Hyderabadi Chicken Korma

Hyderabadi Chicken Korma is a fragrant chicken curry made with minimum spices as well as minimum effort. It’s not highly rich as the other variants of kormas that is doing the rounds in most of the restaurants around India...but a very flavourful and mild preparation.

This chicken korma is more of a one pot chicken curry where you put everything and then forget about it for the time being...yet the result is lip smacking good. I got the recipe from a friend who stayed in Hyderabad for her job and learned the recipe there from a friend. Give the recipe a try and you will immediately fall in love with it.

Hyderabadi Chicken Korma

Serves 6

Ingredients:

1 kg chicken on bone

1 onion – sliced

8 garlic cloves – paste

1 inch ginger – paste

2 tbsp cashew nuts

1 tsp poppy seeds

1 cup thick yogurt – whisked

1 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp red chilli powder

1 and ½ tsp coriander powder

1 and ½ tsp garam masala powder

A handful of fresh coriander leaves – chopped

½ cup cream

Salt

¼ cup oil

¼ cup ghee

1 medium cinnamon stick

3 green cardamoms

3 cloves

1 large bay leaf

1 black cardamom

Some roasted cashew nuts to garnish

Method:

Heat the oil in a kadai and add the sliced onions to them.

Sprinkle some salt over them and cook until the onions become golden brown.

Take the browned onions (without oil) from the kadai and put aside to cool down.

Add the ghee to the remaining oil.

Add the whole spices, i.e. cinnamon stick, cardamoms, cloves, black cardamom and bay leaves to the ghee and sauté until the ghee becomes aromatic.

Add the ginger-garlic paste and cook for a minute or two or until the raw flavour of the garlic goes away.

Switch the flame to low and add the turmeric powder, red chilli powder and coriander powder. Add ¼ cup of water to them.

Stir and cook the spices on low flame for a minute and add the chicken pieces to them.

Stir to coat the chicken pieces nicely with the cooked spices and add.

Add salt toe season the chicken pieces and stir until the chicken pieces are nicely seared.

Add ½ cup of water to this and cook the chicken for 15 minutes.

In the mean time make a smooth paste of the cashew nuts, poppy seeds, browned onions and yogurt. Make sure that it is completely smooth and non-grainy in texture.

Pour this mixture over the half cooked chicken pieces and stir to mix.

Cover and cook the chicken for 15-20 minutes more or until the chicken is fork tender. Stir every 3-4 minutes to prevent the curry sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add water if necessary.

When the chicken is perfectly cooked add the cream and the garam masala powder.

Taste and adjust the seasonings.

Simmer for 2-3 minutes more or until the oil starts to separate.

Switch off the flame and serve hot with some roasted cashew nuts and chopped coriander leaves on top of them. Pair the hyederabadi korma with rice / pulao / chapatti / naan.