Cook With Compassion: Murgir Korma

This recipe is from Kevin Stout, who helped open our offices in Bangladesh, and now serves as the ministry’s Church Partnership Development Manager. His wife is Bengali, and this is her family’s recipe for murgir korma, or sweet chicken curry with yogurt.

I decided to make this because I had everything I needed for it in the pantry, and since it was from an American, I figured he wouldn’t ask me to do anything too weird, like cook a goat head.

First off, I decided to get all my spices ready, mise-en-place style (thank you, Food Network!), so I’d be ready for them when I needed them and I wouldn’t have to fiddle around with measuring spoons. I’m notorious for mismeasuring when under pressure.

Then I chopped up my onions — I decided to do a half-recipe, which still yielded at least four servings. I minced my garlic. That is, once I realized I couldn’t find my garlic press, I pulled my handy minced garlic tub out.

I heated the oil and sautéed the onion and garlic, using my handy-dandy Spatula City spatula. (You UHF fans know what I’m talking about. Best wedding gift ever.)

While those were sweating, I got my coconut, raisins, water and yogurt ready.

The recipe called for only 1 teaspoon of raisins, but I love me some raisins, so I used 1/4 cup in a half-recipe. The more, the merrier!

I also used Greek yogurt, which was perhaps a mistake as I’ll later explain.

Once the onions were tender, I added the spices and cooked for two minutes. Then I added the chicken and cooked it until it was cooked through.

Next, I plopped in the raisins, coconut, yogurt and water. It looked deliciously creamy and filled the house with a beautiful aroma. I put on the lid and simmered for about 35 minutes while I cooked a batch of rice.

All in all, this recipe took me only an hour to make, and 30 minutes of that was just waiting for it to simmer. Very easy — even while trying to keep a 4-month-old happy.

I was a little disappointed in the creaminess, however. By the time the dish had cooked for the 35 minutes, the yogurt seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps this is because I used Greek yogurt, which has less water. So in the future, I would either use more yogurt or use a non-Greek, higher-fat yogurt.

The spices were tasty, and I think this would be a fun recipe to make for a family — different, but not so different that kids couldn’t enjoy it. Bon appétit!

And if you want a little inspiration while making your Bengali curry, check out this video of one of our cooks in Bangladesh, Milton. He cooks for 180 children! That makes this meal seem like a snap.