Rene's Chicken Korma

I love Indian food. And I really love spicy Indian food. I don't, however, like coconut. And the Chicken Korma (or Kurma) served in a lot of Indian restaurants has coconut milk. However, one of our favorite places, Royal India in Sandy UT, has a version that isn't coconut-y.

After becoming addicted to their version, I decided that I had to try to make it. Tonight was my third attempt. The other two were successful -- but not spicy enough.
The flavor has always been good. (I spent quite a bit of time researching the right spice combination on the internet).

Tonight's version was awesome. Last time we were in Royal India, I asked one of the guys there how to make it spicy enough. He said just keep adding chili pepper. I took his advice to hard and quadrupled what I had used before.

Here's what I did tonight:

2 lbs chicken, cut up in small pieces
3-4 medium onions
Butter
Garlic
ginger
1 t coriander
2 t garam masala (I actually made my own)
1 ½ t turmeric
2 t chili powder
2 t cayenne pepper
6oz plain yogurt
½ cup cashews, ½ of them ground
1 c cream
½ can stewed tomatoes
Cut onions up and sauté ¾ of them in butter with garlic. Remove from pan. Add more butter and garlic and add chicken and remaining onions. Cook until done but not brown. Add ginger (try to use minced fresh ginger)
Remove chicken from pan.
Add onions back to pan and add yogurt and combined spices. Stir well until warm. Add chicken, cream, tomatoes and cashews. Stir frequently. Simmer about 30 minutes (long enough to cook rice).

(Next time, try something to make this saucier…add another cup or so of cream/water or half and half. That may make it necessary to increase amount of spices by ½ or so).

This was spicy!! The flavor was awesome!!

We eat this with basmati rice.