Coronation Chicken Korma - 1970s reverb

Coronation Chicken Korma is my take on a Diasporan curry house favourite; that rich and mild curry beloved of millions around the world who may never experience an authentic version of this dish from the kitchens of 16th-century Mughal palaces. No, not the original dish, but an authentic curry house version that took the world by storm in the 1970s.

Coronation Chicken Korma - 1970s reverb

In the first in my little series of reviving fashionable and popular dishes from the 1970s, I'm turning my attention to a beloved British curry house classic that later spread across with globe with the growth of Indian restaurants in many countries. I'm renaming it Coronation Chicken Korma because it bears no real relationship to the authentic versions of Chicken Korma from Lucknow—always cooked with chicken on the bone and surprisingly few spices (and the recipe for which I have yet to publish on here).

Poulet Couronnement

Rather, the ingredients of a so-called korma of the curry house ilk remind me more of that other cult dish born in the twilight of British imperialism: Coronation Chicken. Coronation Chicken is a recipe created by Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume, movers and shakers on London culinary scene and joint principals of London's Cordon Bleu Cookery School, both eager to get past the austerity of wartime rationing. In 1953, they were invited to create a menu to be cooked by their students for a luncheon banquet celebrating the coronation of HRH Elizabeth II that later became widely know as Coronation Chicken.

Contrary to the widespread enduring myth that the recipe was invented as a dish that anyone could easily prepare in advance and be eaten cold so that no one need to miss a moment of the coronation as they listened in on the wireless or, if they were lucky enough, watched on TV, the truth was far less democratic. The menu Spry and Hume created was specifically for a banquet attended by high-ranking international dignitaries invited to attend the coronation. The general public, though the press reported the banquet, did not have access to the recipe until Spry later published it in her 1956 cookery book.

The second myth about Coronation Chicken is that it was a dish celebrating the Commonwealth in its choice of ingredients in keeping with the guests at the 1953 banquet. But, as one might expect from champions of Cordon Bleu—Hume was one of the first British graduates of the legendary school in Paris—the original recipe owes far more to French cooking than British links with India.

As Spry explained in her book, the kitchen where the banquet had to be prepared was extremely limited and thus, they had to consider dishes that could be served cold as a priority. The original used apricots, not sultanas, and the sauce, which Spry refers to as a "cream of curry sauce", contains mayonnaise, but was a far more complex cooked sauce including wine in the French manner. The fact that it used curry powder probably had more to do with the fact that Hume partly grew up in India than any conscious nod to the Commonwealth. Though it is easy to see how this myth began in the media: many of the dignitaries who attended the luncheon banquet were high-ranking officials in newly independent Commonwealth countries, an institution that the canny new queen supported from its inception. However, the menu seemed to be looking across the English Channel more than to "the far pavilions". Even at a banquet celebrating the coronation of a British monarch it appeared on the menu as Poulet Reine Elizabeth. So much for Agincourt.

The version of Coronation Chicken most common today that remains a steady earner for high street purveyors of pre-made sandwiches almost certainly got confused with Jubilee Chicken, a dish including chicken, mayonnaise and curry powder, created for the 1935 Silver Jubilee of King George V. There, it certainly wasn't about celebrating the Commonwealth as the later myth would perpetuate, but underscoring British control of India at that time.

Most interesting are the later disputes. In the 1980s, a range of "letters to the editor" claimed that Coronation Chicken was nothing new, that, in fact, in the dying days of old British colonial clubs in India, Indian-born French chefs recruited from Puducherry looking to manage on massively reduced kitchen staff whipped up the dish as a means of an easy lunch that still ticked all the boxes for local flavours.

TV Dinners

Both of the inaccurate origin myths about Coronation Chicken and similar falsehoods about Chicken Korma, repeated in TV shows, in the popular press and by advertisers were pretty much bedded down in the British popular psyche during the late 60s and early 70s. And, like so much else stealing from Indian cuisine, it was because there was money to be made.

By the mid-1970s, as a result of various waves of immigration, practically every British town had some form of curry house or takeaway joint. No longer the "exotic" fare beloved of the elite drawing on rose-tinted memories of the Raj served up in gentlemen's clubs and posh restaurants in London, Indian food became accessible to the masses. And, as with most immigrant cuisines, canny business owners adapted recipes to be successful.

Coronation Chicken (the 1970s version of it) remained a cold dish the middle classes would still serve as a salad or on sandwiches at summer garden parties. At the same time, the working classes, having become more adventurous through flavours they discovered in affordable curry houses, keenly wondered beyond some of the boundaries of their traditional eating habits.

Indian cooking (or the notion of it) suddenly had a social currency across the British class system. For example, although Madhur Jaffrey did not make her British TV debut until 1982, her 1973 cookery book An Invitation to Indian Cooking, published in the USA, gained a cult following in the UK among "the chattering classes".

Jaffrey, a RADA graduate, headed to the USA in the 1960s to find fame and fortune as an actress. Instead, she was tracked down by the pioneering book editor Judith Jones. As a young editor for Doubleday in the 1950s, Jones had made her mark as the woman who pulled The Diary of Anne Frank out of the rejection pile. She went on to work with Camus and Sartre. Perhaps ironically (or inevitably) it was her work publishing Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle and Julia Child that made "serious" publishers sit up and pay attention to the commercial power of cookbooks and their potential potentiation through mass media visibility after Julia Child rose to prominence as a ratings-topping TV chef.

Jones was herself a great aficionado of Indian cuisine. She was the first person to track down Madhur Jaffrey to encourage her to publish a cookery book, her track record as a successful editor giving her the earned right to publish a book focussing on what was still then an obscure cuisine in the USA. Back in the UK, however, with its convoluted and complex histories with India, there was an organic audience for the book.

But, for those who didn't buy books from reputable booksellers to augment their bragging rights at mastering Indian cooking for their dinner parties or simply didn't have the time, UK supermarket chains and food manufacturers spotted an immense opportunity. By the mid-1970s British food outlets were plugging instant curries, frozen Indian TV dinners, spice pastes and mixes, and "exotic" ingredients. British television was happy to go along for the ride because the myth surrounding Coronation Chicken was intrinsically linked with the advent of telly in a questionable history exaggerating its earlier cultural influence.

In producing facsimiles of popular "Indian" curry house favourites, it was inevitable that Chicken Korma was going to be on the bestsellers list. Its mild nature and richness had proven a winner for proprietors of Indian eateries serving a predominantly White British market. Supermarkets and food brands latched onto their coattails with similarly Western reworkings of the original form from Lucknow.

This makes sense to me. As a kid, I delighted in how my father referred to the kinds of Chicken Korma available in European curry houses as "a stevedore's idea of curry." And , yes, even as a kid I got that his bitchy comment was a nod to the W.C. Fields' quote about Mae West, that she was "a plumber's idea of Cleopatra", because it made him laugh every time he frequently repeated it while managing to admire both Fields and Mae. Yet, he was oddly accurate. In many ways, this rich dish with all its cream is entirely that.

Nonetheless, there is a reason it proved such a hit in old-school curry houses across the UK and Europe with their cliched paisley flock wallpaper; that it went on to become a staple. Authentic? No. Healthy? Not entirely. Delicious? Oh, yes. Step aside culinary snobs that claim otherwise.

Korma, korma, korma chameleon...

My Coronation Chicken Korma is a kind of aggregation, having tried the local wares from Leeds to Toronto, Berlin to Cape Town. When on a demanding job abroad, I often head towards local curry houses. There are key three reasons: a) I love Indian food; b) I get a kick out of seeing how Indian entrepreneurs adapt dishes to the local palate; and, c) in some places it's the only type of eatery where you'll find anything resembling "spice". In some places (Ja, hallo, Kastanienallee!) korma is about as spicy as it gets.

Thus, I have taken many variables into account over the years: how some places ignore the the cashews of "the original" entirely; how some include tomato purée—something I never encountered in India; or how some add fresh coriander, or not. In my little matrix of aggregation, I'm not making any judgements about tradition but taking a stern look at the data... and then ignoring it entirely based on the experimentation in my kitchen over decades. Feel free to do what you will with it: korma has become an open-source concept.

My mother once described German food as "fleisch mit sahne". A few work trips to Berlin and you can easily download that the Indian restaurateurs have clocked this and made it work for them. Authenticity be damned; the locals get what they like... and pay for it.

But, I digress. This is a recipe born of a forensic approach. Don't get me wrong: it is delicious. But it's as about as "Indian" as the wee freckled lassies in saris serving it at table in that once beloved cult restaurant in Dundee. This is my distillation; the taste of the 1970s curry house served to a soundtrack of Ravi Shankar's top hits.

On the Road Again

However, there is something rather beautiful about UK and other Western renditions of korma. The style of dishes originates in the 16th-century courtly cooking of the Mughal Empire of what is today Pakistan and Northern India where it was very much a rich dish for rich people. It's also worth noting that in its day what we now consider a style of dish authentically of the Indian Subcontinent was actually a "migrant" cuisine. The Mughals, after all, invaded India from Central Asia with a lineage dating back to Genghis Khan, bringing with them innovations they adopted since embracing Islam, such as Persian cooking. The impact of Diasporan curry house renditions of korma is no less significant in mass, global cultural terms.

For those who have travelled there and tasted Indian yoghurt (dahi) made with buffalo milk as it plays out in "traditional" korma, its notable creaminess is actually closer to single cream than to yoghurts produced in the UK and Europe before the explosion of "world cuisine" in the 80s. Before then, the yoghurt available in most places in the UK was pretty flaccid stuff. In substituting it with cream, the intuitive chefs of curry houses were not only playing to the local palate, but also giving a closer experience of the sumptuous dishes on which Shah Jahan might once have supped.

In places in India where it is traditional, I only ever encountered this dish served with naan bread, eaten with the hands and using the pieces of naan as a "spoon". However, elsewhere, in Western curry houses, korma is often eaten with pilau rice, probably through a combination of ignorance and convenience. I have no objection to either. This is, after all "comfort food curry".

Similarly, I am opting to cook it with oil, but both the original "authentic" renditions and many British curry house versions cook it with delicious (and calorific) ghee, the ingredient that singularly led to a demise in popularity of Indian cooking in the UK from the noughties onwards. It's your call, but I personally find the combination of ghee and cream a "richness bomb" that makes me feel full after two mouthfuls. Conversely, when cooking the more authentic version that uses yoghurt, I always use ghee. There, it works out nicely.

As with other dishes, I usually make spice pastes in greater quantities than needed and refrigerate or freeze (this one freezes well) what I don't use for use at a later time. In this case, I'm using half of the paste from the recipe below. Of course, you can halve the quantities but I find it best to have a certain "weight" to get the best out of a spice grinder, so never do.

This version serves 2 to 3 people, depending on the your side dishes and condiments.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

• Make sure you use mild Kashmiri chilli powder rather than generic chilli powder if you don't want to risk it being a lot more fiery. If you can't find mild Kashmiri chilli powder where you are, half the quantity of chilli powder in the spice paste and substitute it with garam masala in the first stages of cooking the onions

• This dish cooks relatively quickly if you get it right. While you'll have to ensure the sauce thickens suitably, don't overcook it our else your chicken will be overcooked

• This is a mild, rich and rather sweet dish. So, think about your condiments and sides. I would never eat it with chutney as a condiment, for example; sugar overkill. Contrasting flavours work best. Because it's so mild, I serve it with a spicier side dish (as here) or with a fresh sambal or tangy herby salad rather than inducing a diabetic sugar coma with mango chutney or lime pickle

Shopping list

for the Coronation Korma spice paste

• 3 tbsns desiccated coconut

• 2 tspns mild Kashmiri chilli powder

• 1 tspn turmeric powder

• 1 tspn ground coriander seeds

• 2 tspns ground fennel seeds

• 1 tspn ground fenugreek seeds

• 1 tspn garlic powder

• 1 tspn ground mace

• 2 thumb lengths of fresh ginger; peeled

• 1 tspn black peppercorns

• 2 tbspns rapeseed oil (or groundnut oil)

  
  

for the Coronation Chicken Korma

• Approx. 450g skinless chicken breast; cut into bite-size pieces

• 2 medium onions, (red or brown), cut in half and sliced

• 1 large yellow ( or red) bell pepper; sliced vertically

• 3 or 4 whole cloves

• 3 or 4 tbspns rapeseed oil (or groundnut oil)

• 4 or 5 whole green cardamom pods; bruised

• 1 tspn mild Kashmiri chilli powder

• 2 tspns garlic & ginger paste

• The juice and pulp of 1 fresh lime

• 65g of creamed coconut diluted in 300ml boiling water

• 200ml fresh single cream

• A generous handful of seedless sultanas (or raisins)

• 3 to 4 tbspns toasted flaked almonds

• ½ tspn garam masala

• Water, as needed

• Salt, to taste

for the mushroom bhaji

• 250g mushrooms; sliced

• 2 tbspns peanut oil (or other vegetable oil)

• ½ tspn amchoor

• 2 large hot red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced

• a clutch of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

• salt

other sides and condiments

Pick and choose from the following:

• Naan breads or pilau rice

• "sambal" — chopped green and red chillies, cucumber, shallots and tomato in vinegar

Cooking method

the Coronation Korma spice paste

1. Grind all of your whole spices first, and/or add the ground form to a mini-chopper. Add the desiccated coconut and ginger, and chop

2. Add the oil, a little at a time, until everything is finely chopped into a thick paste. You can do this some time before and store, sealed, in the fridge. It will last for at least a couple of weeks (or freeze it if you want to store it longer). Take out of the fridge to allow sufficient time for it to return to ambient temperature before cooking with it

the Coronation Chicken Korma

1. Heat the oil on a medium heat in a pan or kadai with a lid. Add the whole cloves, green cardamom pods and Kashmiri chilli powder. As soon as the aromas release, add the onions. Sauté, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. If necessary, add a little water

2. When the onions start to soften, but are not yet browned, add the bell pepper and stir in. After a minute or so, add the garlic & ginger paste and stir in thoroughly. As soon as the aromas are released, add the lime juice and pulp and stir in. Keep stirring until all the juices cooks off. Then add about 30ml of the diluted creamed coconut and cover. Allow the ingredients to become soft and tender, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. NB if it starts to stick, add a little more of the diluted coconut

3. When the liquid has almost entirely cooked off and the bell peppers and onions are soft, add the chicken and stir in. Keep stirring for a minute or two, ensuring the chicken seals on all sides

4. Add the korma spice paste and stir in. Season with freshly ground black pepper. Keep stirring this mixture for about 2mins. Then, pour in the remainder of the diluted creamed coconut and stir in. Allow it to come to the boil, cover and reduce the heat so that it cooks at a gentle simmer for about 15mins, stirring occasionally

5. Once the sauce begins to reduce, add the cream and stir in. Simmer, uncovered, for a further 5 or 6mins, stirring regularly and ensuring it never boils vigorously. By this time, the sauce should have substantially thickened. If not, simmer until it does

6. When the sauce is almost optimally thickened, add the sultanas and the garam masala. Stir in and cook for no more than a minute or two. Cover, remove from the heat and allow to rest while readying your side dishes

7. Plate or take to table in a serving dish, garnishing with the toasted flaked almonds. Serve with your side dishes and condiments of choice.

the mushroom bhaji

1. This dish only takes 5 or 6mins to cook. For best results, time it to be ready when the korma is. In a relatively deep frying pan, heat the oil on a medium heat. When hot, add the mushrooms and sauté, stirring regularly. Once they are sealed and begin to change colour, add the sliced chillies and mix in

2. When the mushrooms begin to soften, sprinkle over the amchoor and stir in, and season with a little salt

3. When the mushrooms are optimally cooked, turn off the heat and add the coriander, stirring in, not cooking it, but allowing it to be wilted by only the residual heat of the pan

4. Plate or take to table in a serving dish

Alternatives

While chicken kormas are a chart-topper around the world, seafood options often appear on menus; prawn or king prawn versions in more modest places; lobster or crayfish in more upmarket outfits. In other words, its appeal as a pescatarian dish has a solid track record. I find the best way for the prawn or king prawn versions is to add them raw, shelled and rinsed about 1 or 2mins before you remove the pot from the heat. It's important they're cooked, but not overcooked. You can take a similar approach with langoustine, scampi or scallops, adding them a little earlier as demanded by size. But, with lobster or crab, I only ever add chunks or flakes of cooked meat in the last minute of cooking simply to reheat it in the sauce. Having done it with whole, raw lobster tails in the shell in the past, there's a real risk that you end up with a kind of curried panna cotta by the time the lobster is cooked.

Sadly, this is one of those dishes for which I do not have a viable vegan version: my experience of cooking with plant-based "creams" and yoghurts is limited and has not been encouraging. However, lactovegetarian versions are simple: Quorn pieces, whole button mushrooms or large cubes of fresh fennel are all good options. I particularly like the fennel version because it offsets the sweetness of the overall dish. In general, when I do these versions, I treat all of them as I have the chicken in the recipe above.

While not that common on menus in Western curry houses, probably both for cost and additional effort reasons, carnivores may be interested to know that lamb korma is not that unusual as an authentic korma, probably not that surprising given its origins in the Muslim cuisine of the Mughal court. But, the lamb version takes a little more effort. First, you need to brown cubes of lamb in a little oil with a little mild Kashmiri chilli powder, then pour in about a third of the diluted coconut cream (or a little coconut milk) and braise until it is half-cooked. Then, you need to put the lamb aside in a bowl using a sieve spoon and pour any remaining juices/liquid into a separate receptacle. You then follow the recipe as above, adding the lamb at the same point as the chicken, and adding the saved juices at the same point as the remainder of the diluted creamed coconut in the recipe above.

One key difference in the lamb recipe is that you do not use the lime juice, but instead use pomegranate juice. So, you can see how this would kinda mess up the assembly line in your average curry house.

Pairings

I can't remember the last time I had this curry with wine. When I did, it would almost have certainly been a South African Chenin Blanc, but no one winery in particular springs to mind.

Perhaps it's its curry house associations that mean it's one of the rare dishes with which I default to beer. It's great with beer, particularly with IPAs (India Pale Ale). Don't get me started on the post-colonial reading on that one. Contrary to the ignorant misinformation of many on the Internet, these are not beers that originated in India, but were created in the UK so that the British East India Company could optimise its profits and control of desirable commodities as an early corporation-as-colonialism with a beer formulated to withstand long sea voyages. It naturally became tied up with Indian cuisine as read from the West. But, perhaps the hipsters would be a little less proud of boasting about IPAs if they bothered to research its far more questionable origins rather than jumping to the conclusion that it "comes from" India.

These days, there are so many IPAs on the market, it's difficult to remember them all. For obvious reasons I usually reach for Brewdog Punk IPA, which works very well (and BTW, the alcohol-free version is a really good choice for designated drivers). But, another recent curveball that is worth mentioning is Co-op IPA Ale. I had some that I bought for using on the barbecue and couldn't be bothered to venture out, reheating this dish later than I would have liked one evening, and it worked extremely well.

All that said, again probably harking back to the 1970s, I love this dish with a cold Coke with a generous dash of lime, which is how I opted to have it this time.