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’?

You need far more salt than you think. It needs to match the volume of spices. Obviously can understand why you wouldn't want to add that much but it will be one of the reasons why it isn't tasting quite right.

I’ve been cooking decent curries for years and Madhur Jaffrey’s Foolproof Indian Cooking book has been my bible. I think my favourite recipe is the Lamb Keema. So easy and absolutely delicious. I’ve also recently made a few recipes from Nisha Katona’s Moghli recipe book. The House Chicken, Mother Butter Chicken, Vegan House Curry and the lamb one with prunes are all good. I really love the Courgette and Bay Leaf dish too. I think it’s just a case of finding really good recipes.

Creamed coconut (not the cans of coconut cream or coconut milk - you want the block of creamed stuff - can get it in most big supermarkets with the Indian pastes etc). Add few chunks at the end - transforms curries.
Oh and always when cooking with tomato add sugar.

This has been fascinating, last year I started doing experimental Tuesday which was basically picking a recipe and blindly following it. We had wild successes, things that people ate and those that got forced down. One week I randomly chose a chicken bhuna recipe from BBC Food, I dialled back the heat (for the DC) and they wolfed it down even though it was still spicier than I expected. The recipe was by Maunika Gowarhan and we've tried a good selection of her recipes since, there are ones we've preferred over others but we've never had anything that everyone wouldn't eat. I'm now used to cooking onions for at least 25 minutes as a starting point and definitely being liberal with the salt!

Give The Spicery a go. I have had good results with their Curry Legend kit. www.thespicery.com/

This! Get those onions right. Just browning ,not burnt and def not white!

And I would add you need to ' bhuna' your meat dishes. I don't know how to explain this except fry it off until the smell goes is how it's said in asain household's!

cook your onions longer and slower than you think. They should be really quite melty

I did an Indian cookery course at a local takeaway, and that was the key thing we were told. Allow at least half an hour to slow cook your onions.

I need to cook my onions more for a good curry clearly.

Watching for tips

@Combusting, unlike you I'm not Indian born and bread but I was also going to comment about slow cooking the onions and then cooking them some more.

I'm dead chuffed I got that right!

How do you get the smell out of your house? DH and I started cooking curry's last year from the Richard Sayce book. Always had great results but we can't get the smell out of the house for days! Our kitchen has 4 windows all open and the extractor fan on and we keep the door shut.

I would recommend the curry compendium book, there's lots to read before you get to the recipes and they have qr codes for you tube videos.

Also make sure your spices are fresh, out of date spices are rank.

Coriander leaf

@hartof good airing helps. I open windows and switch the extractor on as soon as I start cooking and light a good scented candle.

Amen!

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.

This is very true. I once made the best French onion soup ever, by cooking the onions in butter on a very low heat for an hour.

I always add coconut cream to mine and love it! But I like quite a sweet curry.

I have nothing to add, but this has taken me right back to my teenage years when I'd be constantly ticked off for not cutting the onion properly/not frying spices off for long enough/not getting my fingers in the gas flame to cook things (apparently, your hands are meant to be made of asbestos!). I'm white British but grew up in an area where 1/3 of us were Indian or Pakistani, and food after school was always amazing - but also demanding!

@PurpleSky300 Bangladeshi here. can I give you a really simple recipe? for chicken curry...
ingredients: 1 large onion, 4 table spoons each of ginger and garlic paste (fresh, you can make a batch and freeze), 1.5 table spoon of cumin powder, chilli powder to taste, salt, turmeric 1 tea spoon, 2 whole cardamom pods, 1 cinnamon stick, couple of Indian bay leaves, skinless bone in chicken drum sticks (1kg) and couple of potatoes peeled cut to small pieces, two table spoons of oil. can just use store bought powder, yes fresh tastes better but no huge difference

1. chop the onions finely and fry in a non stick wok on medium heat constantly stirring. add salt to stop onions burning. you can add the whole cardamom, cinnamon and bayleaves half way through frying the onions
2. Once onions golden brown, think the colour of butterscotch and catching at the edges, add the ginger garlic paste.
3. now is the crucial part, fry the ginger garlic paste until its sticking to the pan. let it catch a little bit, those brown sticky bits will give you flavour.
4. add half cup of water,stir well and add the powdered spices, let it simmer on low heat until the oil seperates and the spices begin to stick again.
5. at this point I add a little more water and stir so it's a thick sauce. stir in the chicken, and make sure every piece is coated well.
6. cover with tight lid and turn the heat right down to minimum and let it cook. stir occasionally but don't add anymore water until chicken almost cooked and you want to add potatoes. Once both chicken and potatoes cooked all done!

I'll be honest, I never measure... so see how you feel about the ratios, make it once and then you can find the ratio that tastes good to you.

Where can I get tej patta? Shops round here don’t have…

I don't know if this is sacrilege, but I use frozen onions and it really works for me!

Is the Dishoom cookbook worth getting? Ate there a few days ago and it was incredible!!

Don't eat it the same day you make it , it always tastes better the next day or so.

@hartof try a prices chefs candle! Sometimes on offer in waitrose

Goat.