Spill your curry secrets

Burt Dagger

Burt Dagger

I’m just here so I don’t get mined
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I aspire to cook restaurant-grade curries of the basic varieties - tikka masala, butter chicken, your basic Thai red and green. I say aspire because there is still a sizeable gap between expectations and results. I’ve gotten a lot better, but there’s still a je ne sais quoi missing.

What I’ve learned:
- it’s much harder to overdo fish sauce in Thai curries than you think it is
- caramelizing palm sugar is usually worth the time
- coconut sauces love a hardy green like Swiss chard
- cashew cream is indispensable for a good tikka / butter masala. Costco sells a nice bag of unroasted, unsalted
- whole seed cumin is great. Whole coriander seeds add nice taste but are an absolute bugger texturally
- an Indian curry needs a good basmati rice with aromatic spices soaked in. It’s worth skipping the rice cooker and following a stovetop recipe.

Curry aficionados (any genre), would love to know how you’re taking it to the next level. Like I said, I’ve gotten better but I’m still not fooling anyone into thinking they’re eating takeout
 
Use Shan products, in most Asian stores. Prepackaged spice mixes for a wide variety of curries. They add all the spices and goodies in a hermetically sealed bag.

I used to make curries from scratch and a pita having 20 odd different things lying around and they lose their lustre with time so all in 1 does it for me. Some too, are nuclear hot depending on your taste, all are good. I typically make biryanis.

Dave

PS Do not buy the large bag of Costco basmati rice as it is duff, I suspect it’s long grain as the grains are far too short for basmati. I googled best basmati and went thru Amazon
 
Dave Boyle said:
Use Shan products, in most Asian stores. Prepackaged spice mixes for a wide variety of curries. They add all the spices and goodies in a hermetically sealed bag.

I used to make curries from scratch and a pita having 20 odd different things lying around and they lose their lustre with time so all in 1 does it for me. Some too, are nuclear hot depending on your taste, all are good. I typically make biryanis.

Dave

PS Do not buy the large bag of Costco basmati rice as it is duff, I suspect it’s long grain as the grains are far too short for basmati. I googled best basmati and went thru Amazon
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I second the Shan spice mixes. I've used their butter chicken mix a few times and it is really good! I also bought a jar of dried curry leaves and I fry them in ghee and finish with the leaves and ghee.
 
I did a little experimenting with fruits in various Indian curries. Apples, currents, tomatoes and mangos were all good albeit fairly standard. An ingredient which was a smashing success was dried sour cherries. I had high hopes for dried apricots but they turned out to be a real dud.
 
used to make a cherry chutney that was killer on curry
 
I have a jar of lime pickle my limey friend made.

Large chunks of lime (peel on), star anise, cayenne, a little oil and an inordinate amount of salt.

Taking a bite of it will make you wince! My friend describes it as "pleasantly distasteful."

It makes a great accompaniment to a spicy vindaloo curry along with a major grey chutney and some plain yoghurt on the side. I love the extreme contrasts between the heat, sweetness, salt, bitter lime and cool yoghurt.
 
For Thai curry pastes, I really like the Maesri brand. I always bump the flavor by frying some extra garlic, ginger, and chilies (and galangal if you got it). My favorite fat to fry in is the cream from a separated can of full fat coconut milk.

Unsweetened rhubard puree (diced, cooked down with a bit of water until very soft, then blitzed with an immersion blender) is an EXCELLENT replacement for tamarind paste.
 
My wife and I love Indian curry, we got turned onto it when we lived in Kitsap County. About once a month or so, a bunch of us would head up to Suquamish after work, with a stop in Poulsbo to grab handfuls of piling worms, then drop folding crab pots off the pier (if we forgot beer, there was The Tides Out and The Tides In taverns right above the pier). Whatever we harvested (rock crab, piling perch, cabezon (the fish) and once a true cod....) went into a bucket at up to Bomi and Roshan's house where they'd cook up a big spread of curry. So delicious. One of the keys to that dinner was Bomi's "raw" onion salad:

white onion roughly chopped
diced jalapeno or serrano chili (seeds and veins left in - this is Indian heat after all)
chopped cilantro
salt/pepper
fresh squeezed lime juice

A heaping spoonful of this zesty lime onion salad on top of the curry is magic.
 
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