Why oh why is my curry always so shit?

[worriermum]

It doesn't matter if it's chicken, beef or lamb...my curries are always thin and acrid, can taste the separate spices - never a delicious blend of spicy flavours. I have all the whole, authentic spices and even blended my own garam masala FFS. I have THREE Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks and follow the recipes religiously. But am still Queen of Crap Curry. I always go for tomato-based curries, and try to avoid cream or coconut: is this my problem? Please, all you Indian cookery experts, share your advice and tips.
ps but my chick pea curry - and only my chick pea curry - is deeevine, if I say so myself

Coconut milk is the way to go IMO

Do Jamies from the ministry of food, its fail safe.
Ive made a few of them now, always use the pataks curry paste, and usually coconut milk, although the vegetable one has no coconut milk in so i prefer that from a fat pov.
Are you using ginger, coriander, garlic etc

cook spices in a decent amount of oil, before adding other ingredients.

DP makes his own up as he goes along and they are always fab

He grinds and blends the spices as OP describes

He makes 'smooth' curries sometimes by blending it before adding coconut milk

Then will add prawns or whatever near the end

Always lush

Can you explain your cooking method to me? Are you using enough onions and cooking them for long enough? Also you need to simmer most meat curries for a long time to get the spices to meld together. You should see the oil rise to the top of the sauce when it is ready.

Also are you making the sauce or masala first?

Coconut milk is not often added to tomato based curries BTW.

I would continue doing things from scratch, not using pataks etc, as then you'll get to know how to combine things yourself to get the right sort of taste.

Will watch as well. Have only made one really, really good curry and that was using an Anjum Anand recipe. And even then, had to cook it for a lot longer than she said.

Also, mostly indian curries are made by making the sauce or masala first, and then adding the meat when it has cooked down, so you don't usually brown the meat first.

Ooo womblingalong am very excited that perhaps I can learn the Art of Proper Curry from you. No offence Mosschops but I feel Pataks curry paste is cheating...actually it's just jealousy: I can't buy Pataks in the country I'm in so am forced to carp sourly about people who can...

Now, down to business: what do you mean by 'the masala'. Is that the same as teh garam masala powder I grind up? My method is basically fry up onions, garlic, ginger + spices, then add meat/chicken plus liquid (usually tomato, but sometimes stock). And bingo - Crap Curry. You know, where you keep getting the odd cardomon in your mouth and a bitter, dry taste with each bite. Am I using too much of one spice? Or too little of another? Or is the answer simply that I have to use cream or coconut milk for a nice, melded, complex curry?

Grateful for all advice!

sorry wombling I just re-read your post and I do usually brown the meat/chicken. Is that wrong?

i use natural yoghurt in a lot of mine.

I do Jamie's from MOF too, but make my own pastes. I have a grinder for the spices too (cheapy on Amazon).
I freeze the pastes, and then generally make one curry at a time, but a big batch of sauce and freeze the sauce for future use so we have a near instant meal with leftover meat or tinned pulses and the sauce taken out to defrost that morning.

i have a nice recipe but you need to make a tomato sauce first - onions/spices/passata and cook this. then leave in fridge for 24hrs and cook spices/onions/chicken/chillies etc and add the tom sauce to it.

will post it here if you like the sound of it

Madhur Jaffreys recipes are always fab when I try them.

Do you have the whole spices and grind them yourself? And fry them before doing the next bit?

Maybe you are adding too much liquid?

Yes DP gently heats the spices first before grinding and blending

Cook on a really low heat for a long time to thicken it up. Or add a couple of handfuls of red lentils - they'll disintegrate and make a lovely thick sauce.

Jamies curries in the MOF are very watery as well, there are loads of threads on the internet about it, so not just me. You need to cut the water down by at least half, the flavour is nice though.

Details, details please. I am curry-challenged. Expat, at what stage do you stir in the yoghurt? At the very end, or as part of the cooking process? And if it is at the end, do you wait for the curry to cool down first?

Mugglewump,I am impressed and awed. Please would you share your recipe for both the spices you grind up, and for the sauce you make? Love the idea of having paste-to-go in teh freezer, but not sure how to get there. No detail too obvious or easy to include!

Sorry for slow response: my internet connection is v dodgy and it takes ages for your posts to upload. Thank you, those are all very very useful tips. And Aristocat I woud love your recipe - it sounds like the formula I try to follow, but fail.

NOrky if I cook for a long time, then wont the meat/chicken get very dry?

well, any seed spices i use - coriander, cardamom, black mustard, cumin, i toast a bit in the pan with no oil first, because grinding.

i don't add yoghurt till the very end.

It's odd that the madhur jaffrey recipes aren't working for you, I find them brilliant. Have you got the curry bible one?

I think if you can taste the individual spices they haven't been cooked long enough.

I don't bother grinding my own spices. I fry whole spices first, before onions and chilli, and the trick is to get it just right and fry up until the point when they are almost going to burn but don't. Then add the onion and chilli. Let the onion sweat til really sweet then add powdered spices. Spices bought from indian grocers are far superior to supermarkets, no idea why. Then it's either the gravy or the meat/veg depending on what you are cooking. And leave for a loooong time.

I tend to cook curries in the morning so they mellow over the day - they taste better reheated! I also prefer fresh toms to tinned, they taste sweeter, but sometimes you need a squeeze of tomato puree to make the tomato flavour a bit stronger.

yoghurt and cream depends on the curry you are cooking, but should be added right at the end. lemon juice is a good way to bring out flavours in curries without cream or yoghurt.

my husband is Indian so I HAVE to make good curries

oh and you don't need tons of oil to fry the spices neither, if you tilt it to the side, you can sort of deep fry the whole spices in about a tablespoon of oil and that is plenty enough oil for a curry I make to feed 6 of us two meals.

what oil are you using?

i use groundnut oil for curries as it doesn't impart flavour to the spices.

Yes about the MOF curries being watery, I don't always add as much liquid to them and never have.
It's a simple book, full of easy to cook, budget and easy to get ingredients which appeal to a family, but I will say I'm a more accomplished cook than the book so know where things will not work, and adjust accordingly beforehand.