Help needed with curry not thickening

[qwertyberty]

The title say it all.

I am doing slimming world and I been trying to make curry for the past few weeks and every time I make one, the sauce is spicy water. As i am trying to follow slimming world i dont want to thicken it with flour. I have tried a tomato based curry and a authentic curry dish (from a website) yet both turns out to be runny.

Can anyone shed light on what I am doing wrong?

What curry are you making? Most healthy curries are runny and meant to be eaten over rice. If you want to thicken it up, either cook it down for much longer than the recipe requires, or add a tablespoon of ground peanuts at the tempering stage.

I have no idea what is allowed or not allowed in Slimming World but I always put potatoes in my curry. Floury ones like King Edwards are the best because they turn to mush.

You can thicken sauces with porridge oats

A proper traditional Indian curry (without a pressure cooker) takes me around 1-2 hours at least. A pressure cooker will often reduce that time to 30mins.

can you post a link?

I wonder if blending some of the sauce might help?

What about some red lentils?

red lentils? ..

Snap!!

Cornflour helps or actually blending some of the cooked sauce. I usually add coconutmilk so it's usually thicker for me anyway

Add less liquid. Red lentils are great.

Grate onions instead of chopping them. Red lentils is another good idea, as is reducing the sauce.

If you are using onions then blending the sauce before adding any meat or veggies thickens it really well. This was a revelation from the author of the This Muslim Girl Bakes! I just use a stick blender.

Thanks for quick replies.

it is a vegetable curry today, so there is potatoes in there. I did cook everything the way it should and looked great until i added the water.

Any flour is syns, which i might have to do. I dont like lentils, so they wont go in.
I picked the recipe because I had all the spices and things in.

allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/16264/authentic-bangladeshi-chicken-curry.aspx

Just put less water in?

Cornflour - you only need a teaspoon! Blend it with a tablespoon of water first

Put less water in until you get the consistency you prefer.

I usually use stock and cornflour, i don't have any in at the moment. Today i did blitz the onions before adding veg and water. Also I didn't cover the potatoes fully and still watery.

Also this recipe is one i quite like the flavour, that's not tomato based, some been too bland or not spicy enough.

Just boil it full blast to get the water out. Not much else can be done at this stage.

But yeah an authentic bangla curry will be saucy enough to drench rice.

I haven't read everyone's replies but I would add a whole onion that you have pulped in a magimix early on in the cooking, I add garlic, ginger and fresh herbs to this mix.

You're probably adding too much water to begin with.

What size pot are you using? For 2-3 medium sized onions worth of curry with 5 chicken breasts I'd use an 8-10 inch saucepan.

Also you'd need to cover the potatoes in liquid to get them to boil and that's likely to lead to :
a) too much water going in at the stage where you are pouring hot water from the kettle
b) overcooked chicken breasts

Having read through your recipe I would suggest boiling your potatoes separately. Boil them for 10 mins in hot rolling boil water or cut into smaller pieces and cook in microwave in a bowl with about 2 tbsp of water and covered loosely with a plate for 4-5 mins on high.

Then once you've got to step 4 in the recipe, just add the chicken breast, let it cook on Medium heat for 5-6 mins, add the potatoes, add a splash of water and let it cook on slow for 2-3 mins and serve.

Finally, look at a couple of video recipes, because they are great for showing you what the consistency should be at various stages.

I think after this step: "Cover the whole lot with boiled water from the kettle" they never cover their dish with a lid so most of that water would evaporate, and most likely their dish is not tall but wide so you have greater a chance to reduce it down

ZaphodBeeblerox thanks I think you may have helped. i have been using a large pan not a frying pan. also i will boiled potatoes before putting them in. I have looked at a many videos of curry recipes and came to the conclusion I am useless in the kitchen, but i try my best and that is what counts.

I bet you're not useless and we only ever learn by trying.

Have you tried any of the hairy dieters curry recipes. Their chicken jalfrezi is a particular favourite here

Good luck! And let me know if that fixes the problem. I think cooking is hard to learn without someone showing you in person. I'm south asian so have made curry at least fifty times this year, but I'd struggle to roast a whole chicken without a detailed recipe and photos and videos!