RMD: Curry recipes

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:47 pm 0

Given this place's liking of curry, I was wondering if anybody had any good recipes? Proper ones involving spices and preparation and waiting for things to cook. No "buy this jar of brown goo, tip it in a pan and eat it" stuff please.

You see, there's a certain flavour all Indian curries have - no matter what curry house I go to they all have a certain flavour, and I can't work out what it is. My curries either taste burnt, bland or just raw chilli. The subtle blends of spices are somehow not there, or in wrong quantities.

I want to cook authentic stuff too, so boiling bones in a pot and whatnot is also acceptable.

Markie · Post by **Markie** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:49 pm 0

prods Giles ...

Dio · Post by **Dio** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:57 pm 0

You can get really pretty close with a jar of the Patak's paste, a little extra ginger, and a touch of coriander sprinkled across the top - the latter adds a great deal of 'curry house' nose and flavour.

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 7:58 pm 0

Markie wrote:prods Giles ...

Yes, anyone who can make curry that Jeff likes must know some secrets

I do aim to grow my own herbs, but not right now since it's winter. There's a scrotey market stall in town that sells cheap pots of spices. I just haven't got a clue what to do with them to make a nice flavour rather than a mouth full of grit.

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:01 pm 0

Dio wrote:You can get really pretty close with a jar of the Patak's paste, a little extra ginger, and a touch of coriander sprinkled across the top - the latter adds a great deal of 'curry house' nose and flavour.

Hmm... I want to know what's in the paste though... I equate the pre-made stuff to the Indian equivalent of Ragu.

Corriander leaf seems to be an important ingredient though.

laptoplover · Post by **laptoplover** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:03 pm 0

I cheat and use Westcounty Curry Company's concentrates. They're all organic and really yummy.

http://www.westcountrycurry.com/

I really like the Korma:

Felonious Feline · Post by **Felonious Feline** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:06 pm 0

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Curry-Bible ... F8&s=books

This book by Pat Chapman is excellent. He teaches how to make individual curries from the separate herbs and spices. I've made several from here - the chicken korma, for example, tastes identical to my local takeaway...

At Â£7.79 it's an absolute bargain...be prepared to buy loads of spices though (http://www.natco-online.com is a great source)

...and no I don't have a clue how to do a short URL thingy!!

Enjoy!!

zip accident · Post by **zip accident** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:10 pm 0

piku wrote:

make a nice flavour

You have to learn the flavour of each spice pretty much.

Some are mixes, Garam Marsala is near as dagnabit the same as the miture of spices that is known in Britain as "mixed spice" I think you will find.

Fenugreek is an ingredient I read on a can of Sharwood's curry powder that wasn't in a cheaper curry powder, so I got some, it's interesting, I'm not sure it plays nicely with my medicine, but I can't get a list of incompatible spices.

I like ground Coriander, not so keen on Cumin or Turmeric (the latter usually tastes mouldy to me).

Mine'sAPint · Post by **Mine'sAPint** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:13 pm 0

I've had excellent results from The Curry Secret:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Curry-Secret-In ... 0716020548

Supposedely this is how restaurants make their curries.

You start by cooking up a huge batch of sauce from onions, garlic, ginger and tomato. You can freeze this for later use. That forms the basis of nearly all the curries in the book, you fry up some spices, add the sauce and sundrires, cook for a while and end up with a damn tasty curry. The Sag and Dhansak were both awesome. Quite an investment in time the first time you do it, but well worth it.

zip accident · Post by **zip accident** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:16 pm 0

Felonious Feline wrote:

I don't have a clue how to do a short URL thingy!!

I've found that is relatively easy, and easy to remember too:

[url=someRandomUrl]your text here[/url]

Doesn't always work, an url that needs to be cut and pasted if in full, will fail here.

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:27 pm 0

Mine'sAPint wrote:I've had excellent results from The Curry Secret:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Curry-Secret-In ... 0716020548

Supposedely this is how restaurants make their curries.

For four quid (plus three delivery

) I'll give it a go.

Jimaroid · Post by **Jimaroid** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:28 pm 0

The Pat Chapman book is excellent if you want to make an "authentic" English restaurant style of curry. It also has a lot of info on the more traditional thing, however, I'd recommend Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Bible if you're after more worldly accurate cuisine, especially so if you're interested in the vegetarian end of the spectrum.

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:29 pm 0

zip accident wrote:
Felonious Feline wrote:

I don't have a clue how to do a short URL thingy!!
I've found that is relatively easy, and easy to remember too:

[url=someRandomUrl]your text here[/url]

Doesn't always work, an url that needs to be cut and pasted if in full, will fail here.

Alternately, tinyurl.com. To make the [url] tag work here you need to convert any weird characters like space and suchlike into their unicode(?) equivalent. Space is %20 for example.

Kronos · Post by **Kronos** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:48 pm 0

See this is the thing, when you say curry, what type of curry?

Stuff made for us here, with 100s of extra bollox, or the basic real curry that say Indian people cook at home with few ingredients?

World of difference between the two there

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:59 pm 0

Old_but_still_a_kid wrote:See this is the thing, when you say curry, what type of curry?

Stuff made for us here, with 100s of extra bollox, or the basic real curry that say Indian people cook at home with few ingredients?

World of difference between the two there

There is, and that's why I also said

I want to cook authentic stuff too, so boiling bones in a pot and whatnot is also acceptable.

I am completely aware the stuff sold here is about as authentic as an American's idea of beer. So boiling scratty chickens in a pot, heads and all with a few chillies and random herbs is also fine. It's the "random herbs" part that I don't have knowledge of.