Been making a lot of indian curries recently. It’s been a couole of years since I last made chicken korma and I remember back then the recipe I used was very basic and simple.
This time I spent a lot of time researching the recipe, looking at different variations, regional differences, the history of the dish and while also trying to justify why certain things are done in a scientific way.
Then I tabulated my findings and created one recipe out of all of them. I can’t really claim credit for my recipe nor do I know if my recipe is even authentic. All I know if that is was delicious and the chicken came out insanely tender.
I’ll comment the recipe below.
Chicken Korma
Ingredients
For marinade
- 1 kg chicken thigh
- ⅓ cup full-fat greek yogurt
- ½ tsp turmeric
- 1 tbsp minced garlic (~2 cloves)
- 1 tbsp minced ginger
- 1 - 2 tsp kashmiri red chili powder (less for less spicy)
- 1 tsp salt
Rest
- 4 medium onions or 2 really large ones
- ½ cup full-fat greek yogurt
- 20 cashews (raw is preferred) (can also substitute some cashews for almonds)
- 1 - 2 tbsp oil
- ½ - 1 tsp garam masala
- 3 tsp coriander powder
- Water as needed.
- Salt to taste
- Cilantro (chopped)
Aromatics (optional) (add as many or as few)
- 2 cassia bark (cinnamon) sticks
- 2 bay leaves
- 8 cloves
- 5 green cardamom
- 2 black cardamom
Instructions
- Marinate chicken with yogurt, turmeric, garlic, ginger, chili power and salt for 30 minutes to 2 hours max. Over 2 hours, chicken can get rubbery.
- In a pot over medium high heat, add oil, green cardamoms, onions and salt. Caramelize onions (~10 - 15 minutes). Onions should be brown but not burnt.
- Take pot off stove and allow onions to cool to room temperature.
- Using a blender, blend the onions, green cardamom and cashews into a paste. Add water as needed.
- Add oil to pan, along with aromatics (cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves, black cardamom). Then turn heat to medium - high. Cook until cloves puffs up (~30 seconds).
- Add chicken and cook for another 5 - 6 minutes until the marinade has broken up and chicken is opaque on the outside (doesn’t need to be cooked through yet).
- Reduce heat to medium-low. Add onion paste, yogurt, coriander powder. Add water as needed to achieve preferred thickness. 1 cup of water is a good average.
- Bring to boil. Add salt/pepper to taste. Simmer for ~20 - 30 minutes.
- Turn heat off, add garam masala.
- Top with cilantro and serve with rice.
Indian person checking in. Yep this sounds like a pretty good recipe 🙂
I wouldn’t substitute almonds though. The cashews are very important for that very creamy texture!
Also a matter of taste but a little more garlic and ginger wouldn’t hurt.
You add yogurt before boiling, and it didn’t break?
Non Indian curry lover checking in. Don’t kormas usually have a taste of coconut somewhere? Or is that just common rather than a necessary part of the dish.
Korma as I know it being a North Indian dish uses yogurt not coconut.
Maybe some South Indian version uses coconut? It’s a big diverse country anything is possible.
One thing for certain, you can always have more garlic
From my research it is a North indian vs south indian thing.
I chose to build the recipe around the north indian style. I also liked that lactic acid from the yogurt tenderizes the meat from a food science perspective.
Thanks! I might well give this a try!
That’s probably the Aussies. They put coconut in literally everything, and most of the curries here are creamy ones too.
You add yogurt before boiling, and it didn’t break?
Not sure what this question means. Could you please clarify?
Also thank you for the affirmation 😃
I think they mean it didn’t curdle. I tend to add the yoghurt toward the end of cooking because of this, particularly if you have lemon or lime in the pot.
Yeah, good call out. Yoghurt based curries its best to bring the yoghurt in last, pre-warm it up to room temperature and cook it gently, no boil. Salt, acid and heat shocks can all curdle the yoghurt.
Oh. No, it didn’t curdle.
Solid but maybe pick one or two solid spices for the tadka, and don’t spare anything. I prefer to cook with ghee as the restaurants where I grew up were more Pakistani/Kashmiri style. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever marinated the chicken for a korma as normally you’re cooking it in the sauce rather than separately as in chicken tikka massala, but curious how this changes it.
Yeah for authenticity ghee is probably preferred.
The main reason why I don’t use ghee is because I don’t cook enough indian food to buy it regularly and I didn’t want to commit to an entire jar of it just to make a couple of dishes.
I would say another thing I saw again and again during my research was the insistence of using bone-in chicken. I’m certain it would taste better but I’m too lazy for it 😅
As for the marinading, I would say half the recipes I found marinaded and the other half didn’t. From a food science perspective it made sense to me to marinade the chicken. You could experiment with and without and see if there is a significant difference. I didn’t feel like it was that much more work for me which is why I marinaded.
Bone-in is always more flavourful, but a pain to eat. Boneless easier to eat, never tastes as good. I like to brown the meat in a pan, bone in first then cook in the marinade. My best results are when using a pressure cooker.
Looks good. Saved it to my recipe app to try someday. Thanks!
