SHRIMP KORMA

Few days back, I noticed there were a ton of Greek yogurt in my refrigerator. Now, because I really like the flavor of Greek yogurt, I made a habit of putting a small amount of yogurt in almost every gravy I cook. Suddenly it hit me, why not make a korma. The specialty of korma is the huge amount of yogurt - complimented with sugar - used to make the gravy, giving it a sour-sweet taste. In Bangladesh, often korma were made with chickens and eggs. I have seen my mom make beef korma too. Somehow we didn't have either of the proteins. That's when the unopened packet of shrimp caught my attention and I was like 'Oh why not?'. I have always loved shrimps and when I researched a bit, I realized it wasn't as absurd of an idea either. Another important ingredient for korma is onion paste. Luckily I had some in the freezer from the time I made egg korma on Thanksgiving potluck, 2019. 

Here goes the recipe of  shrimp korma that I made on a whim, and I hope you like it.

First off, I took a pan and added butter to it. You can use ghee or even oil. Butter and ghee especially gives a rich aroma to the gravy. Once melted, I added the onion paste, green chili, minced garlic to it. I let it simmer for about 5 minutes in medium heat allowing the garlic to incorporate with the onion paste. Next I added red chili powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and salt to it. You can add sugar along with these but I prefer adding it after yogurt. I allowed the mixture to cook for about 3-4 minutes and then I went in with the yogurt. Greek yogurt often have a very strong flavor, almost overpowering, so it take quite a while to figure out the amount of sugar to put in. For me, I prefer constantly tasting it to get the right flavor. I then added the shrimps and let it cook for about 20 minutes in low heat so the shrimp can suck up the beautiful flavors of the gravy. 

Ingredients:

10 pcs       shrimps

2 tbsp       butter

1/2 cup     onion paste

2 pcs         green chili

1 tsp          minced garlic

3 tbsp       Greek yogurt

1 tsp          red chili powder

1 tsp          cumin powder

1 tsp          coriander powder

1 tsp          salt

3 tsp          sugar

Shrimp korma is usually served with polao or biryani but since we had plain rice, we tried it with rice. So on a plate full of rice, add a generous amount of shrimp korma and VOILA! it's all ready to be served.