Korma is a real popular indian dish served in many restaurants. Its a creamy sauce flavoured with coconut and mild spices. Its nice and rich to serve in parties and many people just love it. Korma has coconut in it and it you dont like coconut you can try making it without coconut but then that will be more like a shahi sauce instead of a korma. The use of cream is also very common but i have made this “my ” way and have omitted the cream. If you want this dish more rich then you can always add a splash of cream to this recipe. The photo is of chicken korma but you can make it with any fish or meat or paneer or vegetables. The main thing is to learn the sauce which i am here to teach you. I would like to add this is one of the dishes i taught in my cooking workshop in Madrid and my students simply loved it …i hope you all love it too 🙂
INGREDIENTS FOR CHICKEN KORMA
250 grams of boneless chicken breast, diced and marinated in the following
1 cup of yogurt
3 cloves of garlic
1 small piece of ginger
put the yogurt in the blender with the ginger and garlic and blend. Add salt and marinate the chicken in this overnight
KORMA SAUCE:
1 tablespoon of ghee or butter ( i used ghee in the workshop to give it a restaurant flavour, but butter will do or even oil)
1 onion chopped fine
1 bay leaf
2 pieces each of Nitu Didi cardamoms and cloves
1 small piece of Nitu Didi cinnamon stick
1/4 cup of cashewnuts or almonds
3 tablespoons of tomato paste
200 ml of coconut milk
salt and red chilli powder to taste
coriander leaves finely chopped
a splash of cream if you want it nice and creamy
METHOD:
Sautee the onions in the ghee in a pan with the whole spices and salt. When its transparent and hasnt changed color add the cashewnuts and the tomato paste and red chillies if we want it spicy. Take it off the heat and let it cool a bit and put it in the blender till its all well blended. This is your basic korma sauce. You can add whichever ingredients you want to it. If youw ant to add cream it should be done at the end of the dish.
FOR THE CHICKEN KORMA
cook the marinated chicken over a grill till done. I also hold it over the flame for it to get that lovely charred taste . Cut it into pieces and add it to the korma sauce. Please do not over cook the chicken as it tends to get hard. I also add the chicken marinate to the korma sauce for extra flavour.
FOR MUTTON AND FISH KORMA: follow the steps as for chicken korma
FOR VEGETABLE AND PANEER KORMA:
marinate the vegetables and paneer as above and then cook them till half done. Finish cooking them in the sauce. You might need to add a bit of water for cooking the vegetables or for more gravy,

Another version of this …picture by Edna Bear..she used chicken with bones, barbecued it and put it into the sauce ! What a lovely idea..Ednas becoming very clever!!