Chicken Korma

Rachel asked me to post a few of my favorite Indian recipes. Since her and Mark are in Malaysia, and there is a large Indian population, they have access to many typical Indian spices and ingredients.

While we were in Indian in the winter, we had dinner at Conrad’s uncle’s house and I discovered one of my newest favorite Indian dishes: Lamb Korma. They served it with this loooong paper thin Indian bread, which I hadn’t ever had before and haven’t ever seen since. It was lovely! So I came home and found a few recipes for Korma, but didn’t get around to making it till recently.

My first attempt at Korma involved chicken instead of lamb. Lamb, especially good lamb, is pretty hard to come by in central Ohio, and secondly, it takes much longer to cook. I especially like lamb made in the crock pot, tho. Anyway, I was skeptical about this recipe, but as it simmered down, it started to look and smell a bit like what I ate in India. It has a large amount of ground coriander seed, which is very pungent. I also take fennel out of ALL recipes that I make because I hate the flavor of fennel!! We ate it with parathas, which we buy frozen from the Indian store and they are wonderful with any kind of curry. They are a flaky and chewy round bread and ever so slightly sweet. You can also eat this dish with rice or chappatis, or just pita bread for that matter!

Consequently, you can tell we are becoming a truly “blended” cultural family because I crave different Indian dishes during my pregnancy (especially ones I can’t have much of, like Masala Dosa, because of the gest. diabetes) and Conrad wants to have something sweet each night before he goes to bed!

I know not many of you will try this recipe, but if you love Indian food, getting this stash of basic spices at a local Indian store you can basically make any Indian recipe. Consequently, I always had nice spice racks that stood empty or with the spices that the rack actually CAME with! Now, I have them labeled and filled with beautiful Indian spices and actually use them all of the time!

Korma
2 pounds lamb (or chicken) cubed
Spice Mixture (you can grind spices in your coffee grinder)
6 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground red pepper
½ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp ground turmeric

½ cup sour cream
3 c thinly sliced onions
4 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp butter
2 inch piece cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
4 cardamom pods, broken open slightly
2 tsp minced garlic
2 tsp minced ginger
1/4 tsp fennel, coarsely ground
¼ cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
1 ½ tsp salt
¾ c water
1 tsp fresh lemon juice

Marinate meat in mixture of ground spice mixture and sour cream for 30 minutes. In a dutch oven, over medium high heat, fry onion in oil and butter until edges are browned. Add cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and garlic and ginger (use 4 tsp of garlic ginger paste to simplify recipe). Contiue to fry until onions turn medium brown.
Add marinated lamb to onion mixture and stir over medium to high heat until sour cream disappears and meat is no longer pink on the outside, about 2 minutes. Stir in fennel, coconut milk, salt, and ¾ cup water; bring to boil. Turn heat down and simmer, covered for 30 minutes.

Uncover and simmer for another 20 – 25 minutes to thicken sauce, adding more water if sauce is too thick. At this point, the meat and sauce should have darkened somewhat.

Stir in lemon juice and remove from heat. Taste for salt.