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

You've already ordered the Kris Dhillon curry secret, I've had my copy for about 25 years - to someone above who said theirs is 30 years old! Published in 1991. I need to do some more as they really are good but such a faff. Easy but a faff.

I"ve just ordered some spice mixes from the tiny take away mentioned above, in the hope that they are as good but quicker.

Okay so that's what I call the british version lol. I'll get a recipe written up for you but is it chicken or lamb or you like all of it? We don't use ghee or any off that fatty stuff so it's not exactly bad for our health either.

Anyone looking for a pressure cooker curry try this

You are all making me STARVING!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida

Just this ^. It's pretty funky, so you don't want much but it's the difference between a home cooked curry which just doesn't taste the same and a take away curry IMHO.

Cheats slow cooker family favourite for anyone looking for a non-authentic easy curry fix. Serves six:

1.5kg diced chicken breast
1 large diced onion
3 cloves crushed garlic
4 tbsp Tesco medium curry powder
4 tsp Pataks Madras curry paste
500 ml low fat yoghurt
400 ml tin coconut milk
½ tube tomato puree

Heat a casserole dish or large heavy based frying pan and dry fry/seal the chicken. Add diced onion and once softened, add the garlic. Gently fry and then add curry powder and paste. Cook gently for another five minutes.

Transfer everything to the slow cooker. Stir in coconut milk, yoghurt and tomato puree until the sauce is evenly blended. Make sure the chicken is covered by sauce and cook on low for six hours.

Stir every two hours and towards the end of cooking, skim excess fat off.

Serve with:
Plain mini naan. Spray with water and warm in the oven. Butter lightly when hot.
Tilda microwave pilau rice

Appeals to all the family and not ordered a single takeaway since making this.

Sorry I CBA to RFT but Atul Kochar's book is brilliant for authentic recipes. His home style chicken is amazing and the mango chutney recipe made the best I have ever had in my life.

Restaurant curries. As an Indian person, I find them bizarre.

I don't know how to make these British "curries". All these rogan joshes and Bhunas.

I make home food. From my home in India. Tons of garlic and ginger paste. Tons of onions pasted and slices. No fecking tomatoes and tomato purée and tomatoes.

Do why don't you post some recipes House?

I'm reading this thread and realising what you are discussing is not Indian food at all. My home kitchen would have not one of these items or methods. Or dishes. British curry is quite it's own cuisine in its own right I suppose.

Definitely agree about Spice Tailor - we've tried all of the ones available in our local supermarket and they are really good. Rustic Rogan Josh might be my favourite, but honestly, they're the best 'insta-currries' you can get. However, it still feels like you're properly cooking something, as they provide you with whole spices which you can choose to grind or not - we do, except for bay leaves of course, and the large sticks of cinnamon and black cardamon, which you can easily pick out afterwards.

We've found that the closest way to getting a 'takeaway' curry sauce is to make the curry base (onions, ginger, spices, tomatoes, coconut milk- if using- etc.) then stick the whole lot into a food processor and blend the sauce until smooth. Then put it back in the pan and cook your meat in it. Not sure why this works, maybe the blitzing breaks down the onion and creates more flavour? But it really does. My DH makes A-MAZING curries, every time and it is literally the ONLY thing he can cook!

I use curry paste not the sauce jars and this makes a big difference as this is what the restaurants would use as a base. I also use ghee. The guardian has a nice and easy naan bread recipe. 😊 can definitely tell the difference between a paste based curry or a jar based one.

For my dh for Christmas I bought him a subscription to the spicery from not on the high street. Think it cost about £30 for 6 months. Each month they send you a recipe and all of the spices to make it yourself. We have both loved it and tried so many more curries this way. It might help?

Oh, and YY to Spice Tailor!

I haven't RTFT, but I did a cookery course at an Indian takeaway a few months ago and learned some of the secrets. I am on holiday at the moment but will post what I learned when I get back.

We got a cheap recipe book called 'Recipes from an Indian kitchen'. It's a bright yellow book. It is fabulous. Every single recipe we have tried has been amazing and even when you put your spices in a bowl, ready to start cooking, the smell is just incredible! Until we tried these recipes, we always preferred a takeaway, but not now :-).

You guys have screwed my diet for me!

Thanks for the tips and recipe links. I've wanted to try cooking a curry and never have, so I'm going to try out some of this stuff.

Mermaidtears I apologise, I read the amount with an extra 0 so thought you were spending 1000 a month lol!

On the back of this thread we've been out to a Nepalese Gurkha restaurant for tea.

I blame you all for not being able to do my jeans up.

Am wondering if I can build a tandoor oven in my garden.

dowhatnow sorry didn't realise that was the author so yes it's already ordered. Can't wait.

clank I'm laughing imagining you imagining boxes and boxes of jalfrezi and sag also being ordered every week hahah

Thread now on Facebook so we may get lots of extra tips now