Chicken Korma
When most people start out cooking, they tend to stick with the easy stuff like eggs, pastas, or daal if you’re a desi 🙂 But when I started out cooking at the age of 15, I found daal and similar “easy” stuff to be quite a challenge (weird, I know!). I preferred to cook Biryani, haleem, koftay, etc. The more time consuming, tasty stuff. Now that I have little ones, it’s a different story. I like to cook anything that takes 30 minutes or less. And even then it somehow turns out to be a two hour ordeal because of constant interruptions like asking you to hold them in front of the pantry or fridge for 15 minutes so they can make up their minds about which snack to get (btw, they almost always end up with the snack I offered them at first and they said no to)!
I learned this particular recipe for chicken korma from my sister. This, paired with matar pulao, was and is a staple in her household. I think it is the perfect delicious, yet easy enough for a weeknight, desi comfort food!
This recipe falls somewhere between easy and hard. It’s pretty straight forward and simple, but fancy enough to be served at a dinner party! You can save even more time by using pre-fried onions found at most indo-pak grocery stores. I also like to add in a bit of kewra water to mine to give it beautiful aroma. This is a very Mughal-inspired dish, and for some reason I like to imagine all Mughlai dishes to have the sweet scent of kewra water. If you can’t find kewra water, substitute it with rose water! *TIP* Rose water makes an excellent face toner, and it smells great!
I hope you guys enjoy this recipe and it becomes a staple in your household too!
Chicken Korma
- 2 lbs chicken pieces
- 2 tbsp garlic-ginger paste
- 2 onions
- 1 tomato
- 1 cup yogurt
- 5 small green chilies
- 1 bunch cilantro
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1 tsp red chili powder
- 1 tsp haldi
- 1 tsp crushed coriander
- ½ tsp garam masala
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 2 black cardamoms
- 4 green cardamoms
- 7 cloves
- ½ tsp Kewra water
- Slice onions and fry in oil until they become a medium brown.
- Remove from heat and take onions out of oil. Toss them in a blender along with the tomato, green chilies, and yogurt. Blend until it is a smooth paste.
- Lightly cook the chicken pieces in the same oil as the onions until it is no longer pink.
- Add in all the spices, kewra water, and the ginger-garlic paste. Cook for a few minutes, then add the onion paste.
- Continue cooking the chicken for about 15 minutes, until the oil separates and comes to the top.
- Add in two cups of water (or more or less, depending on how thick you want the gravy to be).
- Cook it for about 45 minutes on medium heat.
- Top it off with fresh chopped cilantro. Serve with hot naan or rice.
- Enjoy this satisfyingly savory dish!
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