A Celebratory Dinner: Lamb Korma and Crusty Persian Rice

Today, forty-two years ago, I asked a girl out on a date.  The rest is history.  So, we had this small anniversary coming up and I was thinking of something out of the ordinary.  Especially in the light of the COVID-19 lockdowns and its side effects.

Now, forty-two years is not as special a date as a twenty-five or fifty, but there you go.  It came to me that expressions of love are not limited to physical efforts or presents.  It also comes in giving something of yourself in appreciation.  And what better way than cooking a special dish for your loved one.  Then both of you can share the joy.  In the end, the effort is not in the physical work involved, it is more in applying the mind to come up with a proper recipe, something out of the ordinary.  Kahneman wrote at length about his.

My choice fell on a korma, with a special rice dish.  Lamb korma with a nutty sauce and a flavourful and crusty Persian rice.  Tahdeeq.  These are dishes that I have not come across often in an eight-year foodie adventure.  Time for shaking the tree, I thought.

The korma is made with lamb in this case.  Make sure the meat is at room temperature and quite dry before you start.  Get meat with some bones in, the bones add extra flavour to the dish.  Roast the nuts, it adds a proper flavour to the dish.  I used cashews for this dish.  Almonds also work.  Fry the meat in a dry pan in small batches, else it boils.  You need the caramelisation in the pot, this becomes the stock.  

Remember some salt while you are frying the meat.  You also need to get the sauce up to standard before simmering the meat in the flavoured sauce.  Some of the nuts may be held back to use as a garnish, the rest is blended with the onions to make a thick sauce.  The garlic/chili/ginger mix needs to be 1 chili, ½ ginger, ¼ garlic by volume.  Get a recipe here.  I would not venture into the variations of dry masala powder.  Just use your favourite.  This dish needs to be flavourful, but not strong and spicy.  Remember, you are working with very light and subtle spices.

The process for the rice is quite simple, with a cheat to make it easy.  The rice needs a crust, which tends to stick to the pan.  I get around this little problem by lining the pot with waxed paper.  No sticking, and it is easy to lift the rice out of the pot and invert it on a plate.  The rice uses coconut powder.  You can use coconut milk to boil the rice, but it is lost when the rice is rinsed.  The rice is steamed at the end, which calls for a lid that seals properly.  Use a wet tea towel if you are uncertain.

 

These two dishes require the same effort and time as any alike everyday dishes, but some extra care is required in the sequence of the process.  The korma is done first, then the rice is started only when the meat part is done.  This is done deliberately to allow the korma to rest and develop flavour, so do plan enough time for this sequence of cooking.

 

The result is absolutely worth the extra bit of effort.

 

 

Ingredients

For the korma

750 g lamb shoulder, cubed

1 ½ cup plain yogurt

1 ½ cup cashews, roasted

2 onions, finely chopped

1 ½ tbsp. of your favourite garlic/chili/ginger mix or your own fresh stuff

1 ½ tbsp dry masala, your favourite mix

2 tsp garam masala

2 tbsp rose water

¼ cup apple cider or white vinegar 

2 black cardamom pods (black elachi)

Seeds from 3 pods green cardamom, shelled and roasted

1 cinnamon stick

A sprig of fresh coriander leaves for garnish

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Oil/ghee

 

For the Persian crusty rice

1 cup basmati rice

2-3 tbsp coconut powder

I cinnamon stick

3-4 pods cardamom (green elachi)

Pinch of saffron, powdered and steeped in ½ cup hot water.

Dollops of butter

Oil/ghee

Coarse salt

Some fine salt to taste

Waxed paper to line the pot.  Proper waxed paper.

 

Here is what you do

 

Roast/fry the cashews in a dry pan until they start to show dark brown stains, then set aside to cool.  Ensure the meat is quite dry, then fry the cubes in a dry pan.  They will start to caramelise and leave some caramelisation in the pan.  You need to do this in batches, else there will be too much fluid in the pan and the meat will go grey.  Set the meat aside while preparing the sauce.

 

The sauce, in this case, is onions, fresh garlic, ginger, and chili, along with the cardamom (elachi) and cinnamon.  Add some oil to the caramelised pot, add the dry whole spices and fry for 20-30 seconds until the flavours come out, then add the onions.  Fry until translucent.  Add the fresh spices or spice paste and fry for another minute or two.  Add the vinegar to deglaze the pot.  You want the caramelisation in the sauce as stock.  Now add your favourite dry masala, the yogurt and the roasted cashews.  The cashews may be substituted with roasted almonds.  Keep a few nuts for the garnish in the presentation.  Mix thoroughly, then blitz this lot with a blender.  Check for sufficient salt.  If you don’t have a blender you need to chop the onions quite fine or grate them before frying.  The cashews may be crushed in a coffee mug with the back end of a spatula or your chef’s knife.  Or use your favourite mortar and pestle.  The coffee mug idea works a treat and you get a crunchy texture in the sauce.  

 

To this lot add the meat, turn the heat down and simmer the meat until quite soft.  Dilute the sauce with water if required and make sure it doesn’t catch.  If it does everything goes bitter and you will have to start over.  When the meat is done to your satisfaction, add the garam masala and rose water, douse the gas hob, and allow the dish to rest.

 

Now you start with the rice part.  Add water, rice, and some salt and the cinnamon and cardamom.  Boil this until the rice is partly done.  Now rinse the rice.  It will stop cooking.  This is where the cheating part of the process comes in.  Clean the rice pot, then line it with waxed paper.  Use proper waxed paper, else the paper will wilt into the rice.  Into this goes a dollop of cooking oil or ghee and about a dessertspoon of coarse salt, sprinkled around.   Do not use olive oil, the flavours clash with the rest of the dish.  Some dollops of real butter are then added before the rice is sprinkled on top.  Check and adjust for saltiness.  Steep the saffron in ¼ cup of boiling water.   Add the coconut powder to this, then sprinkle this over the rice in the pot.  Set a tight-fitting lid and cook at medium heat for another 15-20 minutes.  Don’t lift the lid, you want to steam the rice in pilau-style.  When the rice is done, lift the whole lot out of the pot by the wax paper and invert the rice between two plates.  The waxed paper will come away freely and you will have a wonderful crusty rice dish with an intact Tahdeeq.

 

For dishing up you put the korma in a dish for the table and garnish with coriander leaves and the rest of the nuts.  Serve the rice next to this.  After all, this is for a special occasion and the presentation of the food is as much part of the experience as the aromas and flavours.

 

I hope that you will enjoy this as much as we did.

 

Bon Appetit!  

 

 

 

Authored by Johan Zietsman

 

Last updated on 2020-10-25 

Korma Curry, Boat Style

 

I have often thought about the difference between what I do versus your standard urban food blogger, cooking in his or her five star kitchen. Complete with all the electricity and associated equipment. I have also thought at length about what I call in Afrikaans “afskeepkos”. Food made in negligence. I have gone so far as to post (or is it “pose”?) the question on my FaceBook wall, with some reaction.

The answer is not easy to find, as the term “afskeepkos” is a neologism, even in Afrikaans.

The proper answer needs to be researched and pondered, if you will.

The gist lies in the application of the mind in preparing food. Whatever food it is. Leftovers may look and taste like, well, leftovers. Or you can apply your mind and use those same leftovers in an altogether new dish.

Or you can use some of the stuff that you munch on before dinner as part of the dinner dish ingredients.

We are not here to discuss the vagaries of language and application of the mind, we need to cook up something simple for dinner on board. Using two pots and one burner. Perhaps this one will go down in history as having applied the mind.

Chicken Korma is one of the more well-known dishes in India. It is made with onions and cashews, along with the requisite spices. And it is extremely simple to make. If this dish takes more than fifteen minutes in preparation, you are doing something wrong.

The nominal recipe is to use the ingredients in the list below. There are a myriad variations and even my own version differs between batches. But they all taste exquisite.

This one is normally made in the kitchen at home, where you have access to a stick blender or equivalent. Aboard a small yacht there is none of that, hence this adaptation.

Ingredients

For the chicken

500 g (1 lb) de-boned chicken.
3 medium sized onions. More is better for this dish.
½ cup whole cashew nuts. Or one whole cup, but then the dish becomes very rich.
1 clove fresh garlic
1 fresh hot chilli
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
½ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
5 black peppercorns
1 cardamom pod, shedded
1½ teaspoon medium masala powder
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
Small stick cinnamon bark
1/4 teaspoon aniseed seeds.

Or combination of the above. The chillies, garlic, onions and cashews are not negotiable.

1 teaspoon green masala paste (recipe here)
1 teaspoon garum masala
bunch of fresh coriander leaves, chopped
spritz of fresh chives, chopped
some salt to taste
2 tablespoons butter

For the rotis

½ cup white or brown bread flour. I used brown bread flour
½ inch slice of a brick of butter
pinch of salt
¾ cup lukewarm water

Process

For the Chicken Korma

Fry the cashews in a dry pan until they are nice and brown. It works better if you have a cast iron saucepan or pot, because the pot heats the food from the side as well. The heat retention also helps with the rest period at the end. I used my 20cm Le Creuset saucepan for this.

Take them out and crush them as fine as you can get it. I used a coffee mug and the back ends of my kitchen knives. Keep the crushed cashews to one side. Add a dollop of butter to the pan and fry the dried whole spices until the flavour comes out. I use my mortar and pestle to grind the whole spices a little before frying them.

Add the grated onions and fry until they are nice and translucent, beginning to turn brown. This may be difficult as the onions will be very watery because you grated them. Add the chopped fresh chilli and and garlic and fry for another two minutes, then add the dry powder spices. I crushed the cashews while frying the onions to save time by multiplexing. Fry for another minute, then take it off the heat. Add the crushed cashews and a little water to make a batter-like sauce. Then put it back on the heat and bring to the boil.

In the home version you chop the onions coarsely, then fry them until they are brown. The spices are added as above. When everything is ready, the fried whole cashews are added back to the mix and blitzed with a stick blender to make the sauce, adding water as required.

The sauce can be quite thick, leading to burning if careless, so watch it. Add a little water if you get worried.

Now add the chicken. I cut the chicken into thickish slices, as opposed to cubes. They cook faster if they are thinner. Cook slowly until the chicken is tender. Add salt as required. Make sure you don't use too much water. The dish needs to be almost just runny when done. If it is too watery it becomes a mess to eat and most of the flavourful parts get left in your plate. When the dish is nicely done, add the garum masala, the chopped coriander (dhania), and the chopped chives. Put the lid on and set this lot aside to rest.

For the Rotis

This was one of my more successful experiments. The internet is a wonderful place if you understand that different folks have different names for the same stuff. Like rotis. Some call them flat breads, others call similar bread tortillas, even though they may not be made from corn flour.

Whatever the case, I used an idea from a recipe for tortillas. You rub the butter into the flour and add the salt to the warm water. Then add the water little by little to the flour making a very soft dough. This dough will be nice and elastic for only a short time, so work diligently. Knead the dough for five minutes until it becomes satiny. Then roll it into a long sausage about two inches thick (50mm). Cut this into 50mm sections to make small balls.

Roll each ball out into a small disk about 4mm thick. Bake in a dry pan on medium heat until it starts to puff, then turn over. You will know that it is done when it starts to burn in spots. You get a production line going, baking one at a time and rolling the next one while you wait. I used my 24 cm non stick frying pan from Le Creuset, it works a charm.


In the meantime, the main dish is resting and developing flavour. Don't worry. If you used a cast iron saucepan it will not even cool down to edible levels while you are making the rotis. Else heat it a little as required.

You can dish up straight from the saucepan at the table. Two rotis per person is more than enough, there will be leftovers.
And it is accepted practice to use the rotis to wipe out your plate.

Bon appetit!

Authored by Johan Zietsman
Last updated on 2013-07-06