How do you make a good curry?

[Bluebluetuesday]

Mine are always too tomato heavy or a bit watery and bland. How do you make a really good, medium hot, rich curry please?

Yuck

Buy a Nisha katona cook book or google her recipes , the best most authentic curries I ever made are hers . My son even asked which Indian take away id fetched the food from . Her restaurants “mowgli” are wonderful too

You need to begin by making a good curry base. This is my husbands tip, as he is the Chef in our house! His food is always delicious!😋

https://greatcurryrecipes.net/2013/12/31/make-indian-restaurant-style-curry-sauce-large-batch/

Wow, so many replies, thank you!! I'm beginning to see that me throwing a can of chopped tomatoes in at the end is likely the problem, I will try using chicken stock or coconut milk instead.

I'll give the spice kit a go to ease in gently I think.

I cannot recommend the Mowgli butter chicken enough. Plus, it has the benefit of freezing beautifully. So I make up the sauce to the end, minus adding the water and then freeze the second half.

I would say that the butter chicken alone would be enough to make me buy her books (that I didn't know she had till this thread).

I also use "The Curry Guy" recipes quite frequently.

You need plenty of onions, garlic and ginger as a base for most and they need to reduce down.

I'd say that using ghee has been the most transformative thing I've done for cooking a curry.

Try Rick Steins lamb and spinach kahari curry given to him by a small curry house in Leeds. It is an unusual method of cooking, dead easy and I have never made this for anyone without them raving over it
as with most things like this they are best made the day before allowed to cool and reheated

Buy a different top of the range meal one from somewhere like Waitrose or Marks and Spencer.

Then they can have a choice and you can pass it off as your own.

No Worries.

The game changer for me was learning to cook the onions low and slow until caramelised. Fresh curry leaves (kept in freezer per a pp), never dried.

I watch a lot of Food with Chetna and Curries with Bumbi on YouTube, and have cooked some pretty decent food following their recipes. Chetna has a a great yogurt flatbread recipe that is my go-to now. Also have Rick Stein’s India and various Madhur Jaffrey books in regular use.

Or coconut oil. The first answer has hit the nail on the head. The onions need to be cooked for ages until they are almost melting. I often double up on the aromatic spices from what the recipe says. Also, buy whole spices and grind your own.

I always make my own garam masala using Madhur Jaffrey's recipe. Her book is still my go to curry book, but I fine new recipes online all the time.

A couple that were recommended on other MN threads that I highly recommend are Dishoom's chicken biryiani

https://www.dishoom.com/journal/recipes/dishoom-chicken-berry-britannia-biryani-recipe/

And Yotam Ottolenghi's confit tandoori chickpeas

https://ottolenghi.co.uk/pages/recipes/confit-tandoori-chickpeas

I never use ghee, mine turn out like legit curries.

I did an Indian cookery course many years ago, it was taught by a lovely Punjabi lady who was a wonderful cook. Her food was amazing. I learned that the real answer to OP’s question is ‘more ghee, oil & salt than you can even imagine’.

Sadly…

Nothing wrong with adding tinned tomatoes, but you're correct, not right at the end. It needs time to thicken and flavour up.

Do you live in London? Because my chances of getting all the ingredients you've mentioned here in Nowheresville are zilch.

I've cooked quite a few from the Mowgli book and all work and not that difficult once you get the hang of the order in which to add the ingredients. That Dishoom chicken biryani recipe posted earlier is absolutely 👩‍🍳😘.

And I absolutely love making Madhur Jaffrey's grape chutney as an accompaniment.

A decent Sainsbury's or other big supermarket should stock this stuff now.

If you want incredible tasting curries with generally minimal effort you should really consider the Curry Legend set by The Spicery. I honestly cannot recommend it enough, I should have got myself a commission deal with them because after having our own set, loving it, and buying it for my parents, word then spread through my extended family and now almost every aunt/uncle/cousin of mine owns one! The Spicery often do pretty good sales/deals so maybe wait until Black Friday to see if you can get the Curry Legend set at a better price, though there is a fair bit included for the £35 and the 4 spice blends last a decent amount of time. You can purchase more of the blends as and when you need them (individually or as a set). I sound like I work for them but I promise you I don’t 😂

https://www.thespicery.com/how-to-be-a-curry-legend-cookbook-kit

Agree. Ghee is available in supermarkets, we get it from Sainsburys delivery. And our coop have it too. Spices are just the normal ones from any spice section of any supermarket. Curry leaves also on the Sainsbury’s app. And as pp said you can also buy big bags online and they stay in freezer. Honestly this isn’t some ottolenghi type list of obscure infusions. You’ve probably walked past all this in the supermarket hundreds of times.

I can perfectly well believe that if the only shop anywhere near you is the little Premier in a tiny village 15 miles from anywhere then no, you probably can’t get curry leaves in there. But these are normal supermarket things, widely available.

I am Indian and don’t like the taste or smell of ghee. I just use plain oil and not a lot of salt. But cooking the onions and then cooking the tomatoes down till the ‘oil separates’ and you have a dry paste is key.

I would strongly recommend Indian Home Cooking by Suvir Saran. Very accessible. It takes you step by step through things like dals and basic curries, adding complexity. I learned to cook at Uni by following this book before begging my mum and aunts for their recipes.

This is my favourite curry recipe as I'm not a lover of tomato base curries.

I agree - it adds a savoury depth to them that no other spice gives. Except curry leaves. They are a good second.

Fry lots of onions, garlic and finely chopped/grated ginger and spices eg turmeric, cumin, chilli, garam masala. Fry your chicken, or stick in veg, add tinned tomatoes, coconunt milk. Don't forget salt or stock cube. And the best curry ingredient of all Fenugreek! If you want that authentic curry smell then sprinkle some fenugreek in it at the end to taste. Amazing!

These things help:

Browning onions in oil/ ghee
Then frying spices in that oil; my standard ones are turmeric, cumin, cayenne (the heat); sometimes coriander, cumin seeds
Adding a base of ginger/ garlic paste (mini blend about 5-8 cloves garlic and similar amount of ginger with splash of water) and fry until separating from oil
Salt chopped meat (1tsp?)
Brown meat quickly
Add wet stuff/ veg/ pulses and more salt
Finish with citrus

Taste regularly and adjust cayenne/ salt/ citrus 😁

I have just read all these and I am craving a curry. I can never get the onions right, any tips on how to get them cooked so they caramelise?

I will be having curry this week for sure.

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/jan/24/dahi-murg-yoghurt-chicken-curry-recipe-by-chetna-makan This is beyond easy. Try making your own garam masala. I make the dishoom one every so often and store it. It’s worth the effort.

@MolvolioPortesque cook them low and slow, ie a gentle low heat for a good 10-15 minutes. I start my onions off cooking while chopping/preparing everything else. A decent amount of oil/ghee so they don’t catch on the bottom of the pan.