Shabnam Curry

By: rashmi agrawal of Pune, IN

rich creamy mushroom curry with sweet corns and peas

Serves 4 people

“Shabnam Curry” is a mughlai main dish, with creamy richness of cashews and goodness of mushrooms and peas, Sweetcorn is optional here. I simply did some omissions to the recipe to suit our palate. I added a less of kaju paste due to our unfriendliness with the nutty sweetness in curries. I removed cloves and cardamom too. If you like, you can crush 2 cloves and sprinkle over the curry just a min before removing it from flame. Add whole cardamom while sautéing the onions.

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Ingredients

150 grams button mushrooms
2 medium sized onions
3 medium tomatoes
1 tsp. kalonji (nigella seeds) and 1 tsp. jeera (cumin)
1 tbsp. sour curd (fresh curd is alright)
a handful of cashews
1/2 cup sweet corn and peas, frozen or boiled
1 tsp. ginger + garlic, freshly grated.
1 tsp. red chili powder
1 tsp. kasoori methi
salt per taste
2 tbsp. oil
a pinch of garam masala
1/2 tsp. turmeric

Directions

Prepare onion paste and keep aside.
Prepare tomato paste and sieve to extract the juice
grind cashews with curd to a fine paste and keep aside.
Clean the mushrooms and chop off the stems, cut into quarters.
Now heat oil in a pan and roast kalonji and jeera
When they splutter, add onion paste, ginger-garlic crush and roast till golden brown.
Add tomato juice, turmeric and kasoori methi and cooked covered.
When the paste leaves oil, add the mushrooms and cover to cook.
You may not need to add water at this moment as mushrooms leave water.
When mushrooms are tender, add peas and sweet corns. Add salt and mix well.
Once they are cooked, add water to bring it to you desired consistency.
As soon as the curry is of your consistency, add the cashew paste and sprinkle garam masala. Cook for a min or 2 and switch off the flame.
Relish with onion pulav or plain/jeera rice, or chapatti/parathas.

Notes:

The curry had a rustic brown color which was compelling me a lot, and after adding the cashew paste, the color turned to light orange-brown. I suggest to add a spoonful cashew paste first, stir and check the color (if only, you are eating through the eyes first, and really value the color of the dish).

You can simply skip the sweet corn if not wish to have it.