Malai Paneer Korma is the chef style recipe that we will make today. I am super excited to share this particular recipe because I love the white gravy texture. Yes, this malai paneer korma is in white gravy.
Although it might sound tricky to make white gravy or maintain the white texture, it is pretty simple. Yup, you can easily create a white gravy paneer recipe. Check out three interesting facts about today’s recipe below.
Now that we know the essential characteristics of this malai paneer korma, let’s begin making it. Here you go.
We can make malai paneer korma in red, brown, green & white gravy. The brown, green, & white gravy variations are typically the restaurant styles out of these four.
We will be making the white gravy malai paneer kurma variation.
For white gravy, we need to boil onions with other whole spices. The onions will be the base of the gravy. Boiling will remove the intense flavours of onions & whole spices. The main reason why this dish is mild in taste.
Once you have boiled everything, remove the green chillies and black cardamom. It is yet another tip to maintain the white colour. Dark ingredients integrate colour along with flavours. Hence, remove them.
Further, grind the mixture & blend curd in it to enrich the taste & colour. That’s your white onion gravy paste.
The recipe doesn’t require using regular masala powders. Therefore, the question is, where will the flavours come from? The first batch of flavours will come from the whole spice & wet ingredients. The ones that we add to boil onions.
The second batch of flavours will surface during the gravy using green chilli, ginger, garlic, milk, etc. So, all in all, there are two instances when we will induce the required flavours in our malai paneer korma.
Now that we know extensive details about the recipe and its core structure, let’s move on to some helpful tips. See below.
The tips given below will help you bring out the exact flavour & texture of the recipe. Read them once before you begin cooking. So, here are some helpful tips.
I suggest you peel onion petals instead of chopping them. However, chopping might look convenient, but it will give you a hard time draining out the hot water. Also, small pieces of onions will become tough to manage. The second thing is to remove cardamom & green chilli to avoid disrupting the colour of the gravy.
I have attempted to make the recipe in ghee instead of oil. The reason is the mellow flavour of the ghee. On the contrary, cooking oil & butter are also an option here. Do not cook the gravy on high flames; otherwise, ghee will cook rapidly & change its colour. It will further change the colour of the white gravy.
We usually use water to adjust the consistency of our gravy. But here, we will be using milk to do that. Now milk will help us achieve two things. First, adjust the gravy consistency and second, integrate smoothness. Therefore, milk will help the recipe come out nice and clean.
Just like the helpful tips above, here are some frequently asked questions. Refer them too. Find answers to common queries.
Instead of malai, I have used milk to integrate smoothness into the gravy. You can replace milk with malai, provided your malai is beaten well. If not, then it will curdle & hamper the texture of the gravy.
You can, but then the recipe won’t be malai paneer kurma. Powdered masala will add a rich taste to the dish, but it will heavily change the colour. In short, you will not get the white gravy. To get the white colour of the gravy, avoid using colourful masala powders.
The core flavour is the fundamental difference between paneer kali mirch & malai paneer korma. The kali Mirch paneer contains black pepper as an essential flavouring agent. On the other hand, malai paneer korma has a few spices & masala. Alongside, both the recipes include boiled & crushed onion paste as the base.
The upfront differences are the texture & taste in both recipes. Nawabi paneer contains a variety of whole spices & masala powders. On the contrary, malai paneer kurma is mildly spicy with minimal spice mix & masala powders.
You can substitute milk with heavy cream or milk cream, aka malai. Beaten curd is also an excellent substitute to flavour the gravy. But then you will have to take care that the curd doesn’t curdle under intense heat.
There are multiple reasons why your gravy has turned dark.
First, you might have used dark curry powder like kolhapuri masala or achari masala.
Second, you might have cooked the gravy on high flame. Cooking on high flame could be one of the possible reasons that your gravy seems dark.
So that was it with the malai paneer korma recipe. Let me know your experience in the comment section. See you in the next recipe.