I needed some cardamom for ginger cardamom syrup for cocktails and so I went to a nearby Indian grocery. I bought a panoply of spices and some jaggery, naan, etc. I looked up recipes on the net and was surprised to find out the base of curry sauce was onions! The first curry I made was a bit heavy on the fenugreek, and I did not have enough turmeric or cumin seed, so I went out and bought those and some other things like long beans, augmented the leftovers, which turned out much better. I also made some rice pudding and that was the first rice pudding I have ever liked.
I really would like suggestions about spicing curry and anything else that can reasonably done at home. I don’t have a tandoori oven or a pressure cooker, but I do have a reasonably equipped kitchen with a spice grinder.
I really hate to say it, but some of the commercially available sauces are absolutely fantastic. I made some beef vindaloo from a jar of sauce from Patak’s that I bought last week. Wow. Very good.
I’m not really that interested in complete jarred sauces right now. Is there something about Indian food that makes jarred sauces better, or are they just convenient? I don’t rely on jarred sauces when I want Italian food; I like what I can make better. I do rely on a packet for hollandaise sauce, so I am not completely opposed to such conveniences.
Part of my inspiration is to have Indian food when I want and not have to go out and buy a special prepared meal. The prices on the spices were quite reasonable compared to what I am used to in a chain grocery. Now I have methi, cumin seed, mustard seed, turmeric, tamarind concentrate, chilli powder, cardamom pods, star anise, coriander, cumin seeds, and garam masala to go along with the black peppercorns, salt, ginger, whole nutmeg, ground mace, cinnamon, fresh garlic, bay leaf, and whole cloves that I already keep on hand.
Hey man, I’ll let otherws chime in, but I’ve tried Indian from scratch too and the jarred sauces are far, far, far superior to what you could make at home.
I trust others will support this: where’s Annamika?
I don’t understand why they would necessarily be superior.
This is how I made the sauce: In a heavy iron skillet, I took the whole spices* and toasted them, I then ground them, heated some oil, added a pureed mix of onion, fresh garlic, and fresh ginger, added the toasted ground spices, added the spice powders (turmeric and garam masala**, curry powder**, chilli powder, and salt) and cooked for a while. I added a bit of water and added diced tomato, tamarind concentrate and let simmer. The next day when I reheated it, I added more turmeric and some spices I had missed on the first round, and then it tasted like a proper curry. I have had better in a restaurant, but then, I have had worse too.
*bay leaf, black peppercorns, coriander, methi, cumin, cardamom, nutmeg, and some others I don’t remember at the moment.
*I bought these as more for the ingredient list than anything else, but I am not going to waste them.
I’m with you. The jarred sauces can be awesome, but making it from scratch works great, too, if you know what you’re doing. I made some vindaloo last week completely from scratch, and it was fresher and more pungent than any of those Patak’s (or similar) pastes. Not that I don’t like Patak’s or their ilk – they’re quite good and convenient – but I also like the ritual and sense of satisfaction of making it yourself.
I’ve cooked quite a bit of Indian food and I believe this statement to be utterly and completely incorrect. Maybe they’re far, far, far superior to what you could make at home, but not to what I can make at home.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with the jarred stuff, but I’ve never found it matches in quality the stuff I make from scratch. Like most pre-packaged stuff, it tends to be too salty and lacking, obviously, the freshness of homemade. Imagine that.
I’ve had good results with Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian cookbooks. Good recipes with plenty to satisfy the vegetarian as well as the dedicated carnivore. There’s also, as far as I can tell, a pretty good mix of more “authentic” Indian stuff and the more British-y/“International” stuff that you see more of in Indian restaurants.
I’ve managed reasonably good naan at home. You’re never going to duplicate what you can get from a tandoor, but with the oven as hot as you can get it and a pizza stone, you can do okay.
If you’re grinding your own spices, then you’re already ahead of the game, but this is true no matter what kind of cuisine you’re making.
I do like the prepared sauces, but it’s fun sometimes to do stuff from scratch. MaxTheVool and I have made a lovely biryani a few times (I think we Googled the recipe, it wasn’t anything special) using whole spices, including lots of scrummy saffron. I like to put in more than the recipe says
To head slightly southwards, I have also recently made a really great Indonesian beef curry, rendang. It has an interesting method - instead of browning the meat/onions first, then simmering, you grind up the paste and dump everything into the pot with a bunch of coconut milk, and let it evaporate, then turn up the heat and brown the sticky meat right at the end. Mm! Again, just Google - the vital flavours, I think, are chili, lemongrass and fresh galangal. Yummy!
I’m not at home with access to my recipe right now, but, basically, if my memory is to be trusted, it started with roasting whole cumin, black mustard seeds, black peppercorns, fenugreek (methi), cinnamon, cardamom, and hot peppers together. Grind to a powder and mix with white vinegar and some brown sugar. Meanwhile, brown some onions (I used one VERY large onion) until they turn a deep brown. (Took about a half hour or so). Blend into a paste. Mix with vindaloo paste and fry in ghee. Add meat (I used goat.) After browning the meat, add about 6 tablespoons of garlic-ginger paste (I used a prepackaged paste here.) Here I added some ground coriander seed and turmeric, a little water, and cooked until the meat was tender. Top with freshly chopped cilantro/coriander leaf.
This bears repeating. If you want to learn to cook Indian, I know of no better place to start than Madhur Jaffrey. (edit, Well, that is unless you know a fantastic Indian cook yourself.)
Absolutely. Ground spices lose their potency rather quickly. I toss pretty much anything that is 6 months or older, if it’s ground, as it’s lost most of its flavor. Whole spices will keep at least a year, possibly two.
One of the more recent Jamie Oliver books has a section on easy-to-make indian sauces and recipes. We have found it pretty easy to follow and replicate, and they taste really good. Maybe not entirely authentic, but suitable for most I-could-go-a-curry homecooked meals.
I’ve lived off Patak jars in the past, and while one of the better pastes, is nothing compared to a real curry.
I’ve struggled, done courses, made lots of bad curries, and got better at it. I’d say my Curries are ok now (not as good as local restaurants but I live in West Midlands, Uk in middle of a large indian community).
If you are starting from scratch, theres something important which is stated here, but missed out of from the cookbooks: Roasting certain spices. If you add the powdered version in raw, it doesn’t release its flavour, if you fry or dry roast the powder they burn at different speeds and it doesn’t work out… I’ve recently taken to roasting the powdered spices individually, mainly because I’ve not got something to fine grind them easily…
Make sure your onions are fried till soft and brown. If you use the blender to chop them, they will come out more bitter.
Well. I admit I like the jarred sauces a lot and they are convenient for when one is lazy. But they are also set to a certain “thing” - that is, it’s much harder to modify them. Fer example, I really don’t like onions much, and neither does my SO, so I rely on onion powder a lot to get the taste but not the texture. Those jarred sauces contain a LOT of onions in them and I end up having to strain some or throw them out.
I also recommend Madhur Jaffrey; great cookbook.
Remember that “curry” is not truly an Indian dish at all, but British (I believe). As such there are as many recipes as there are families for it.
I don’t eat vindaloo. We always joke that’s for crazy white people. I don’t really know many Indians who will eat it, actually.
I don’t like naan one bit, so when I cook I make rotis or prontis, Indian flatbread. If anyone wants to know how to make this, i can post how I do it. Hmm, I think I will make some this weekend actually.
Also a good substitute for tomatoes is yogurt. I don’t love tomatoes either, but I love the tang of yogurt.
The OP sounds like they are doing just finealready, and getting more into it than me. I mean, I take shortcuts. I don’t use whole spices too much as they do change the texture of the food; I prefer ground spices. Texture is almost more critical to me than taste.
A pressure cooker would be great, but even I don’t have one of those - I’m a bit scared of them.
Please, post how to make Indian flatbread; I like to bake.
I plan to get some plain yogurt and try cooking with that, but I don’t have any on hand so I used tomatoes to fill out the sauce.
I recall Pratchett’s translation of Vindaloo is “Spicy, hot gristle for the macho foreigner” but all the same, I love it. It holds a special place in my heart because it is the first spicy hot dish my husband ate willingly and so allowed me to break out of the bland mode in cooking for him. He ate my vindaloo once when we had Indian carry out before I got to taste it. He looked at me apologetic and said, “It had potatoes,” as if that adequately explained anything. He now is much more adventurous in what he will try and more likely to admit liking spicy food.
I learned to cook Indian food as a kid 40 years ago from my mother who learned from her family’s Indian kitchen staff in East Africa after the war. Back in the 70s you had to make curry from scratch, All you could buy from the shop was two brands of “curry powder”. Most Aussies made curried prawns or curried sausages. The curry powder was simply thrown in the gravy at the end.
When I left home and began sharing homes with people I was very popular as a cook because Indian restaurants were hard to find and I had a pile of real recipes.
Years later when Patak’s stuff became widely available I was horrified to discover that the average slob could then cook Indian just about as well as I could. This is because their products are the best pre-prepared sauces on the market.
People may like to big-note and say that they can do it better but I can assure you that most Indian restaurants in England have kitchens full of commercial size cans of Patak’s curry pastes. I have had better Indian than you get in restaurants a few times but I think it has always been in an Indian home.
Oh and for people who don’t like onion but want to stick to recipes - slow cook a batch of sliced onions until soft and puree the results. You can freeze it and add it as required and it is much milder.
