🍛 Curry · Level 2
Chicken Korma
The Mughal curry of royal kitchens — no tomato, no chilli heat, built on a cashew-yogurt base with whole spices. Mild, aromatic, extraordinarily rich.
The Mughal curry of royal kitchens — no tomato, no chilli heat, built on a cashew-yogurt base with whole spices. Mild, aromatic, extraordinarily rich.
Korma is pre-Portuguese Indian cooking. Tomatoes arrived in India around 1548 — korma existed before them. The dish is built on the original Mughal flavour architecture: whole spice aromatics dissolved in fat, yogurt for gentle acidity and protein richness, and cashews or almonds for body. The absence of tomato is not a gap — it is the design. The flavour is rounder, sweeter and more aromatic than tomato-based curries.
Mix chicken with yogurt, ginger-garlic paste and salt. Marinate minimum 2 hours. The yogurt must coat every piece.
Yogurt's lactic acid gently denatures surface proteins and its calcium ions activate calpain enzymes within the muscle, producing measurable tenderness. For korma, the yogurt marinade also begins depositing lactic acid bacteria compounds into the surface — these contribute to the characteristic mild tang of the finished dish that distinguishes korma from other mild curries.
Heat ghee in a heavy pan. Add thinly sliced onions and cook on medium heat, stirring frequently, for 22–25 minutes until deep golden-brown and reduced to about a quarter of their original volume. Remove and set aside.
Thinly sliced onion caramelises more efficiently than finely chopped because the thin slices have greater surface area relative to their mass. At 22–25 minutes, the onion has undergone extensive caramelisation — the fructose and glucose have cyclised and polymerised into hundreds of new aromatic compounds. The deeply caramelised onion in korma provides its characteristic sweet-rich base — there is no tomato to provide body, so the onion alone must supply it. The onion reduces to a quarter of its volume as water evaporates, concentrating all these compounds.
In the same pan with remaining ghee, add all whole spices. Fry 1 minute until fragrant. Add chicken with its marinade. Cook on medium heat, stirring frequently, until chicken is sealed on all sides — 5 minutes. Add blended caramelised onion.
Whole spices added to hot ghee at 180°C extract their fat-soluble volatile terpenes — eugenol from cloves, cineole from cardamom, cinnamaldehyde from cinnamon — within 60 seconds. Ghee's anhydrous (water-free) fat phase dissolves these terpenes more completely than oil, because ghee's milk fat has a slightly different polarity profile that is more compatible with these specific aromatic compounds. This is one reason korma made with ghee has a noticeably different aromatic character than the same recipe made with neutral oil.
Reduce heat to low. Add yogurt a tablespoon at a time, stirring constantly between each addition. Once all yogurt is incorporated, add cashew paste. Simmer on low for 12 minutes. Add cream, kewra water, garam masala, salt.
Yogurt splits above 85°C — its proteins denature and aggregate, separating from the whey phase. Adding yogurt gradually to a pan at lower temperature allows the yogurt proteins to be gradually stabilised by the fat phase of the ghee. The cashew paste acts as an emulsifier — cashew proteins have surface-active properties that stabilise the fat-water interface, preventing the yogurt from splitting even at temperatures approaching 85°C. This is why authentic korma never splits while simpler yogurt curries do.