Tell me the curry secret!!?

[MermaidTears]

To ask if anyone out there knows the secret. Or has a husband who works in an Indian restaurant and knows?

We have a curry every single Saturday night, our long running tradition.
We just worked out we spend around 1300 a year on takeaways! 25 every Saturday (roughly)

I have tried every single recipe, every book, every supermarket Fakeaway they never taste like the restaurant ones!

We have been to Goa and the food was heavenly.
There must be a secret ingredient that I don't know? Anyone out there know?

We need to cut back our finances, and tbh what we spend on takeaways could pay for half towards our trip to Goa

Roast the spices til just before they burn (tricky, that bit)

Use a ton more ghee and salt than is good for you.

Buy books by Madhur Jaffrey and follow her recipes to the letter (see previous point about ghee and salt!)

DS's best friend is Indian and his mum cooks the best dal ever. He has brought some home before and it's amazing. Apparently she uses a pressure cooker so she can whip up a batch in ten minutes. I must get the recipe off her!

I often wonder what the secret is. Dh makes an exceptional curry - korma, Rogan josh, whatever really. He has a lot of spices and lots goes into the curry paste before he makes the curry. He even has a go at his own samosas my dh is a weirdo!!

Still working towards getting amazing curries, but I've found that some things make them taste much better.

Loads of fat. Way more than I'm normally comfortable with!

Onions need to be fried until really, really soft. 5 minutes not enough. More like 10, 12, 15 mins.

Fresh spices.

If the curry is tomato based, the quality really influences the final product. If I'm making a nice curry (not just a bog standard week night one), I roast actual tomatoes first and then mash them up. End product is way tastier than tinned ones.

I learnt a lot from watching Indian chefs on youtube and sticking closely to what they do. Definitely worth a try!

It's almost certainly the ghee. My curry favourite is saag. I've tried every recipe going but home made stuff just doesn't hit the spot so I'd rather order in or make a tasty non-saag curry that I'm not so used to the takeaway version of.

Can't even get close to emulating curry from the Chinese Takeaway though.

^^this I can do. There are jars and blocks of solid paste at Chinese supermarkets for making this. Just add water to get it to the desired thickness then simmer with onions and peas. Cook the meat separately and add it at the end. It's the same stuff many Chinese takeaways use so the flavour profile is the same.

One thing to remember is that you can't just add spices to the concoction. I always start with oil, then brown the onions then add spices and let them cook for a few minutes before adding the lamb. You can taste the difference if the spices aren't cooked. Also, when browning the meat you have to make sure that all the water has evaporated before putting the lid on to let it cook.

Sorry if you already do all this but this all makes the most difference when I cook curries.

Pataks base sauces NOT the all in one jars.

There's at least one website devoted to trying to recreate British Indian Restaurant curries. The Curry Secret and The New Curry Secret by Khris Dillon have a good base curry sauce that is a faff in terms of time but very very simple to make and I find the results are pretty good. My extremely fussy SIL told me she wouldn't send back in a restaurant the fish masala I made her and my brother recently which coming from her is high fucking praise indeed- I've never been out for food with her without her finding fault with something!

Curry is a bit of a generic word; what dishes do you order?

As said above each Chef and home will have their personal mix of spices/masala; even though the MIL & I used the exact same spices they taste different (her's is better........)

And time; lots of restaurant dishes will have the same 'base' a mix of onion; spices, etc that will have been cooking slowly for hours.

I can give you 'our' basic curry recipe but need to go to work now so if you want I'll post it later; though I would say for it to be at it's best it needs to be made the day before...........

The Curry Guy is worth checking out, he's dedicated his career to recreating BIR curries at home. www.greatcurryrecipes.net/

Takeaway curry tastes like that because of the msg. Same as Chinese takeaway food.

Jamie Olivers korma is absolutely delicious if you want an easy curry to make that tastes like a treat.

I cook a lot from scratch!... However this is really good!!
www.angloindianchef.co.uk/

Especially if you cook and then leave for a day or two in the fridge... And then
www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/bread-recipes/incredible-naan-breads/

Adds the finishing touches!!

Hmm! Making me hungry now!!

Definitely using ghee, and cooking the onions for about 4 times longer than you would for anything else.

You need Rafi's spice box! They send you a pouch with the ingredients and you just add the meat. Make it the day before. It's amazing.

www.spicebox.co.uk

I found using proper measuring spoons helped a lot.

A lot depends on the ingredients too. I am a regular at the tamil shop near me. The 'curry' powder for eg from the supermarket is never the same.

Oooh you've inspired me to do curry for tea tonight, we have lived on chicken jalfrezi for at least 15 years, and in that time i've tried to cook it properly twice, I even went to an indian food store to get all the proper ingredients - still didnt taste as good as the take away.

But hes now shut down and we cant find a decent replacement so am tempted tonight to get cooking again myself.

Shameless place marking! I love curry and I have found excellent shops for spices here, but I find the restaurants really limited who knew the Germans don't like spice At all and the different curries all taste the same so I do cook occasionally for myself... The kids are a bit little to appreciate it but... Perhaps for their benefit I can continue to improve my skills

Please please can I also have the recipe Surbuban!

Marking place - I love making curries in my slow cooker! Stocking freezer for winter!

The Spice Tailor prepared mixes are quite authentic. Their Keralan Coconut Curry sauce is our fave.

Ghee (loads of), garlic, slow-cooked onion, salt and coconut milk are part of the secret. If you are making a Goan or southern Indian dish get some curry leaves to put in.

The secret is to use much much more fat than you expect to. And start with cooking all the spices first.

Try the blog cooking with Mummy Ji.

It takes lots of butter, onions, ground mixed spices ands low cooking.

You need to brown the onions properly and use individual spices preferably from an asian store, not supermarket ;)

I think the Hairy Bikers book curry book is actually pretty good. The jalfrezi is prett much spot on to our local restaurant and very easy to make.

Suburban can I pretty please also have the recipe? In fact if so many of us keep asking it might be easier to post here!

I like Jamie Oliver's recipes too. I have found good results from using curry pastes, but I do think making your own masala is probably the key. I think JO has a book which is just about Indian food which has a mixture of paste based recipes and ones where you do the spices yourself and recipes to make your own curry pastes which is a bit of both.