Curry night and how to 'save' a split yogurt sauce

Some friends who come round for dinner regularly are really easy to please. As soon as they walk through the door and smell the curry spices, they smile and lick their chops with anticipation. So, for 4 (and 1/2) people, I decided to make 2 curries of very different tastes and heat levels accompanied by one vegetable dish, rice and naan bread. I chose earthy and spicy Rogan Josh made with beef instead of the pricier lamb, mild, creamy chicken korma and cauliflower with onions, orange and garam masala.

One new book acquisition lately is the India Cook Book by Pushpesh Pant (that really is his name). A huge tome of a book that covers every area and province of India and just about any Indian recipe you could hope for. I used his recipe for 'Celebratory chicken curry' as an influence, (recipe at bottom of page).

This cooking extravaganza required me to peel and chop 8 small shallots which was pretty darn painful. I have found that if you store onions or shallots in the fridge it usually lessens the stinging torture and red, teary eyes. 

The sauce after having being 'saved'

The Korma sauce required a great deal of yogurt that started to curdle and split while cooking. Panicking with thoughts that I would have to start again, I looked online and found some tips to 'save' a curdled sauce. I will share them with you at the bottom of the post.

The original recipe I intended to follow for the vegetable dish proved to be a little bit too complicated after having already made two curries, so I simplified and edited and produced a dish that was delicious. Earthy from the turmeric, fresh from the tomatoes and slightly floral and herbal from the orange. Recipe at bottom of page.

We have an area in Vancouver called Punjabi Market, which, as the name suggests, is the Indian area of town with amusing street signs in both English and Punjab. It has many colourful cloth and material shops, beautiful, intricately embroidered wedding dresses with DJ's pumping out house music from the ornate shops, Bollywood movies for rent and a wide range of food shops selling everything from ghee to jasmine hair oil (very good). Quite often I will go there to buy spices from the huge bulk containers, carefully weighing out my powder or whole spice into plastic bags, but sometimes I see things that I just have to try, including these little crackers above. Similar to prawn crackers, but without the prawn taste, they puff up when fried or microwaved. 

 They puff into little cups which are quite good for holding a little bit of chili sauce or mango chutney.

Chicken Korma with plain Naan in the background

Simple steamed Basmati rice with paprika to make it look pretty

 

Lunch today. Whenever I make a chicken curry or stew these days I always use chicken on the bone. The taste is far superior and the meat juicier.

Recipe: Chicken Korma

1 whole chicken, jointed into 2 legs, 2 breasts cut in half and 2 wings. (There are many good references on how to joint a chicken, here is one.)

1.5 cups natural yogurt

pinch of salt

pinch of saffron strands

2 onions, sliced

1 tbsp chopped ginger

4 chilies, seeded and chopped

5 green cardamoms

5 cloves

1 cinnamon stick

1 bay leaf

6 curry leaves

4 tbsp almonds

6 tbsp cashew nuts

1 tsp cumin powder

1/4 tsp turmeric and 2 tsp chili powder mixed to a paste with a little water

1/2 cup cream 

Garnish

10 pistachio nuts

10 cashew nuts

1 tbsp chopped almonds

10 pine nuts

1/2 tbsp raisins

Stir the yogurt well, add the saffron and salt and add the chicken, turn to coat and cover. 

Place in the fridge for a few hours.

Heat 2 tbsp ghee or oil in a large saucepan and fry the cardamoms, cloves, bay leaf, curry leaves and cinnamon for a minute. Add the onion and fry until brown, about 10 - 15 minutes.

Add the ginger and chilies and turmeric paste and fry for 2 - 5 minutes.

Add the chicken with its marinade and 1/4 cup water. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 1.5 hours until the chicken is very tender.

Add the almonds, cashew nuts and cumin powder and cook gently for 5 minutes, then add the cream. 

Stir well, serve sprinkled with the garnish.

This curry is very fragrant, subtly spiced and creamy. If I made it again, I would cut the almond and cashew paste by half and omit the cream altogether to get a more flavour some curry. But, if you like your curries on the sweeter, creamier side, Korma is for you.

Click for Rogan Josh recipe (I substituted stewing beef for lamb - preparation and cooking times are the same)

Recipe: Cauliflower with tomatoes and orange

1 head of cauliflower, broken into small florets

1 onion, sliced

4 curry leaves

4 cloves

4 green cardamoms

1 piece cinnamon stick

1/2 tbsp chopped fresh ginger

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cumin

6 small tomatoes, halved

1 orange, peeled and cut into segments with no pith

Heat 1/2 tbsp ghee or oil in a frying pan until hot and quickly fry the curry leaves, cloves, cardamoms and cinnamon for 30 seconds, add the onion, ginger, cauliflower and turmeric and stir everything well for a few minutes.

Cover the pan with a sheet of foil, (or a lid if it has one), reduce the heat to low and cook until the cauliflower is soft, (this may take as long as 30 minutes). Add a little water if it starts to stick.

Once the cauliflower is soft, remove the foil and let the cauliflower boil for a few minutes to evaporate the liquid.

Add the tomatoes, cumin powder and orange and fry quickly until the tomatoes have softened slightly. Serve.

To Fix a curdled or split yogurt based curry

So many times after spending hours roasting and grinding spices, frying off onions with ginger and garlic until fragrant and golden brown and carefully adding yogurt spoon by spoon until incorporated, it all curdles and splits into an ugly oily liquid with little 'curds' floating around. It is heart-breaking and usually contributed to boiling too rapidly or too soon or the cook's poor attentions. There are ways you can save this sorry mess, as I discovered yesterday after both curries decided to test me with their wicked ways. 

First of all, use full fat yogurt as the low fat versions tend to curdle quicker. Indian home cooks use very creamy, fatty buffalo milk yogurt and they usually make their own from full fat milk. 

One option is to mix a little cornflour or other flour such as chickpea to the yogurt before adding it to the curry. I've read that this keeps it together well throughout the cooking process but I haven't tried this yet.

For my Korma, a took a few spoonfuls of the sauce and placed it  into a bowl with 2 tbsp fresh yogurt which I stirred well until incorporated. I then removed the cooked chicken from the curry and poured the fresh yogurt mixture into the Korma sauce and mixed well with a whisk. The sauce seemed to emulsify itself very well and all the little lumpy bits seemed to smooth out and disappear. When I then added the nut pastes, the sauce became very creamy and smooth again. The same thing happened with the Rogan Josh sauce and the same remedy worked well for this also.