Be it a comforting weekend meal or a restaurant visit, qorma is something I often go back to for comfort and taste. The dish zings with rich and robust flavours that don’t fail to make us drool. Being a non-vegetarian, I will always vouch for mutton qorma. The bliss of savouring tender and succulent meat chunks dunked in creamy and rich gravy is incomparable. This love for mutton qorma has led me to explore the different versions of the same dish. And recently I came across a unique and decadent mutton qorma dish that has a history behind it too. The dish is popularly called tehsildari qorma and hails from UP.
Legend has it that the etymology of the dish is related to a tehsildar who was posted in the Kaimganj district of Uttar Pradesh during the British era. The tehsildar belonged to the lineage of the Mughal king Bahadur Shah Zafar and was blessed with distinct culinary talents. He settled in Shamsabad in 1857 and created the dish as an experiment to make it richer in taste and texture. He added khoya and rabdi to make the dish and it turned out to be a rich and robust one. The dish then continued to spread amongst the locals and the nearby areas.
Making tehsildari qorma doesn’t require much time and effort. the recipe is quite simple and is made with quite a few ingredients. To make tehsildari qorma at home, add oil to a pan. Once the oil is hot enough, add onion paste and cook till it turns golden brown. Next, add ginger-garlic paste and cook for another 3-4 minutes. Next, add the mutton pieces and cook for another 8-10 minutes on medium flame. Beat a cup of curd and add it to the mutton pieces and stir immediately. Next, add a teaspoon of chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt, cream, khoya and rabdi and mix well to combine. Cook the mutton on a medium flame for the next 5-6 minutes. Add a cup of water to the pan and cook the mutton on low flame for another 30-40 minutes.
We hope you’ll try this recipe for tehsildari qorma this weekend and let us know how you like it.