Topic: Chicken korma

[George]

After around 20 years of trying (about 10 times over that period) I have finally succeeded in producing a chicken korma which is as identical as I can tell, to many chicken kormas I have had in BIRs. I owe great thanks to at least three people: (a) Jedi Spice Man and anyone else behind setting up this brilliant forum. Without it, I would probably never have heard from (b) Ghanna who provided an invaluable input of key ingredients such as evaporated milk, and (c) MarkJ who obtained the first class recipe I used for my base sauce. The recipes from Ghanna and MarkJ are already documented here. All I did was bring them together.

The successful attempt followed Ghanna's tip of not adding any spices, apart from those already in the base sauce. I may try adding some spices later, like some restaurants almost certainly do. After all, not all their chicken kormas are indentical, from place to place. But they all have a familiar taste, which is already present in my first attempt.

Regards
George

And here is the recipe (added by CA on behalf of George):

Here's a reprint of a recent post of mine on another korma thread:

This is a quick paste of Ghanna's recipe (which had no specific quantities or base sauce type) together with the quantities which I used, very successfully:

"It is one of the quickest curries to make in the restaurant kitchen" said Ghanna....
Ingredients :
Curry gravy ? 0.5 pints of MarkJ base sauce
Evaporated milk ? 85g, yes by weight
Creamed coconut ? 50g, again by weight
Any kind of nuts ( some use cashwnut ,some use Almonds, Some use a kind of nut similar to hazelnut ) ? use 0.5 oz almonds plus 0.5 oz raw cashew nuts (both unsalted). Grind to a powder.
Pre-cooked chicken, meat, prawns, or defrosted vegetables.

Method :
Heat some oil from the top of the curry gravy. Leave the heat on high all the time
Add the curry gravy
Add creamed coconut
Add nuts
Add evaporated milk
Add pre-cooked ingredients
Boil until oil rises to the top
Sprinkle some coriander
Serve

Some add fenugreek leaves ,some don't.

Enjoy
Thanks
ghanna
(with quantities and some other suggestions, like the great MarkJ base sauce, added by George)


Further comments by George:
- Ghanna reckoned evaporated milk tasted much more like a good BIR than cream. I agree.
- if you use any other base sauce, you're on your own! The reason I say this is that the MarkJ base tastes almost like korma on its own. It's a great foundation for korma, and much more besides
- no spices are added. Yes, no spices. My attempts at adding spices have not yet led to any great improvement.
- I do however add salt and SUGAR to taste
- I'm not convinced that high heat is necessary or even desirable for this dish. I use a low-medium flame

This remains my favourite recipe for chicken korma.

Incidentally, is condensed milk = evaporated milk + sugar ?

[blade1212]

George, It would be iinteresting to see if you could make a non-milk version to see how close that comes out (eg Bhunna, madras etc)

[George]

George, It would be interesting to see if you could make a non-milk version to see how close that comes out (eg Bhunna, madras etc)

In terms of further assessing the MarkJ base sauce, I may not be the best person, since I seldom eat Bhunna, Madras, etc and am, therefore, not familiar with the BIR taste of those dishes. The only 'non-milk' dishes I could consider would be the vegetable curry side dish which normally comes with a chicken biriani, or chicken dansak. I think the vegetable curry is my best bet and I can't wait to try.

[George]

I bought yet another BIR chicken korma last night and made a key observation, thanks to the open plan kitchen. The dish was very 'representative' of a typical BIR korma.

The quantity of cream added was huge, so it was not like any recipe which uses just a few tbls of cream. Here we are talking about 0.25 pint absolute minimum and probably more like 0.5 pint - a significant proportion of the total liquid element of the sauce.

Early on in preparing the dish, the chef also added a significant quantity of condensed or evaporated milk out of a tin. I'm not sure which, or the quantity, but "quite a lot" was poured into the frying pan. Later on he added a significant quantity of UHT single cream out of a cardboard carton, like you can buy anywhere. Then, after the korma had been put into the foil carton, the chef's assistant added even more UHT single cream, possibly to make up the volume to the required level.

Regards
George

 

[pH]

I've made a korma based on the recipes here for the last 2 weekends and I'm extremely satisfied with the results.

1 TBLS veg oil
1 ladle (soup!) of a curry gravy (mildish one)
1/2 a 410g can of evaporated milk
small chunk of creamed cocounut
2-3 heaped desertspoons of ground almonds
1+ TBLS caster sugar
pinch (1/4 - 1/2) tsp of Kriss Dillons Garam masalla.

Basically it's about 50/50 base sauce and evaporated milk - I've been using about 1 ladle of gravy and about 1/2 can of evaporated milk.

It should do 2 chicken breasts (like a take-away lots of sauce-little meat) or use 3 if you like a higher meat-sauce ratio.

Taste the final mix after 1 tablespoon of sugar and add more until it's *your* perfect flavour, some take-away kormas I find too sickly but the great thing about cooking it at home is you get it exactly the way you like it!

[Antoneath]

If you use condensed milk, you won't need to add any sugar. Condensed milk is the sweetest thing on the planet imo. ;0)

Antony :0)

[George]

I bought yet another BIR chicken korma last night and made a key observation, thanks to the open plan kitchen. The dish was very 'representative' of a typical BIR korma.

And I bought yet another one, from a different place, this weekend! My observations are only partial. The proprietor kept me busy talking, but every little observation helps, I hope.

First, the chef added a lump of solid yellow-ish fat to the pan. I guess this was butter ghee, veg ghee or, less likely, butter or margarine. I'd estimate about 2 ozs. As always, the flame was on full blast the whole time.

Then he added 'quite a bit' of a white liquid. I would hazard a guess that this was a pre-mix of evaporated milk, coconut powder, sugar and any other ingredients, like in Terry's korma masala mix.

There followed a ladle of base sauce. All the above elements were added in fairly quick succession. Once that lot had heated through, he knelt down to get some ingredients from low down on a storage rack, so I couldn't see properly. But it included pieces of pre-cooked chicken, which looked quite yellow and perhaps some additional yellow colouring, too. He could have added extra spices at this point. I don't know.

Then he poured in 'quite a bit' of UHT single cream, straight from a carton, so there was no mistake what that was. I'd say somewhere between 65 and 130 ml. At the end of the day I ended up with a large take away carton full of korma, so the sauce volume has to come from somewhere. I never saw him add more than the initial ladle of base sauce.

Finally, he added 'a bit' of coconut milk from exactly the same type of tin you'd get from any supermarket. I'd estimate 45ml (three tbls) of coconut milk. So, if there was coconut powder in the pre-mix, that's a double dose of coconut.

This was heated/boiled for about 2 or 3 minutes longer and the korma was complete.

Again, it was typical of a BIR korma.

I hope this helps.

Regards
George

[curryboy81]

Hi all.  I have been reading this site for a little while and thought Id give something a try  I  have just tried a slight change to this recipe and it was better than my local BIR alot better! The recipe goes like this (for 5 people).   loads of oil, 1 tspn of garamasala, 1 tspn of turmeric, 1 tspn of ginger paste, 3 bags of Darthphalls base sauce (2 scoops in a bag) 4 tspn of creamed coconut one tin of evapourated milk and sugar to taste (about 4 teaspoons) add precooked chicken.  Done 5 minutes!! the best korma I have ever had quite like a hydrabadi if you have ever tried!!! I think you dont have to use as much evapourated milk in the recipe.  I have tried a few other recipes and thery were not like BIR dishes but this was.  I will report back because I am planning on a rogan josh at the weekend.  Also I am planning on asking for the recipes from my local BIR since I have been using them for over 10 years and have become very friendly with them.

[CurryCanuck]

Yet another satisfied convert ! 

[George]

I  have just tried a slight change to this recipe and it was better than my local BIR alot better!

If you say it's good, it must be worth a try!

Before I do, could you please clarify:

- the type of garam masala you used. Whenever I see 'garam masala' mentioned, it might as well say 'secret spice mix', since it can be any brand or mix, and most of them smell and taste quite different.

- how many ml. of Darth's base sauce did you use, please? I'm sorry but Darth's 'bag' measure is totally lost on me, as is the measure known as a 'scoop'.

Also, could you please indicate the method used to bring these ingredients together?

Regards
George