So, no Vidalias–usually before they brown properly, they burn because of the extra sugars in it burning quickly once the excess water boils away.

You could try grating the onion–not a bad idea, but in that case, I would suggest browning the onions not on medium heat, but low heat instead. When that much water is removed before cooking, I suspect that you would run the risk of burning them much more easily.

That is partially why I always slice my onions paper thin–it thin enough to cut down on cooking time, but not so thin that the browning goes so quickly as to burn before browning.

The idea of hanging the yogurt in cheesecloth is a good one. If you try it, let me know how it works.

As for lamb–it depends on where you get it as to how fatty it is and what it tastes like. It is a pain to debone and defat it yourself, but the results are very worth it. At least I think so, but then I adore lamb.

If you want more chile presence, there are two good, authentic choices. One, would be to use fresh chile ground with the spices into a paste. The other is to use powdered cayenne pepper to taste.

I wouldn’t use Chinese chile oil–it would add a jarring note to the dish–especially if the chile oil was made with sesame seeds.

The fresh chile peppers I use in Indian food are either cayenne, Thai bird chilies or serrano, depending on what I have in the fridge or freezer.

I am very glad to hear that you liked the korma, and I look forward to hearing about how your other experiments in Indian food go!

The lamb was “worth the effort” according to my partner. Easy for him to say … he didn’t have to cut it up! But I have to agree with him: the lamb was tender, savory, and rich-tasting.

I have always been interested in Indian cooking and now I am ever more so. I think this is my next cooking challenge, and Barbara is just the type of trail-blazer I was looking for. I’m a lucky guy. Thank you, Barbara!

Since I had a butterflied leg of lamb I decided to make lamb korma instead of chicken korma, especially since the only korma I ever ate was a lamb korma. I am beginning to think that lamb is not worth the effort since I think lamb fat is disgusting and I burned the onions while I was going through the very, very tedious process of cubing the lamb and extracting every nasty bit of icky lamb fat. Next time, it will be chicken thighs for sure. I doubled the recipe since I had two pounds of lamb.

The second time around with the onions, I chose to caramelize them in the non-stick skillet instead of in the enameled cast-iron pot, since it was a royal pain to clean the burned sugars (from Vidalia onions) out of le creuset. Lessons learned! The onions caramelized beautifully and filled the kitchen with a tantalizing, mouth-watering aroma.

I ground all of the spices (I keep cumin, coriander, and pepper in seed form) in a spice mill, but I am wondering if I didn’t grind them sufficiently. Tonight will tell, but I’m not sure if I’ll like any gritty texture. I didn’t trust that my wimpy food processor would handle the spices well enough which is why I opted for the spice mill before hand.

After making the recipe, I can’t help but wonder if there are some time-saving techniques that can be used.

First: most of the time in caramelizing the onions is spent waiting for the water to cook out of the onions. Since the onions get pureed in the end, why not first grate the raw onion (which releases boatloads of water) and then caramelize the grated onion?

Second: most of the cooking time is spent in adding the yogurt 2T at a time and waiting for the water to evaporate. Can this time be cut by draining the yogurt overnight in cheesecloth?

Tonight I will write back with how it tastes.