CHICKEN-KORMA(M) USENET Cookbook CHICKEN-KORMA(M)
CHICKEN KORMA
CHICKEN-KORMA - Indian braised chicken with onions, cloves,
and ginger
I learned to like Indian food in London, where delicious
Indian food can be had in simple restaurants at hamburger
prices and the fare at fancy places ranks among the finest
food on Earth. Back in America, to satisfy my new craving
for good Indian food I had to learn to cook it myself. This
is a Friday-night supper dish in our family-too complex for
a weekday meal, and too plain to serve to company.
Indian food is often quite elaborate, so by their standards
this is a fast and simple dish. It is a classical Indian
recipe, found in many cookbooks.
INGREDIENTS (serves 4)
4 chicken breast pieces (boned) In other words,
split and bone two breasts)
1/2 cup safflower oil
1/4 cup clarified butter (the Indians call this "ghee")
6 medium yellow onions
3 garlic cloves
1 1/2 Tbsp
ginger
10-12 whole green cardamom seeds, cracked. Or use 2 tsp
of ground cardamom.
20 whole cloves
5 bay leaves
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp coriander (ground)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or more to taste)
8 oz plain yogurt
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
PROCEDURE
(1) Cut the chicken breasts into bite-size pieces and
set aside. Peel the onions and chop them fine. You
should have about 3 cups of onion. Mince the
garlic and add to the bowl of chopped onions.
(2) In a big frypan that has a lid, heat the butter
and oil, then sauté the onions and garlic for
about 10 minutes, until the first hint of brown-
ing. Use "medium high" heat.
(3) Crack the cardamom seeds between your fingers,
just to get the shell open. Att them to the pan.
Add the ginger, cloves, bay leaves, and salt.
Sauté until the onions are nice and brown, about 5
more minutes.
(4) Mix the coriander and red pepper with the yogurt.
Add the yogurt to the frypan, stirring as you
pour, slowly enough that the onion doesn't stop
bubbling. It could take several minutes to do
this, depending on the diameter of your frypan.
(5) When the last of the yogurt dries up, add the
chicken pieces and brown them. Add 1/2 cup water,
reduce heat, cover, and simmer 20 minutes.
(6) Stir in the milk and turn off the heat. It needs
to sit a few minutes to let the flavors blend.
The longer you let it sit after cooking, the
better it will taste (up to several hours).
(7) While the chicken is sitting, cook some rice. I
make saffron rice to go with this dish.
(8) Fish out the bay leaves, and as many of the whole
cloves as you can find, before serving. Check to
make sure it is moist enough (it should have the
consistency of applesauce). Reheat over low heat.
Serve.
NOTES
Indians put a lot more salt in their cooking than this
recipe calls for; if you want to make it more authentic you
should double or triple the salt. Indians also don't like
chicken skin, and will go to great lengths to prevent even
small pieces of chicken skin from getting into the food. I
rather like chicken skin myself, and I don't try very hard
to keep it out of this dish.
If you can't find green cardamom seeds, don't bother using
white ones-they've been bleached and processed and don't
have much flavor left. Use ground cardamom instead.
RATING
Difficulty: moderate (timing is somewhat important) Time: 1
hour plus "sitting time." Precision: Approximate measurement
OK.
CONTRIBUTOR
Brian Reid
DEC Western Research Laboratory, Palo Alto CA
reid@decwrl.DEC.COM -or- {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax,sun,pyramid}!decwrl!reid
Path: decwrl!recipes
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: alt.gourmand
Subject: RECIPE: Crispy lemon chicken
Message-ID:
Date: 10 Jul 87 06:08:39 GMT
Sender: recipes@decwrl.DEC.COM
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Copyright (C) 1987 USENET Community Trust
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