Inspiring blogs and korma kravings

I just read a fabulous blog post in The Guardian, about HP sauce and felt inspired to write immediately. It’s been a while, I know that. But I must claim that I’ve been awfully busy dealing with the restaurant, changing the menu and testing out the results. Ad it’s all been good as of now.



The last couple of weeks because I’ve had guests over, I’ve also managed to eat at a number of restaurants, other than my own. Learnt that while a number of them are serving absolutely fabulous food, others are sprinkling my food with hair every time I visit (is it a vendetta against me?). All in all though, I have to say the food scene in Delhi has changed for the better. Whether you want to eat authentic Cantonese food, Spanish food, Pakistani fare – Delhi seems to be serving it all up in dollops, without messing with the authenticity.


While I’ve been eating out lots, I’ve also started cooking at home again. And this week, I made my version of Shaada Korma (or white korma) with mutton. Here’s how it goes:


1 kg mutton


2 tbsps of ginger-garlic paste


250 gms of curd


1 tsp sugar


1 ½ tsp salt


8 dried red chilis


1 large bayleaf


3 cardamoms and 3 cloves and a six inch piece of cinnamon


1 tsp of nutmeg


3 tsps of kasoori methi (dried fenugreek leaves)


1 tsp garam masala powder


2 tbsp ghee (preferably made form cow’s milk and buffalo milk)

Marinate the mutton with the first 4 ingredients for as many hours as preferable, in the fridge. I marinated it for nearly 8 hours. Then heat the ghee, put in the bay leaf and the whole garam masala and wait for it to stop spluttering. Then pour in the mutton with its marinade (swill a little water in the marinade bowl and pour this in as well). Break the dried chilis into half and tumble into the pan and keep sautéing for a while till the mutton and its marinade changes colour. Add a cup of water, bring to a boil. Now turn down the heat to medium intensity, add the nutmeg, kasoori methi, garam masala powder, cover and let cook till the mutton is tender – this usually takes around 45 minutes on low flame. The gravy is usually thick and coats the mutton. If there’s too much gravy, dry it up slightly.


Once done, take it off the burner, take out a plate, put some hot rice on it and ladle the mutton on this and eat away.