Cooking curry from scratch

anyone got a 'proper' authentic curry recipe ... i.e. one not using curry spices? ...

this is something I have never managed to master ... (a curry that tastes like the curry take away shops)

I saw the 'hairy bikers' cook a curry from scratch on tv last week .... looked good (I enjoy a hot curry)

will try their recipe this week as I am taking a day off on monday and promised the wife that I will cook .... will see if any local butchers have some mutton ... if not, I will use lamb

this the the hairy bikers recipe ....

does it need any additional spices, ingredients?

BBC - Food - Recipes : Lamb vindaloo

 

nope if you read the link it says "for the sauce"
when these are all mixed together they will be your curry sauce

if when you cook this you find it is not hot enough you can always add more chilli to it

but take care when chopping your chillies to wash you hands very thoroughly afterwards !!!!!!!!

do not rub your eyes and dont nip to the loo :WINK1:

 

just been googling ... many say that this recipe is as good as it gets?

Peter's Lamb Curry (from Jamie's book The Return of the Naked Chef) - serves 8.

2 tablespoons butter
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
285ml/1/2 pint stock or water
1.5kg/3 1/2lb leg of lamb, diced
1 handful of chopped mint and coriander
285ml/1/2 pint natural yoghurt
salt and freshly ground black pepper
lime juice to taste

Hot and Fragrant Rub Mix -

2 tablespoons fennel seeds
2 tablespoons cumin seeds
2 tablespoons coriander seeds
1/2 tablespoon fenugreek seeds
1/2 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 clove
1/2 a cinnamon stick
2 cardamom pods
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Curry Paste Ingredients -

5cm/2 inches fresh ginger, peeled
2 tennis-ball-sized red onions, peeled
10 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 fresh chillies, with seeds
1 bunch of fresh coriander

Preheat your oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3.

Lightly toast the fragrant rub mix in the oven or under the grill. Chop the curry paste ingredients roughly, add the rub mix and puree in a food processor.

In a large casserole pan, fry the curry paste mixture in the butter until it goes golden, stirring regularly. Add the tomatoes and the stock or water. Bring to the boil, cover with kitchen foil and place in the oven for one and a half hours to intensify the flavour. Remove the foil and continue to simmer on the stove until it thickens. This is your basic curry sauce.

Fry the lamb in a little olive oil until golden, then add to the curry sauce and simmer for around 1 hour or until tender.
Sprinkle with chopped coriander and mint and stir in the yoghurt. Season to taste and add a good squeeze of lime juice. Serve with spiced breads, steamed basmati rice and lots and lots of cold beer.

 

The curries from the take-away shops may not be at all authentic! I don't think flock-wallpaper curries bear much relation to what Asian housewives cook and Chinese take-aways are even worse.

As far as I can tell, the way to get near the taste we've come to expect is to add massive amounts of oil and salt. I don't do that when I cook so I just enjoy eating curry out. We're spoilt for choice in Leicester.

 

then, I found this recipe which sounds authentic if I read the english .... the dude seems pretty clued up as he even tells you how to slice onions (from north to south?) .... and speaks about dwarf goats?

perhaps I should combine some ingredients and methods from all 3 recipes and make my own

As an Indian from West Bengal, "lamb curry" translates to "maangsher jhol'' which for my generation & background meant a very thin yet flavorful stew prepared from the kid of Black Bengal goats, a breed akin to the Nigerian Dwarf found in the USA. [ Caution:The latter is not the same as the genetically chondroitic African Dwarf breed; this has a bearing on muscle fiber thickness].
Most versions were prepared without garlic or onion [see mycomment on generation etc.] For a recipe & context see Chitrita Banerjee, Bengali Cooking: Seasons & Festivals; Serif, London; 114-5.
For lamb, both alliums are necessary. Shank and shoulder, i.e. a front quarter cubed into relatively large chunks are best for braises and any prepartions involving contact with water, along with the rear shank & rib & loin chops. The leg/thigh & very fat breast/riblets are not suitable.
In this method from West Bengal, a slightly sweet gravy results, with a distinct tang of mustard oil & cane jaggery plus Indian cassia leaves comprising the distinctive "Bengali' taste. In the original, asafetida, ghee et.al. were used with some freedom. We shall substitute tomato and some others here.
I kg of shank & shoulder cubes, washed. Young BOER goat even better. You need BONES.
1 tablespoon good quality turmeric, either wet-ground rhizome or powder
1-2 teaspoon aromatic red pepper powder or fresh-ground paste
1-1.5 Tb wet-ground fresh ginger; or more, depending on quality & blender
2 Tb good mustard oil
2 Tb dark brown sugar or cane jaggery
Sea salt to taste
1 teaspoon fresh ground coriander seed [ very optional]
1 cup diced red or yellow onions
1 cup diced fresh tomato: plum, cherry, beefsteak. A little more if you like or add a bit of canned puree, esp. in winter when fresh is expensive.
Mix vigorously all of the above by hand in a large bowl, squeezing & crushing the tomatoes. Let sit for an hour or more while you prepare the rest.
Yukon Gold, Red or Russet potatoes, skin on, scrub, halve, or leave in huge chunks. Scant oil, mono-unsaturated canola or peanut, in non-stick frying pan, lightly brown their surfaces, and also their skin sides. Set aside. The potatoes cooked in gravy not only extend the meat but are perceived as a treat on par with the meat itself.
Thinly slice red, yellow or white onion along the North-South axis, root-stem, as fine as you can manage. Onion bulbs are storage leaves with parallel veins. So, this "polar" axis allows slices to later disintegrate in the gravy better than "equatorial" slices would. 1 cup or a bit more should do, raw onion.
A few fat cloves of garlic, very VERY coarsely diced. How much is your call.
4-5 Indian CASSIA leaves [iShopIndian is an online source, many others]. NOT BAY leaves!! If you confuse these two, disaster looms! lol
Collect together: a few pieces of Indian CASSIA bark (see source above), 3-4 green cardamom pods (lightly bruise), 3-4 whole cloves. This is the Bengali garam masala you will need WHOLE. Reserve a similar quantity, in case you need to touch up flavors at the finish with some GROUND powder.
Place the sliced onions in sufficient vegetable oil, warm or cold, in a frying pan or wok, with a half tsp. sugar. Cover tight and place on medium low heat. Onions will seethe & stew for a while, depending on quantity of oil & heat flux. Eventually, gray rags will begin to coalesce into clumps that will release oil as they begin to turn gold. Pay attention as you stir these clumps, since you have raised the heat now. You can recover most of the excess oil you had invested in frying the onions. This is the correct way to prepare the onion base: low & slow.
When the onions are a very light gold, push them to one side and tilt the pan to pool oil over heat source. Remove excess oil if you have been using a lot to get the onions cooked well. You will need a 2-3 TB remaining.
Add the cassia leaves, quickly followed by cassia bark, cardamom & cloves. Cloves will swell & may jump out & injure eyes. CAUTION!!. Note: Pay attention to heat, you will need high heat but not burn stuff. Use judgment.
Now add garlic, quickly stir until light golden. All of the above is happening in seconds, so be organized!! Pull in the onions that now should be perfectly golden, and add the meat + marinade. Stir. Cover.
Cook on high simmer until meat 2/3 tender. The fat inside membranous sheath should have turned "crunchy", as we say in Bengal. Now is the time to begin "browning", bhunao or kosha, to develop the fond that gives the distinctive Bengali taste. Gradually raise the heat to moderately high and be prepared to attentively use a thin metal spatula to scrape the brown fond into the liquid and carefully stir the meat around, again and again. The liquid will reduce and you will see a not-too-fatty residue of spices and onions et.al. Exactly how far to cook that base is a matter of experience. Like a Cajun roux that can be blond or black, controlling the degree of caramelization in this fond affects the final taste of the curry gravy.
A high degree of caramelization combined with added GHEE will thoroughly cook the meat, creating the KOSHA manghso beloved in Bengal. This is a dry-braise.
We shall proceed only to an intermediate degree, to where we can still smell the ginger & mustard oil as separate components. It is always useful, even necessary, to learn true Indian cooking from an experienced cook. This is one subject that cannot ever be accurately transmitted by recipe alone. There are etic elements, and then the emic elements that word cannot convey!
Anyway, transfer to non-reactive dutch oven or Sitram brazier type utensil, add boiling water to just below cover, set on diffuser over moderate flame. When simmering, add more boiling water, and keep at strong simmer. Add potatoes, more boiling water. Use SOUND judgment to determine when meat & potatoes achieve YOUR desired level of tenderness. Taste for seasoning, sugar/salt balance, strength of broth. Add boiling water if needed & simmer longer. Add pinches of GROUND UP garam masala if needed.
Serve with fresh LIME, not Lemon, & steaming plain Jasmine Rice, NOT Basmati. This is a very thin, mild dish. Mash hot potatoes into the rice & steaming gravy as you eat. That is the fun part. To manage this, you will need A SPOON & A FORK & both HANDS to eat, as the good Lord intended you to!!
(The Rarh gentry in West Bengal prefer their savory dishes extremely mild, without chili heat and with a distinct sweetness.)

 

As above curry shop recipes are not authentic at all.India is a very large country and the taste of different areas is vast.
Have a look here these are as near as I can find to the recipes used by my relatives,2 of whom are first generation and from 1000 miles apart.
COLLECTION: Indian Recipes (1 of 2)

 

thanks for that! ... I have added that link to my list of favourites and will check it out carefully!

 

I used to knock about with a Taiwanese chef, before he decided to move back to Taiwan. I learnt a lot about Chinese and Taiwanese cooking when we'd all go into his closed shop, drunk, after a night on the beer, to make ourselves some supper.

The heat from those burners (can't really call them stoves) is insane. It will take your eyebrows off if you're not careful, and the weight of those cast iron woks is something else. Now imagine being full of beer from the night before, then working long hours in a kitchen that is an inferno, shaking two large cast iron woks at once over huge burners, while wearing the mandatory apron and chef's hat over the top of your clothes.

The secret ingredient that makes shop curry taste different to anything you make yourself, I'll warrant, is sweat. Not just any sweat, it is the stinking sweat that you get when you dehydrated body is trying in vain to cool you, while simultaneously trying to expel loads of toxins.

My mate also used to regularly joke about the customers. Not in a disrespectful way, he liked and respected everyone. He used to find it funny when customers would pay complements to the chef (him) for the quality of some of the more commonly ordered sauces. He confessed to me that some of the sauces make several days to make, by the time you've allowed certain spices to fuse at one temperature, then added something else and warmed to another temperature etc etc. So it was far simpler to just buy in some of the more popular sauces in bulk, and then throw in half a teaspoon of certain spices just to make it unique to his restaurant.

 

GOTCHA... thanks .... I knew there was some secret ingredient .... will add that to my monday mutton vindaloo

:D

 

I have a recipe, that was given to me by an Indian Restaraunt owner and chef (a friend)

I have never tried it, as the very first ingredient says take 24 cloves of Garlic , quarter of a pint of ghee/oil

Maybe I should look up how many it was for ?

I will post it up tomorrow and you can make the decsission that he was a real friend or not for me
I must say the curries we had at his house were exceptional, better than any takeaway

Jack McHammocklashing

 

One tip that my Indian neighbour showed me was to take 2 garlic cloves and fry until fairly dark brown, drain and then start the recipe, adding the browned garlic back to the pan when the onion is sweated down.

 

You'll need rice too.
So don't buy any of that s/market rubbish (or T1lda) - go to the local Asian store and ask them which is their favourite Basmati.

Soak in cold water for 2hrs minimum with 4 green and 2 black cardomon pods, heaped teaspoon cummin seeds, desert spoon of fennel seeds and 4 cloves. Wash under cold water and then boil for about 5mins (until cooked) with a few saffron strands.

Remove the cardomons and cloves before serving (which is why you count them out).

 

I used to use yogurt for home made curries but now I use a tin of coconut milk.

 

eventually got around to make a curry today, and am busy making this one:

How To Make an Authentic Indian Lamb Rogan Josh

however, I did not use chilli powder, I used 3 birds eye chillies with seeds ....

... and it needs to simmer now for 1 1/2 hrs .... used lamb shoulder that the butcher cut in cubes ....

I also added 2 medium potatoes cut in slices ...

I also removed the seeds from the black cardamon and ground all the spices in a coffee grinder after roasting the cumin seeds and corriander seeds ... so a slight variation ... I used dried curry leaves (could not find fresh)

rice will just be plain this time, but have bookmarked longk's rice recipe for next time

smells good so far, and had a taste of the sauce .... hot and nice

also made my own garam masala (goes in last) .... got the recipe from here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/garammasala_90213