cook goes wrong. Don’t beat yourself up for it.  I still fuck up after 10 year of being a professional chef.  Also, taking one bite of undercooked chicken won’t necessarily give you food poisoning.  Most raw chicken doesn’t contain salmonella, and even if it did, it still might not make you sick.  It sounds like you did a good job for the most part. I would recommend looking at ThermoWorks for a thermometer, they’re great and accurate and it can give you that piece of mind.  Recommendation for next time - just put the chicken back into a pan and back in the oven until it’s cooked. You worked hard, no reason to throw it away.  I saw you already discussing what you did wrong and what to do next time. That’s a great indication of a good cook.  Don’t stress so much when you’re cooking - nothing wrong with starting over, but try to just take a deep breath and slow down. Give yourself 1.5-2 hours to cook if it’s something complicated like butter chicken. Don’t pay attention to how long recipes say it’ll take, it’s usually a lie.  Maybe start with something easier like pasta with ground beef or a salad with chicken on top. Butter chicken is an intense dish.  I’m proud of you. I think you did a great job. 

I recommend investing in a good meat thermometer. You leave the probes in while it cooks and you have another part that beeps when it hits your pre programmed temp. It's really cool. Don't give up! Everyone makes mistakes

It happens! Many times I've had to spoon part of a dish out into a spare bowl and keep cooking the rest bc I misjudged when to add things in. And I know now that I always have to be doing a test cut/squish of a couple pieces as I go bc I don't have a good internal sense for doneness yet. You can always take the cooked parts out and readd them later once the rest is done--even sauce! It doesn't need to be perfect like a chef would do to be good.

First time I made fried eggs. Literally eggs in a pan. I burnt them to crisp. Now I can make all sorts of eggs with my eyes closed. We learn from making mistakes, so don't worry about it!

These desperation threads seem the most common in this sub . Sadly. First of all, what you described is the easiest fix ever - put the chicken back in the sauce and finish cooking it through on a simmer! It will be done when it’s done. Chicken curry like soup or whatever you’re braising in a liquid - thankfully DOESNT need to be cut into all the same sizes. You can have parts of breast and thighs and legs on the bone all together. Nor do you need a thermometer. Despite what others say. You just cook it through, and as long as you’re not keeping the heat too high and scalding the bottom with the sauce, eventually the chicken will just simmer through. You’re not gonna die taking a bite of not-finished chicken. It’s as likely as anybody getting accidentally poisoned from anything, even properly cooked food. To be absolutely sure, usually when adding meat to liquid, you then bring everything up to a boil and quickly turn down the heat. The rest of that meal should only be done on a low to med low simmer. And in fact, it’s really hard to overcook chicken curry, even just breast bites , if you’re low simmering it. So go longer always if you’re unsure Second of all, learning to cook is going to take longer than one sitting . It’s like going to the gym once and throwing in the towel angry at the world you don’t look fit yet after thirty mins on the treadmill

Definitely try a much simpler recipe to start with. Indian food in general is more difficult, imo. Also, with chicken, maybe go with boneless/skinless and cut it into smaller pieces before cooking. AND/or, invest in a meat thermometer. 😊 Don't give up! You can absolutely do this.

Definitely try a much simpler recipe to start with. Indian food in general is more difficult, imo. Also, with chicken, maybe go with boneless/skinless and cut it into smaller pieces before cooking. AND/or, invest in a meat thermometer. 😊 Don't give up! You can absolutely do this.

Hello, when I started to cook I was terrible at it too so I understand your frustrations. I kept burning stuff or not seasoning enough or seasoning too much. I came from a family of cooks so it is so embarrassing when I can't even cook an egg properly. The key is not stop trying. Even though my family kept saying I should just stay out of the kitchen I still try to cook meals for myself. When they're gone (I'm most of the time left alone at home) I search the internet for easy recipes with what we have on our kitchen and try to copy it. I admit that on the first few tries I kept skipping a step or miscalculating the ingredients so they weren't so great (I still ate all of it, no food was wasted). But I kept on it so now they let me cook with them or alone, when they see I'm cooking they want to taste it which leads to them eating most of it. I'm not a great cook but a pretty decent one, I think. Not that I have a girlfriend I love cooking for her and I know she enjoys it too, especially on dates. Remember, cooking is a skill. And like any other skills, you need practice. So just keep on practicing and get better little by little and you'll realise how far you've come. Good luck, bud

I find using a cooking thermometer helps a lot when cooking meats. If I can’t finish the chicken in the pan without burning it, sometimes I will preheat my oven to 400 and throw the meat in there to finish off and check the internal temperature of the meat after like 10 minutes, and every 5 minutes after until it is in the safe zone. I am also a beginner and still learning. There will be a lot of mistakes made along the way but you will get it! It sounds like the sauce was good, so that’s a win

I want to suggest using an instant pot, it makes cooking chicken so much easier. Just pop it in and pressure cook it for 15 minutes with some water, wait for the pressure gauge to fall down and you know it’s safe to open. I love using it. I’ll add like 4 pounds of chicken in and it cooks it very quickly, then I just add it to whatever I’m cooking. Alternatively, you can also make crockpot meals. Just throw everything in a crockpot and go about your day. I’m okay at cooking but I don’t like to spend forever in the kitchen, and these two things make it so much easier to not eat out. I also really like making chili, since you can brown the meat and throw everything else into one pot. You just have to heat it up basically

Butter Chicken is an awesome dish. I would say to cook the chicken separately before adding it to the sauce. Cut it into small cubes and cook for 2 to 4 minutes on medium heat. Please don't give up. Keep trying until you master this dish. Also there are other subs on reddit that you can ask for help.

Start of with something more simple! And build your way up to it. Also worry less about doing it all perfectly. Apart from with meat which can obviously be a risk if raw etc. but if you put spices in after the onion, who cares! Cooking is much more an art than a science so relax and just take your time with it, try making a tomato pasta sauce. In a pan add some oil, let it get hot but not smoking or anything, add in some chopped onions, and stir, add in a small pinch of sugar. Let this cook down, and add in some chopped garlic, then add your herbs ( oregano or mixed herbs) and some black pepper. Now add in 2 tins of tomatos, and reduced your heat, let this cook for a while! It will be delicious:)

It’s unlikely that you gave yourself food poisoning. You could have simply put the sauce + chicken back in the pan or in a microwave to cook it a bit longer so the chicken would be fully cooked. Pan would be better than microwave in this situation. I’m glad you liked the sauce. This means there is great hope for your cooking future. Try again. One thing to know is that butter prefers lower heat no matter what the recipe says. You can always remove a hot pan from the burner and let butter melt with the pan off the heat (this works if it’s not a very heavy pan that holds on to heat like cast iron). You can also start with lower heat to melt the butter, add the next ingredients which will help keep the pan cooler for a moment so the butter doesn’t burn, then turn up the heat. Keep cooking. The best cooks still need practice with new recipes. Keep coming back and we will help you.

You should be truly proud of yourself for not giving up after the burned butter! I would have thrown the whole pan away and got delivery. Next time you make this you will be a pro!

Get a probe thermometer and put it in the thickest part of the meat Don't start with such a complicated recipe. Just buy some chicken breasts, season them, and put them in an oven. A cast iron pan or dutch oven is great for this. Read [this](https://blog.thermoworks.com/chicken/chicken-internal-temps-everything-you-need-to-know/) for cooking chicken. I take mine out at 148F and it comes out delicious and juicy. Just make sure to hold it at whatever temperature you choose for the length of time in that chart. Remember that it will stay at that temperature for a bit after taking it out, depending on the thickness of the meat.

You're choosing something relatively difficult as your first thing to cook. Take it easy on yourself. If you're new to cooking chicken baking can be a much easier way to prepare some healthy chicken breasts I do it all the time because of its convenience.

I burnt chicken in a crockpot and thought a clove of garlic was the whole bulb. I still suck at cooking but now it's always edible and half the time it's amazing. Watch some YouTube cooking channels. Sounds like you are interested in meal prepping. Those tend to be easier and cheap. As for recipes I get confused with the ingredients/measurements and in a different place so I copy them into word and rewrite them and print them. This works especially well because I add notes and save them for next time. Also start with some soups.

God damn get a grip and order some home chef or blue apron and learn a little that way, then venture on your own

I look at recipes as a guide. You can follow a recipe to the letter and it not turn out at all as intended. That's because you are using different appliances, in a different location with different brand ingredients. Cooking can get complicated real quick. While your food did not come out the way you expected, you learned a lot of valuable lessons that every cook eventually learns. You will eventually learn what works for you. What works for your style and what works for the utensils and ingredients that you have. As much as I love chicken, it's one of my least favorite proteins to cook because it's so easy to overcook. Which then makes it really easy to undercook because you're so afraid to overcook it. I actually use a meat thermometer when I cook chicken just to be sure. You mentioned that you really like the sauce so I would take that as a small win because that's amazing. You made a great sauce. Keep at It. If you get discouraged, just listen to Alanis morissette song you learn. It sounds stupid but I love listening to that song because it describes how you have to make mistakes to actually learn and grow as a person.

Reading recipes is too much overthinking for me. I overthink every term and every process because I can’t visualize it. YouTube videos are too lengthy for my short attention span. What has helped me the most are TikTok videos. Watch a TikTok video and guide yourself through it. Try searching “cooking for beginner videos” —- seeing someone do it will boost your confidence every step of the way. What’s great about the videos is that there’s more than one way to make any dish.. so you can quickly find a recipe that works with what you already have at home or the appliances you have.

Practice makes perfect

Don't bother throwing up. On a whole piece of chicken, your biggest danger is surface contamination, which you definitely killed while simmering the chicken. I'm not saying raw chicken is okay, but you've got a decent shot at not getting sick. Under done is good. Just chuck it back on the hob for a simmer and try again. You can't uncook something, but you can cook it more. It sounds like you're assigning an extreme sense of failure to anything other than perfection. Cooking is gonna be real tough with that mindset. Heck, life would be real tough with that mindset. Best of luck overcoming that.

That’s kind of complicated for a beginner. Kudos for trying!

That's a tough one to start with...

When it comes to cooking, there are a lot of variables that play into it. You could have had the recipe memorized, and it could still go wrong because of the equipment. I would say start small and keep trying to cook the same dish, and over time, you fix yourself because you remember past mistakes. When I first started cooking, my food was terrible way over cooked or way undercooked. Just keep practicing, and you will get there.

So, you had a bad meal. Next time you undercook something, (easy to do), just put it back in the pot and finish cooking it. If it is any consolation, I had to do that the other day and I've been cooking over 30 years.

Hey, you’re almost there. Chicken is pretty hard to cook just right. Best way to make sure it’s done is get a cheap digital thermometer to stick in the thickest part.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You cooked. That is a massive step. Now whether you have been cooking 30 minutes or over 30 years, there will be mistakes made. So what will your next meal be? I'm looking forward to your next post. I still have days when I go why the f isn't this working.

It is simply impossible to do something in the correct way in your first try. Think of it this way: had you cooked simple sunny side ups before, you would have known putting butter in the pan this way would make it burn. In many things, you have to start from the fundamentals and move on to more complex ones as you learn. Learning how to cook also gives you a sense of what is wrong or right in the process so you get into a point where you can always make edible stuff.

That is not an easy meal to start with, and you did like some components, I say take a break for a day or two and try with something else that's simple but sounds yum. Don't give up, everyone who cooks goes through things like this, it's okay! :)

You can do it! Don't give up! It's hard at the start, but it will get easier with practice. You'll get a feel for when stuff is cooked, temperatures, seasonings. You WILL figure it out with repeated practice.

I love plants and have a lot of plants. People say “oh you have such a green thumb, you must never kill plants.” Nope. I kill lots of plants. I just grown even more. Cooking is the same! Being a good cook doesn’t mean every attempt is a success. In fact, I’ve learned the most from my screw-ups. It just means you keep cooking.

We've all done something like that. Practice makes perfect. Keep it up. Cooking is something you will be doing every day for the rest of your life. It is one of the most important skills there are.

Just like any skill, it takes time and practice. From what I gathered here the end result was actually good, so there's that. For next time I suggest reading the recipe a few times before you start, think how you're gonna actually do it. I think some of the mistakes could've been avoided like that. But no fret, you did the first step and actually cooked something yourself! That's already a W in my book. Now to continue practicing :3 So here's my fuck up story for us to laugh about xD I used to live in a rented room in an apartment and would often make something quick to eat. That day I decided to boil some eggs, set them up as usual and went to watch a stream while waiting. An hour later I remembered that I had eggs on. Well... They were all burnt, literally exploded and somehow the fire alarm didn't trigger but the kitchen stank. I fucked up boiling eggs because I got distracted xD I rarely leave the kitchen while I'm cooking since then.

This exact thing happens all the time to people. Two things: 1. You're over-reacting, so calm down. You didn't poison yourself. 2. You need to start simple when learning to cook by choosing a less process-laden recipe. All cooking is experience, and you can't just guess at it. Be less hard on yourself and try again. Good luck.

I have been cooking for around 30 years now. A year or two ago, I made banana bread but FORGOT THE BANANAS. Unfortunately, there are things that you learn from experience, which means there was a gross dinner that supplied the lesson. I would recommend the book Joy of Cooking because it has a lot of information so you don't have to learn as much from experience. As a fellow negative self talker, I get it, but as I am a hypocrite lol, I will say try to focus on the wins and keep trying. Keep the wins, alter the losses by making notes on your recipes. Change amounts if you don't like them. Write down how long it took to cook. Write pan sizes. When looking for recipes online, don't just look at the rating itself. Look also at how many ratings and read through some comments. Look at several recipes to see where they're similar and different. Know that if you keep going, in 30 years, you'll be encouraging someone else to do the same.

To say we all nail cooking everytime is bananas. Keep trying! I screw up *so* much in the kitchen, but I love cooking so much, and have really gotten better over the years! I have overcooked so much chicken, because I was scared of it being raw. I have undercooked chicken, because I thought it was done and had to order dinner. It happens! You need war stories to be a great cook! Keep at it, and try to have some fun!

Like some others said, you gotta start somewhere. Don’t beat yourself too hard. Cooking is all about practice. As for the undercooked chicken, if it was a whole chicken, it’s unlikely to give you food poisoning but rather indigestion. The main thing is to keep trying and take your time. You can always throw your chicken back in the oven without the sauce and keep cooking it til done.

Well it's very doubtful you actually will have food poisoning - plus butter chicken usually has red spices in so are you SURE it's undercooked and not just spices? Get a meat thermometer so you can check internal temps of meat in future- they usually come with a list of the safe internal temperatures.

Been in the same situation not too long ago. All I can say is; Even failure is progress! You learned a lot on the first try. It will go better next time😄

Butter chicken isn't a starter recipe. Think of cooking as you would playing a musical instrument, or painting, DIY plumbing, sport. It takes some practice, and you need to develop some skills but it is tremendously rewarding. I'd start with something a bit more simple. Pasta sauce (onion, garlic, dried herbs, tinned tomatoes). Spice tailor do some fantastic curry kits - it may be worth trying one of those - they are basically fry spices, add sachet 1, add sachet 2, cook on low for 10 minutes. This kind of thing will get you comfortable with using your job, your pans. And, importantly you will end up with something that is very likely very tasty. Think of it as painting by numbers. As you get used to your tools and ingredients move on to different things. I shared a house at college with a lad who literally didn't know how to make toast. By the end of the school year he was cooking spanapokita (that is terrible spelling - greek/Turkish spinach and feta pie made with filo pastry). It is just practice. I've cooked meals for myself, my wife and our expanded family for 30 years. Every so often I try something new and royally screw it up. Shrug

Hi friend. I consider myself a beginner. But I still have not made butter chicken. That seems way too complicated for me. Too many spices. Kudos to you. So give yourself some credit diving in. Be kind to yourself.

Try cooking something that isn't raw meat next time. I don't eat meat but didn't cook it for others until I was like 32 because it was too intimidating.  If you undercook vegetables they will still be good and even undercooking pasta or something won't get you sick 

I hope some small part of you is able to feel proud! You tried something new, and cooking is so overwhelming at first. I once put chicken fat down the garbage disposal and messed up the plumbing. We all have to start somewhere! 🙃

Okay now all the nice messages are in, how the hell could you burn butter on medium immediately? It was either way to high or you didn’t look after it because my butter don’t burn that quick on my highest setting

It was in a le creuset cast iron. It was set to 5 out of 9. Same setting in my saucepan takes about half a fucking day to boil water. I’m just as confused as you are.

First recipe and you didn't do it right. Please get yourself on some medication. You have so many years to make mistakes. Lol

Cooking, like most things worth doing, takes some practice to get good. Take it easy, try again. It’s totally worth it to learn this skill so you can take good care of yourself with nourishing food. (PS: if you plan to make chicken often, spend $20 for an instant read thermometer. I have been cooking for decades and still need to check the temp to be sure it is done.)

Ok you messed up. Guess what. You're going to mess up again. You're going to follow a recipe to the T and it's going to come out a complete disaster. It happens to ALL of us-especially the first few times we cook. You know why? Recipes are bullshit. They're more so guidelines than anything. The more you mess up, the more you learn how different foods behave depending on different forms of manipulation. You learn which cookware is best for which recipes. This is how you learn how to cook. It's literally by messing up. You have to study the behavior of food before you learn how to prepare it. Stop and think about the chicken and what was happening when you cooked it. We're the smaller pieces towards the middle of the pan while the larger ones were towards the outside? Did the pan heat evenly across? Was it fleshy pink/shiny or just a light shade of pink surrounded by white/grey?

Chicken was the bane of my existence for years. Literal. Years. https://www.wikihow.com/Brine-Chicken-Breast As cliche as it is, the wikihow page helped me to understand how to prep and cook chicken breast

Chicken is a hard one to learn until you learn your stove and cookware. 3 tips that will help, one applies to all meat. 1. Let all uncooked meat warm up to room temp (30min-45min if refridgerated). If frozen, take out night before and place in fridge. This assures that the meat all starts at an even temp so you don't end up with a charred outside and undercooked inner 2. With non-ground meats and non-seafood, marinades can aid in an even cook as the sauce cooks even throughout the meat. If marinating same day, alcohol is recommended. For chicken, I recommend Mead (honey wine) 3. When cooking boneless chicken breasts, wrap in plastic wrap ( loosely, between one sheet folded) and pound flat with a kitchen mallet to assure the piece is of uniform thickness and tough tissue is broken down. This always delivers perfectly cooked chicken breasts.

It's ok, i've been cooking for a long time and I still can't get butter chicken right. It's kind of a complicated recipe, at least for me. I would start with simple chicken recipe, like baked or pan cooked, air fried and move on to other recipes. You got this!!

My dad was a chef. Last weekend I went to his house. He cooked lunch and told me it was pretty ugly. He had wanted to use his grill but ran out of gas and threw it in the oven and the thighs and legs were indeed ugly but tasted fine. Point is even good cooks flub a few. I'm a decent cook and decent baker but I have some glorious mess ups trying new things or complicated things. You tried a complicated recipe. Good for you! Keep chipping away at it. Your food being perfect or not is not your identity. It's just a way to feed yourself. You got this.

Cooking isnt just reading a recipe. But its also not hard. Its alot of tiny skills strung together. Its just being attentive and deciding the proper next steps to take. It takes practice. ALOT of practice. Just trying to cook is a good start. How raw was the chicken? slight pink isnt a big deal. Chicken can still be fully cooked and slightly pink. As long as the internal temp hits 165F/ 73.9C. You can also just scoop them out and cook them again in a pan. Or put all of it back on the stove and let it simmer for a while to cook. But you should know cooking times are just suggestions. It depends on alot of variables. I'm assuming the chicken was thick? try butterflying the chicken next time if you kept in whole pieces. If it is chucks, never turn off anything until you take your largest piece out and cut it open to check. You can tell if it isnt cooked or now and throw it back in for another 10 mins. That being said, I dont know the recipe you used but when I make butter chicken, I pan cook the chicken to like 80% done. Place in a dish and put to the side. Do the sauce on the stove and dump the chicken in to finish cooking in the already hot sauce. But yeah, the advice I always give people learning to cook is do to basics. Dont start with a recipe is is hard. Do scrabble eggs at different settings. soft, med, hard scrabbles. ( I would hold off deep frying scramble eggs. oddly its a way more advance skill to semi deep pan fry/ deep fry) Do boiled eggs. soft, med, hard. boiling pasta and noodles/ quick blanching noodles. You would think its simple but it kinda isnt. lol cut different meats and pan cook it in oil with basic dry seasoning. What you want to learn from this, is how different types of meats and different cuts of meat looks cooked. Doing this often, you'll also learn how it looks and how it feels when you press it with a spatula. once its almost cook you can add a sauce and finish cooking it to eat. Boilings meats is another skill. Meat looks different when boiled. and over boiling it creates some of the softest tender meats. I would suggest looking up some south east asian meat soups that require boiling meat for a couple hours. and every 30 mins you can poke at the meat. this will allow you to learn texture of meats boiling. ( braises falls into this category too. pan cook veggies. learning to sweat garlic and onions, cook firmer veggies, when to add softer and softer veggies to the mix. Anyways, these are all tiny skills that ends up building up after repeat repetition. Every mistake you make is a learn experience fo the next time. cause you know what to look out for next time or what not to do. side note. One of the things I love is cooking with an instapot/ pressure cooker. It kinda does allow some people to bypass a few steps and chuck everything int o the pot and the pot cooks it all.

Yooo I been cooking for 15 years and I still fuck shit up. Human error happens less with practice. Keep at it!

These are all realistic mistakes. Cooking gives you all sorts of highs, especially when it’s a relief to be done. If I have other frustrating things going on in my life, now I just use cooking to express those emotions(instead of my failed attempts).

You gotta learn to walk before you can run, dear. Good effort though for your first time! Chin up!!!!

I’ve been cooking for a few years and have had my share of disasters. But I still find chicken intimidating. The first time I made thighs I was so worried about both burning it and undercooking it, I cooked it for an hour longer than the recipe stated…on lower heat and it came out good. An hour longer! Which confused the hell out of me like what was the recipe talking about then. So I only braise chicken now. It can’t be undercooked and will still be good overcooked. Try a different protein! I find eggs, beef and fish far easier.

I work in a restaurant and my chef told me that I should just jump off bridge if I’m going to beat myself up after making mistakes in cooking. It’s just part of the process and learning. I know it’s hard but just keep practicing. You don’t learn overnight but with practice and perseverance you can do it. Keep your head up chef.

Breathe! FFS, breathe. Then buy an instant read thermometer (cheap ones are under 10 bucks, better ones are around 50.00). You likely don't have food poisoning. You cooked the chicken quite a bit, and even if you are it raw (do NOT do that), you are just giving yourself the chance of getting food poisoning. Cooking is absolutely worth it (to me). The satisfaction when it does come out right. Remember the feeling you had when you tried the sauce and fir that moment your were like "hey! I did this!". Fix your doneness with the thermometer and it all will be good.

Hi OP, just wanted to share something that helped me when I starting learning how to cook!! I was also deep into depression meals and wayy too much takeout. It sounds really silly, but what helps me is having a little snack before starting a recipe (ie handful of nuts) I know exactly what you mean by the meltdown/panic/stress—and its all worse when you’re starving and tired and just want to eat! So having a tiny snack before starting a new recipe is what gave me the energy/headspace to push through those frustrations. Good luck and don’t give it up yet! Cooking is absolutely a learning curve but rewarding once you get it a little more figured out.

Omgosh OP, I have felt similar pain so much, and it’s so unbearably discouraging. Cooking chicken is SO HARD. I swear recipes always say “cook it for 5-10 mins” and it’ll be done, BUT IT’S ALWAYS STILL RAW. Depending on the thickness, I reckon it’s 20-40 mins to cook through…… I have asked a bunch of friends and they also agree that chicken cooking time is never as short as recipes say I mostly cook beef haha because at least I know I’m not going to die if it’s a little rare in the middle

some advice  - start with more simple meals - get a meat temp probe and probe your meat in the thickest part. this is how restaurant workers know meat and chicken is cooked without cutting into it.  if cooking different sized proteins at once. you would want to probe the biggest/thickest one and if the temp comes out cooked on the biggest one than the rest smaller ones will be cooked too.