Afghan Chicken and Split Pea Qorma over Garlic Skyr
Ground chicken fried down with turmeric, cinnamon, and coriander, simmered with yellow split peas, tomato, and collard ribbons, then spooned over cold garlic skyr and finished with mint.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
This is my weeknight version of the sauce Afghan cooks ladle over aushak, the scallion dumplings that take a whole afternoon to fold. The topping is the part I crave, and it turns out it makes a complete dinner on its own if you give it something soft to sit on and something green to cut it. Ground chicken fries down fast, yellow split peas do the job that the meat sauce usually shares with them, and the garlic yogurt underneath is not a garnish in this tradition, it is half the dish.
The eating is all about the contrast between the two temperatures and the two textures. The qorma is hot, dark, and dense, tasting of cinnamon and coriander more than heat, with the split peas giving up their edges and thickening everything around them. Underneath is a cold, thick, sour layer with enough grated garlic in it to prickle. Dried mint crumbled between your fingers over the top smells like a Kabul restaurant and is the one detail I would not skip, though fresh mint chopped fine does the same job in a brighter register.
I make this when I want a bowl that feels like it simmered all afternoon and cost very little to put together. It scales up easily for a crowd, it holds on the stove without suffering, and the components can be made a day apart. In my house it also solves the problem of a dinner that has to satisfy a teenager and an adult at the same time, since the heat is entirely in the pinch of cayenne on top and everyone can decide for themselves.
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, 3 minced and 1 grated for the skyr
- 1 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp cayenne, plus a pinch for the top
- 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 1/4 tsp fine sea salt, plus a pinch for the skyr
- 3/4 cup crushed tomatoes
- 2 cups cooked yellow split peas, drained
- 1 bunch collard greens (about 9 oz), stemmed, rolled, and sliced into thin ribbons
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 3/4 cups plain skyr
- 1/3 cup mint leaves, chopped, or 2 tbsp dried mint
Instructions
- Make the garlic skyr: Grate 1 garlic clove into the skyr with the lemon juice and a pinch of salt, stir until smooth, and refrigerate. It should sit somewhere between a thick sauce and a dip. If it is too stiff to spread with the back of a spoon, thin it with a tablespoon of cold water.
- Brown the chicken hard, and finish it: Heat the olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high. Add the ground chicken in one layer and leave it undisturbed for 3 minutes so a real crust forms on the underside, then break it up with a wooden spoon and cook 3 minutes more. You want browned craggy pieces rather than an even gray crumble, and the pan should sound busy the whole time. Open the largest piece before it leaves the pan: ground chicken is done at 165°F, and a craggy piece can hold a raw center under all that color.
- Cook the onion and bloom the spices: Add the onion and cook for 3 to 4 minutes over medium, scraping the browned bits up off the bottom as the onion releases its water. Stir in the minced garlic, turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, and salt, and cook for 45 seconds, until the spices smell toasted rather than dusty.
- Build the qorma: Add the crushed tomatoes and 1/2 cup water, scrape the pan clean, and let it bubble for 2 minutes. Stir in the split peas and press some of them against the side of the pan with the spoon so they break down and thicken the sauce. Simmer 3 minutes, until it is thick enough to hold a channel when you drag the spoon through it.
- Wilt the collards: Add the collard ribbons a handful at a time, folding each one in before the next goes in, and cook 3 to 4 minutes until they are dark green and tender with a little chew left. Add a splash of water if the pan tightens up. Taste and adjust the salt and the cayenne now, while it is hot.
- Serve it over the cold sauce: Spread the garlic skyr across the bottom of four shallow bowls, right out to the edges. Spoon the hot qorma into the center of each so a ring of white shows around it. Crumble the mint between your fingers over the top and add a final pinch of cayenne.
Variations
- Chickpeas in place of split peas: Use a drained can of chickpeas and mash about a third of them against the pan, for a chunkier bowl with the same body.
- Eggplant qorma: Add a small diced eggplant with the onion and give it five extra minutes, which turns the sauce silkier and sweeter.
- Spinach or chard: Swap the collards for chopped spinach folded in at the very end, which needs about a minute rather than four.
- Over rice: Spoon it over a plate of long-grain rice with the garlic skyr on the side, which is closer to how it is eaten in Kabul.
- More heat: Add a chopped fresh green chile with the onion and double the cayenne for a qorma with real warmth behind the cinnamon.
Storage & Leftovers
The qorma keeps five days in a sealed container in the refrigerator and is genuinely better on day two, once the cinnamon and coriander have settled into the split peas. Keep the garlic skyr in its own covered bowl, where it also keeps five days, though the garlic gets noticeably stronger by the third.
Reheat the qorma in a saucepan over medium with a splash of water, stirring, for four or five minutes. It thickens considerably as it cools and will look like a paste straight from the refrigerator, which is normal. The microwave is fine here since there is nothing crisp to protect, and the collards hold up well either way.
It freezes for up to three months in flat sealed portions and thaws to almost exactly what it was. Do not freeze the skyr, which turns grainy and weeps. Thaw the qorma overnight in the refrigerator, warm it with water, and stir a fresh bowl of garlic skyr, which takes a minute.
Notes & Tips
- Leave the chicken alone at the start: Ground poultry gives up water fast and steams itself gray if you stir it right away. Three minutes untouched in a hot pan builds the browned crust that the whole sauce is later built on.
- Mash some of the split peas: Pressing a third of them against the side of the pan is what thickens the qorma. Left whole they stay separate and the sauce runs thin under the collards.
- Bloom the spices in fat, not liquid: Add the turmeric, coriander, and cinnamon to the pan before the tomatoes go in. Forty-five seconds in the hot oil is what turns them fragrant, and once liquid arrives that chance is gone.
- Spread the skyr wide: Take it right out to the rim of the bowl rather than dolloping it in the middle. Every spoonful should be able to pick up both layers, which is the point of serving it this way.
- Crumble the mint in your palm: Rubbing dried mint between your hands as it falls wakes up the oils and makes the difference between a scattering of green flecks and a smell that arrives before the bowl does.
- Salt at the end: The split peas and the tomatoes both concentrate as the pan reduces. Season once it has thickened and you will use less than you expect.
Nutrition & Mindful Eating
- The ground chicken, the split peas, and the skyr underneath are three sources of protein stacked in one bowl, and each brings something the others do not. The chicken gives the qorma its savory depth, the split peas bring fiber and body, and the cold skyr layer carries the calcium along with the sourness that makes the spices taste sharper.
- Yellow split peas break down into their own sauce, which is why they have been the backbone of this style of cooking for centuries. They hold a lot of soluble fiber and plant iron, and the tomato simmering alongside them supplies the acidity that helps that iron along.
- Collard greens sliced into ribbons keep some chew even after four minutes in a hot pan, and they quietly bring a good deal of calcium of their own on top of what is in the skyr. Their faint bitterness is what keeps a spiced, dense bowl from tasting flat.
- Skyr is strained hard, so a cup of it carries more protein and calcium than its size suggests, and it stays thick enough to spread rather than pool. Stirred with garlic and lemon and kept cold, it works as the sauce for the whole dish.
- Turmeric, coriander, cinnamon, and a pinch of cayenne are what make this taste Afghan rather than generic, and turmeric brings both its color and a surprising amount of iron for a spoonful of powder. Blooming them in oil is what turns them from dusty to fragrant.
- As you eat, drag each spoonful through both layers so you get the cold sour skyr with the hot qorma, and notice how much slower the bowl goes down when every bite tastes of two things at once.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I get cooked split peas in a hurry?
Yellow split peas take about 25 minutes from dry, so on a weeknight I use a pouch of cooked pulses or a batch I simmered on the weekend and froze in cup portions. Cook them in plain water until they are soft but not collapsed, drain them well, and they keep five days in the refrigerator.
Can I use ground turkey or ground beef?
Yes to both. Ground turkey behaves almost identically and needs the same timing. Ground beef makes a richer, heavier qorma that is closer to the traditional one, and if you use it, pour off the fat after browning so the split peas do not turn greasy.
Is dried mint really better than fresh here?
For this dish, yes, and it is what Afghan cooks reach for. Drying concentrates the mint into something dusty and almost tea-like that sits well against yogurt, where fresh mint reads cooler and sweeter. Use fresh if that is what you have, chop it fine, and add a little more than you think.
My skyr is too sharp against the spices.
Add a second pinch of salt and let it sit for five minutes, which usually settles it. If it is still bracing, stir in a spoonful of water and pull the garlic back to half a clove next time. Brands vary a lot in tartness and the sauce should taste pleasant on its own before it goes in the bowl.