Recipe- Quick And Easy To Make Chicken Korma

A good korma can seriously beat everything else, except butter chicken in my book but a good korma is also hard to make. I’ve had some really bad ones that are cloyingly sweet from too much sugar in the curry or just bland. Korma has an underlying sweetness to it, but not from a sweetner. It comes from onions that are cooked slowly till they gain colour and get mildly sweet in the process. Slightly hard work, but so so worth it.

Ingredients

2.2 pounds/ 1 kg boneless skinless Chicken Thighs, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
½ cup Yogurt
2 teaspoon Salt, divided
1 teaspoon ground Black Pepper
4 tablespoons Ghee
4 large Onions, sliced
10 Cashew nuts, soaked in water for 30 minutes
6 Garlic Cloves, peeled
1 inch piece Ginger, peeled
3 Green Chillies/ Serrano Peppers
2 Cardamom Pods
1 Bayleaf
3 Cloves
1 inch Cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon Coriander Powder
1/2 teaspoon Chilli Powder/ Cayenne Pepper
1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala Powder
3 tablespoons Cream
Salt to taste

Method

* Marinate the chicken in yogurt, salt and pepper and set aside for 20 minutes.

* Soak the cashews in water at the same time so that they soften by the time you are ready to use them.

* Heat 2 tablespoons ghee and cook the onions till golden brown. Browning the onions takes a while, because it’s important to brown them without burning.

* Keep stirring them every few minutes as they cook to prevent them from sticking to the bottom. Once they are evenly deep golden brown and soft, you know they are ready (or refer to the video above for colour).
* Transfer them to a mixer grinder along with soaked cashews, garlic, ginger, green chillies and a little water and grind till smooth.

* Heat the remaining ghee and add whole spices (cardamom pods, bayleaf, cloves, cinnamon) and the chicken. Stir fry the chicken on high heat for a few minutes till slightly brown.

* Add the onion paste with ½ cup water, coriander powder, chilli powder and salt. Cover and cook for 20-25 minutes.

* Keep stirring occasionally while the chicken cooks, and and add more water if necessary.

* Once the chicken is cooked, add garam masala and cream, mix well and turn it off. Serve hot.