Mutton Korma

Korma is a Mughal-court braise whose technique — meat cooked in yogurt with ground nuts and whole spices — descends from the Turco-Persian kitchens that reached Delhi with the dynasty after 1526; a version of the recipe appears in the 16th-century Ain-i-Akbari from Akbar's court. While the bare word "korma" later spread to mean almost any mild creamy curry, the mutton (or lamb) preparation is the original and most prestigious form, a status dish marked at imperial level by saffron and silver leaf. It remains a centrepiece of Awadhi and Old Delhi dawat cooking, where the gravy is kept deliberately pale.

Bone-in mutton in a thick ivory-gold gravy that coats the spoon, the meat tender enough to slip off the bone after the long braise. Whole cardamom and clove come up first, then the slow nut sweetness of cashew and almond; the warmth is from spice, not capsaicin, so there is no chili sting. Fried onion gives a faint caramel depth at the back. Best torn into with sheermal, the slightly sweet bread balancing the richness. A pool of clarified butter rising to the surface is a sign of a properly cooked korma.

The defining problem of korma is keeping the yogurt from splitting: dairy proteins curdle above roughly 80°C unless protected, so the cook beats the yogurt smooth, lowers the heat, and stirs in a paste of soaked cashews and almonds whose starch and emulsifying proteins hold the dairy in suspension. Bhuna — patiently frying the onion-spice base until the fat separates — builds the gravy's body before any liquid goes in, and the mutton is braised long enough for collagen to soften without the sauce breaking. Restaurant short-cuts that lean on cream instead of yogurt-and-nuts come out heavier and lose the gravy's faint tang.