Tell me the secret of a great curry

[PurpleSky300]

So, I love curry and for years, I’ve been trying all kinds of recipes for my favourites (jalfrezi, karahi, ceylon) – BIR-style ones on YouTube, cheat’s gourmet powders and blends, random things from Internet blogs, you name it.

They’re never terrible but they’re never fantastic. Every time I come away thinking “meh” – it’s a bit bitter, or too tomatoey, or lacking sweetness and nowhere near the quality you’d get in a restaurant. So what’s the secret to getting it right consistently? I’m following recipes but maybe I’m not fully understanding what the ingredients ‘do’?

Oh, I'm definitely guilty of not cooking the onions enough, I think!

Maybe I use too much oil because I feel like I cook them forever, but they never get brown so I give up. I try to simmer the whole thing for ages because otherwise it tastes like a tomatoey stew. And at the end - some recipes advise adding yoghurt, sometimes a bit of cream, I always seem to put too much in!

@coxesorangepippin Absolutely no frying off the meat in a separate pan and then adding it later. You need to brown the meat in the spice paste to lock those flavours in.

The pp is correct about taking time.
Fry onions slowly and well. When the spices and tomatoes are added, cook them down slowly.
This way everything is blended and cooked well with good depth of flavour.

Look up authentic recipes from Indian and Pakistani cooks on YouTube. There are lots out there. I'm Asian myself but the best dahl recipe I found was from a YouTube channel called Our Yemeni Kitchen titled cooking an easy Pakistani lentil recipe.

Check out the Curry Guy - not the fastest process but once you've got your base sauce made up your curries will be next level or even Indian restaurant level good. He's done masses of research and it shows.

I did an Indian cooking course a few years ago, taught by a lovely Punjabi lady who was taught to cook by her mum. The main things I learned about making great Indian food were:
1, Cooking Indian food takes time & can’t be rushed. You must cook your onions low & slow in lots of oil / ghee until they are golden brown & sweet. There is no substitute for this, and no short cuts.
2, Toasting whole spices in a dry pan, then frying them to flavour the oil.
3, Lots of garlic & ginger paste. Tablespoons of the stuff.
4, Lotsof oil / ghee. A couple of tablespoons is nowhere near enough.
5, Huge quantities of salt. Heaped spoonfuls of the stuff in everything. Way, way more than you think is sensible or in any way healthy.
6, Cooking your masala until the oil / ghee separates out before adding water to make your sauce.

So, having learned all this, I now cook great, authentic tasting Indian food, right? Wrong, because there is no way I could ever put that much oil / ghee or salt in anything I cook.

As others have said, super slowly cooked onions. My mum taught me to cook them for 20/30 minutes. Before that though, flavour the oil with cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon etc. Makes a huge difference. Don’t forget the coriander at the end! More than you’d think.

Adding a little bit of honey to the onions, if they are sharp.

I asked an Indian friend of mine if I could watch her make the curry because even using her recipe my curry was no where near as good as hers. The biggest differences were as pp's have said the time cooking off the onions but she also cooked in ghee and was far more liberal with the salt. Like many, I've always used salt and fat sparingly, she didn't!

Get a brown person to make it, we’re magical.

Things I notice people doing.

Not cooking onions properly or enough of the
Burning garlic
Using old spices (they need to be fresh)
Burning spices or not cooking them enough
Season your sauce with salt and pepper as though they are the only seasoning you are using, which should be easier for certain ethnicities…
Simmer, don’t boil, and don’t simmer for hours on end
Oil/ghee should be in quantities that you are essentially shallow frying
If tomato based use fresh and cook them low and slow, tomatoes need cooking properly, not just heating for ten minutes
If coconut cream based don’t boil/simmer the cream, it won’t taste very nice
Balance your sauce with sugar, make sure the sugar is thoroughly mixed in and dissolved before adding more
If you’re lazy about onions do a big batch and freeze them in portions, you can also make your own curry paste and freeze it in portions

Shameless Placemark

You could try vegrecipedofindia.com. Very good, detailed, step-by-step step, with pictures/ videos - brilliant site.

Sorry mistyped! Here’s the link https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/restaurant-style-dal-tadka/#wprm-recipe-container-139406

The difference between restaurant curry and homemade curry is shit-loads of ghee!

I agree with everyone about the onions. I don't think this goes just for curries/Indian food, incidentally; it holds for pretty much any cooking. I snort when recipes say 'fry the onions for ten minutes'; I give it twenty, at medium heat and stir so they brown but don't burn.
And after you've done the onions/garlic/ginger, give the spices a good couple of minutes to cook (turn the heat down so they don't scorch).

I diverge when it comes to salt, though; I don't like to cook with salt at all if I can help it, and I and my household honestly don't think it negatively affects my cooking. Restaurants often use a lot of salt, and a lot of oil/butter/ghee/whatever fat, which is why restaurant food can tase so different from home-made; but it doesn't mean home-made isn't just as nice, it's just different.

You need way more spices, garlic, ginger and onions than you think you do!

I think the trick to a good curry is not to burn spices, ensure the spices are cooked well and not to use too much tomato. It will overpower all the tastes! Good luck, I've had to experiment a lot over the years to get it right.

This is an interesting thread!

Here's a specific onion question then...

I love making recipes from the Dishoom book, and some use a tomato/onion masala as a base. This involves frying 1.5kg of onion in a lot of oil. The recipe says the onions need to turn a dark brown colour which 'could take around 20 minutes'.
Last time I made it, I was stirring those onions for almost an hour and they wouldn't get beyond a golden colour. So I just carried on with the recipe.

What would have stopped the onions from browning? I couldn't bring myself to use the full quantity of oil in the recipe, but the onions were swimming in it, so I can't see how more would make a difference. Or do I need to be braver with the heat under the pan?

The curry itself was amazing - just like the real version in the restaurant, but the onions were very much not as described!

My Indian friend told me to always put 1/4 tsp of baking soda in the onions, makes all the difference.

I have Indian friends and their food is delicious but it's nothing like takeaway food. If you want your food to taste like the takeaway stuff, I think the secret is lots of fat, salt and sugar! I read a thread on here absolutely ages ago where a woman who had worked in a Chinese takeaway said they used to add loads of salt and sugar to the rice and that's why it tasted so good!

There is a blog called Fatima Cooks, she has recipes and very clear instructions on how to cook Pakistani food.

My husband is Pakistani and that blog basically taught me how to cook like his mum does. Every single recipe I've tried has come out beautifully.

fatimacooks.net

@ReviewingTheSituation maybe a wider pan? If the onions aren't spread out, they'll stew first. Asians tend to have big pans! Add a bit of salt to the onions to help draw out the water.

Red onions well cooked with garlic to start with and curry leaves.

I was using the biggest pan I have, which is pretty big! And they were quite shallow.

The salt point is interesting- I usually put salt in with onions when I want them to soften/go translucent, as I thought it stopped them from caremelising.

@ReviewingTheSituation interesting. Maybe they were onions with a high water content.

I commented to my partner yesterday that no matter how much you rate a chef, following a curry recipe from their book will never produce restaurant taste as there's no way they'd publish a recipe including the amount of salt and ghee you actually need. They'd be slated!