Navratan Korma is a rich, creamy and highly delectable dish of vegetables, fruit, nuts and paneer. It is very rich since butter/ghee, heavy cream and cashew nut paste is used to make the gravy. A blend of different spices is used in this curry along with several garnishes like nuts, seeds and herbs like mint and cilantro. ‘Navratan’ or ‘Navratna’ means nine jewels and this dish having originated during the Mughal regime really is befitting for a king.! The nine jewels stand for a combination of nine different vegetables, fruits and nuts.
I had been wanting to make vegetable korma since the past few weeks. Now that I am on a paleo diet, I need to eat lots of vegetables to keep me satiated! My favorite dish lately has been the Keralan Avial which is mixed vegetables in a coconut gravy. Since this has plantains and other root vegetables like taro root, yam etc this really fills me up.!
Vegetable Korma in Kerala is made using coconut paste or coconut milk and that is what I wanted to make. However, I had some leftover pineapple and so I decided to add some pineapple too and make it spicy and sweet …kinda like ‘navratna korma’. As I began to make it, I thought of adding some swiss chard leaves too! Greens are not common in either vegetable or navratan korma but hey I thought it can’t go wrong. And hence this dish was born! I used only five jewels – cauliflower, carrot, winter melon, swiss chard and pineapple. maybe I should call it panchratna (five jewels) korma 🙂 I decided to make my own spice blend for this curry adding fennel and cardamom along with other whole spices. I loved it very much and this is going to be another of my staple mixed vegetable paleo dishes for now. For a Paleo AIP version, you can still make this curry omitting all spices and using only cinnamon, star anise and cloves.
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 4-6 fresh curry leaves
- 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp fresh ginger, finely chopped
- 2 cups cauliflower florets
- ½ cup diced carrots
- 1 cup cubed winter melon (or you can use any other vegetables like squash or zucchini etc)
- ½ cup water
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 cup swiss chard leaves, chopped roughly
- ¼ tsp red chilli powder (optional)
- 2 tsp spice blend (see recipe below)
- 1 1 /2 cups thick coconut milk (fresh* or canned full fat)
- ½ cup pineapple chopped
- 1 star anise
- 2 -3 green cardamoms, outer shell removed
- 1 black cardamom
- 4-5 black peppercorns
- 2 tsp fennel seeds
- 4 cloves
- 1 one inch long cinnamon stick
- First lightly roast the fennel seeds on a small heating pan for about 2 minutes on low heat. Then add the rest of the whole spices and heat stirring frequently for another minute. Transfer to a spice (coffee) grinder and blend till you get a fine powder. Place in an air tight container.
- In a large cooking pot, add the coconut oil and heat. When hot, add the onion,ginger and the curry leaves and sauce for 2-3 minutes. Then add the cauliflower and carrot pieces and stir fry for about 2 minutes. Then cover and cook for about 3-4 minutes or so until the vegetables are cooked. Then add the winter melon, salt and water and again cover and cook for about 4 minutes.
- Open the lid and add the spice blend, red chili powder and the swiss chard leaves. Stir to mix well.
- Next add the coconut milk and let cook for about 2 minutes till it comes to a boil. Turn heat off and add the pineapple pieces and mix well.
- Serve warm!
1cup of freshly grated coconut or fresh frozen grated coconut that has been thawed
1½ cups of warm water
Blend the coconut with 1 cup of the water and strain using a fine mesh sieve. Add the strained coconut meat back into the blender and blend with the rest of the water. Again strain milk thru the sieve. You should have about 1½ cups of milk.
For AIP version:
Omit all spices not permitted under AIP - use only star anise, cinnamon and cloves for spices
