Recommend a good curry sauce.

r3nu4l

As per another post of mine in the forum, I'm trying to make my curry sauce taste more 'curryish' but I don't want to add salt and don't want to use ready-made pastes/sauces/powders. I've gotten some good advice on making the sauce already (thanks beans!) but I'm just wondering if you guys can recommend the ones you make.

Please rate how hot it is and how long you can store it for. Also let me know if it's possible to freeze it as I like to be able to cook some meals for the week during the weekends.

Celticfire

Thai red curry............

2 breasts of chicken
mushrooms
onions
peppers
fish sauce
coriander
lime juice
can of coconut milk
Thai red curry paste (mae ploy) €2.50 approx in asian food stores




Fry off your chicken , onions , mushrooms and peppers then add 3/4 of the can of coconut milk.

With the remainder of the coconut milk add a decent teaspoon of the paste and mix it into the milk.(start with a teaspoon , you can add more later when you taste it to bring up the spiciness) Add to the chicken. Bring to the simmer

Add a dash of fish sauce and a handful of chopped coriander and then squeeze in some lime juice.

That's it.

Jesus Wept

I find thai green curry far more appealing than red, can't really put my finger on why, it's just nicer...

r3nu4l

Thanks celticfire, I've just edited my post to clarify...I know how to make curries, I'm looking to go to the next level creating my own curries without using poxy ready-made sauces/pastes/powders. I want to use the individual spices/herbs and blend them myself. That said, I have used that thai red curry paste and it's good

At the moment I use ground ginger, garlic, tumeric, nutmeg, paprika and coriander but it doesn't taste curryish enough for me. I've been advised to replace nutmeg with fenugreek.

/Further clarification, I would also be grateful if people could give me tried and tested rather than internet copy/paste jobs

lemeister

Here's one I make and find delicious:

3/4 chicken breasts
1 tsp Fenugreek
2 tsp Mustard Seeds
2 inch piece of ginger
3/4 medium onions
1 tsp Chilli powder - add more or less depending on heat desired
1 tsp Tumeric
2/3 Green chillis thinly sliced
Handful curry leafs
Small glass of water
Tin of tomatoes or 4/5 fresh tomatoes chopped
Tin of coconut milk
Fresh coriander

Fry the fenugreek and mustard seeds in hot oil for a couple of minutes, don't let the spices burn or they'll destroy the taste of the curry. Add the fresh chillis, chopped onion, curry leaves and ginger and fry for a few more minutes. Then mix in the tumeric and chilli powder, followed by the tomatoes, water and tin of coconut milk and sliced chicken breast. Also add seasoning at this stage. Leave to simmer for 10 - 15 minutes while the chicken cooks. Add lots of fresh chopped coriander just before you are ready to plate up and serve with some basmati rice and/or naan bread.

r3nu4l

Hey lemeister, thank you. I might give this one a go. The main problem I have now is that mrs r3nu4l doesn't like hot food, I'm not brilliant with hot food but I'm trying hard so next time I'm cooking for myself I'll try this out. I've had lunch already but my mouth is watering reading these recipes

lemeister

It's not too hot to be fair, really just depends on the amount of chilli powder you add........so experiment!!:)

The Hill Billy

r3nu4l wrote:

At the moment I use ground ginger, garlic, tumeric, nutmeg, paprika and coriander but it doesn't taste curryish enough for me. I've been advised to replace nutmeg with fenugreek.

r3nu4l - Assuming that you want to get a standard spice mix for a generic Indian-style curry I'd drop the paprika, nutmeg and fenugreek and include a good chili powder, ground cumin seed, ground cinnamon, ground cloves & ground cardamom.

When you say you use coriander - do you mean seeds or leaves? If only leaves - add ground coriander seeds to the above spice mix.

r3nu4l

Hey Hill Billy, I'll certainly try that as an alternative recipe...I have everyone of those ingredients except cloves. I have cardamom seeds rather than ground cardamom, so I'll just crush them using a pestle and mortar.

Thanks guys, lots to experiment with so far!

EDIT: Thanks lemeister, I do have a mild chilli powder so I'll use that.

rockbeer

One thing you can do, if you're looking to make your curries taste more Indian, is to use butter ghee for your frying. If you're used to veg/sunflower oil or whatever it really makes a difference.

I also find, depending on what you're making, that fresh chillies instead of dried or powder and fresh ginger instead of ground can alter the flavour radically.

Try making your sauces a day in advance - allowing the flavours time to develop helps bring out the subtleties.

It's hard to know what you're really looking for, as 'curry' isn't really a standard item. Indian cookery styles have huge regional variations. Can you give us an idea of the kind of thing you like?

r3nu4l

Hi rockbeer, Well I really love chicken bibryani and anytime I order it it's simply described as coming with a 'vegetable curry' but it generally tastes the same anywhere I am served it so if you have a tried and tested recipe for that then I'd be very happy.

I'd also like to see this thread develop into people posting any tried and tested mild/spicy Indian sauces they use and enjoy. That would be cool so any recipes you have are useful.

I will try and leve the sauces for 24 hours before using if it will help bring out the flavours a bit more. Cheers.

Miss Fluff

Add garam masala.

The Hill Billy

r3nu4l - WRT ground cardamom I chuck whole black cardamom pods into my grinder. This doesn't work so well with green pods. You need to remove the seeds from the green pods & crush them.

If you like bibryani - have a look for packets of Shan bibryani mix in your local asian supermarket. They are cracking, especially the "Spicy Bombay Bibryani" mix. Basically, the are sachets of ground spices in the right quantities for the type of curry you want to make. The only thing that I don't like about them is that they have salt (quite a bit) lready included in the mix.

r3nu4l

yeah, I have green pods, so I crack them first and grind the seeds I might look at that Biryani mix and see what spices are in the label (hopefully the label has percentages, that would be good!)

Part of my reasoning for staying away from ready-mix is that I want to learn how to use my spices properly and also I've noticed that like the one you mention, salt is a major ingredient. I'd rather add (or not add) my own salt depending on flavour as I cook to be honest.

This is all good folks, I've been lurned a few tings 2day

rockbeer

For a North Indian style veg curry sauce that you can put with any veg to sit nicely alongside your biryani:

Spices:
1-2 onions
4 cloves garlic
2 inch piece fresh ginger
2 tsp black mustard seeds
2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp hot chilli powder (optional)
2 tsp cumin seed
4 tsp coriander seed
4 fresh small hot green chillies (adjust to taste)
Salt to taste
2 - 3 tsp good garam masala
Fresh coriander leaves



Method:

- Toast the cumin & coriander seeds over a low heat in a heavy frying pan till they start to brown and smell fantastic. I sometimes chuck in an unwrapped clover or two of garlic and blacken that off too. Roasted garlic - mmmm
If you've any flat mates they'll probably come running to see what delights you;'re cooking up

- Empty the seeds into a pestle and mortar, smash them for a while then chuck in the turmeric, chilli powder, garlic, ginger, & chopped chillies, and keep pounding until it all starts to form a mush. Add a bit of water to make a thick paste.

- Toast the mustard seeds in your heavy pan until they start to pop, then add a good helping of ghee.

- Now add and fry the chopped onion slowly in the ghee until it starts to turn transparent. Then add your spice paste and stir fry it all for a couple of minutes (not too long, you really don't want to burn it at this stage).

- Add in some boiling water (half to one cup) from your kettle to make the mixture in your pan into a sauce, and let it simmer partially covered. If you want to make it thicker and richer add some tomato puree, tinned tomatoes, or a grated onion if you're not looking to achieve that thick tomatoey Bhuna thing. You want to cover and simmer it for half an hour, adding a little more water if it starts to dry out. It should be thick but not clumpy, if that makes any sense. At this stage you need to taste and season it. IMO it needs plenty of salt (or use can use good soy sauce - not authentic but tastes good), but that's up to you. You can also add extra chilli if more heat is required.

You can easily freeze or bottle the cooled sauce at this stage.

Now when you're ready to eat just cook up your veg (steam, boil, fry or microwave), put in a nice big pot, pour your sauce over the top, add water to adjust the texture of the sauce to taste, and preferably let it all cook together for a while although you can just serve it up straight away if time is an issue.

Just before you serve, sprinkle the garam masala over the top & stir in, add plenty of chopped fresh coriander leaf, and some raw onion if you like that sort of thing.

Good luck.

bonkey

http://www.dspsrv.com/cookbook/curry.html

There's a recipe there for a curry powder and how to turn it into a curry paste.

You can also make a pretty good curry sauce by making a roux, with a mix of powder and flour. Then thin down with milk as you would to make a white sauce, and you're there.

Pretty damned good, I must say...although grinding ti all fine enough (even with an electric grinder) can take a bit of time.

You can leave the chilli powder out of the mix entirely and have a completely non-hot curry powder, whcih is what I normally do, then add fresh chilli to taste when cooking.

WindSock

I like to make a paste by blending almonds or peanuts, raisins, coconut milk, coconut flakes, a few cloves of garlic and hot chilli powder.

Minder

bonkey wrote:

http://www.dspsrv.com/cookbook/curry.html

There's a recipe there for a curry powder and how to turn it into a curry paste.

You can also make a pretty good curry sauce by making a roux, with a mix of powder and flour. Then thin down with milk as you would to make a white sauce, and you're there.

Pretty damned good, I must say...although grinding ti all fine enough (even with an electric grinder) can take a bit of time.

You can leave the chilli powder out of the mix entirely and have a completely non-hot curry powder, whcih is what I normally do, then add fresh chilli to taste when cooking.

I use a similar spice mix to the one described here - but forget leaving it to mature for a month. Mix the dried spices with vinegar and water and cook in the oil as directed. It keeps in the fridge in a kilner jar for months. Just remember to add a covering of oil to the jar to keep a seal on the paste.

One other thing - you will smell this in the kitchen and the rest of the house for days after making it - so open the windows.

tomcollins97

Hi Rockbeer,

Do you have a recipie for a Bhuna??

Cheers,
TC