Your home-made Curry Recipes
Discussion
I’m back with another installment of me posting my curry recipe in case anyone wants to give it a go!
I’ve been making lots of various Gujarati curries after getting really into Parsee curries last year. My favourite take-away curry is a Chicken Dhansak which is a Parsee staple that made it over to UK take-aways. I’ve never mastered making it, that needed to change!
What followed over the last few months was > 5 failed attempts including one that just tasted of s
t, literally it tasted like actual st - I think I fked up when adding the tamarind pulp; 2 of the 5 were poured down the toilet immediately and replaced with a take-away!
I finally landed on a mix I was getting happy with and then started to refine the ingredients mix and cooking techniques to get to something I was happy with. This was end result:
CHICKEN DHANSAK
Serves 6-8 persons
Ingredients:
1.3 kg chicken, washed and cut into medium sized pieces
Sauce:
2inch stick of cinnamon/cassia bark
2 black cardamom
120ml groundnut oil & clarified butter mix
5 tbs garlic & ginger paste
2 large onions
2 sweet potatoes
6 green finger chillies
4 tomatoes
1/2ts turmeric
1-2ts Kashmiri chilli powder (or .5ts of red chilli powder & .5ts of paprika)
3ts coriander seed powder
1ts cumin powder
3ts dhasnak/parsee masala*
2ts dried methi leaves (kasuri methi)
2ts salt
2ts tamarind concentrate
1 cup chicken stock
2 sweet potatoes
350g toor dal
1ts honey
Before starting, rinse the toor dal thoroughly in a sieve, then drop them into a pot of water and bring them to the boil and then cook for 30 minutes or until soft. While that’s heating to the boil, finely chop the onions. Then, get your oil/ghee into the curry pot and heat it up, drop in the cassia bark and black cardamom pods and after around 3-5 minutes spoon in the garlic/ginger paste (keep the heat relatively low otherwise this can spit!). Let that sizzle until the smell of raw garlic disappears (around 5 minutes) and then drop in your chopped onions and cook on a low heat for 30-45 minutes, stirring regularly. Get the spice mix together, peel and slice the sweet potatoes and blitz the chillies and tomatoes in a blender during this time too so you’re fully prepped.
10 minutes before the toor dal is ready, drop in the chopped sweet potato and cook until both are soft. Once the onions have browned and gone completely soft, remove the cassia bark and 1 black cardamom pod, chuck in the spice mix, stir like crazy and once the mixture makes you cough (around 1-2 minutes) drop in the tamarind concentrate, the blitzed tomatoes and chillies, again stirring until the mix is warmed through. At this stage your toor dal and potatoes will be cooked through. Drop them into the curry pot, don’t worry if you get some water in there with them but try not to get more than ¼ cup at this stage, if either the toor dal or the potatoes need a little more softening up, leave the mix on the heat, when ready take it off the heat and let it cool for a few moment… then remove the final cardamom pod and blitz the hell out of your curry with a hand held blender?
Once you’ve got a smooth texture, drop a cup of chicken stock into the mix, do this in stages and check the texture to make sure you’re happy, 1 cup was perfect for me but you may want to add more or put less in. Let it cool totally while chopping up some chicken (or lamb/tofu/paneer), once it’s cool, get the chicken in, stir so the chicken is completely swamped and stick the pot into a fridge and let the chicken marinate through the day. For context, I started this curry at just gone 9am and it was in the fridge just after 10am… didn’t need to touch it again until 20mins before I served it that evening!
- Get on with your day -
When you’re about to cook up the curry in the evening , stop. Go to the fridge, remove a beer and continue back to the cooking area. Stick the curry on the heat and start to heat the chicken through (around 20 minutes), with 10 minutes left to go, put the rice on, naan in the oven and, finally, serve.
Enjoy
I’ve been making lots of various Gujarati curries after getting really into Parsee curries last year. My favourite take-away curry is a Chicken Dhansak which is a Parsee staple that made it over to UK take-aways. I’ve never mastered making it, that needed to change!
What followed over the last few months was > 5 failed attempts including one that just tasted of s
t, literally it tasted like actual st - I think I fked up when adding the tamarind pulp; 2 of the 5 were poured down the toilet immediately and replaced with a take-away!I finally landed on a mix I was getting happy with and then started to refine the ingredients mix and cooking techniques to get to something I was happy with. This was end result:
CHICKEN DHANSAK
Serves 6-8 persons
Ingredients:
1.3 kg chicken, washed and cut into medium sized pieces
Sauce:
2inch stick of cinnamon/cassia bark
2 black cardamom
120ml groundnut oil & clarified butter mix
5 tbs garlic & ginger paste
2 large onions
2 sweet potatoes
6 green finger chillies
4 tomatoes
1/2ts turmeric
1-2ts Kashmiri chilli powder (or .5ts of red chilli powder & .5ts of paprika)
3ts coriander seed powder
1ts cumin powder
3ts dhasnak/parsee masala*
2ts dried methi leaves (kasuri methi)
2ts salt
2ts tamarind concentrate
1 cup chicken stock
2 sweet potatoes
350g toor dal
1ts honey
- I use my own recipe for the dhasnak/parsi masala and realised I still haven’t shared it… I used this recipe as a base and just included a heap of black cardamom pods to the mix: http://www.cheekychilli.com/2012/12/03/parsi-sambh...
Before starting, rinse the toor dal thoroughly in a sieve, then drop them into a pot of water and bring them to the boil and then cook for 30 minutes or until soft. While that’s heating to the boil, finely chop the onions. Then, get your oil/ghee into the curry pot and heat it up, drop in the cassia bark and black cardamom pods and after around 3-5 minutes spoon in the garlic/ginger paste (keep the heat relatively low otherwise this can spit!). Let that sizzle until the smell of raw garlic disappears (around 5 minutes) and then drop in your chopped onions and cook on a low heat for 30-45 minutes, stirring regularly. Get the spice mix together, peel and slice the sweet potatoes and blitz the chillies and tomatoes in a blender during this time too so you’re fully prepped.
10 minutes before the toor dal is ready, drop in the chopped sweet potato and cook until both are soft. Once the onions have browned and gone completely soft, remove the cassia bark and 1 black cardamom pod, chuck in the spice mix, stir like crazy and once the mixture makes you cough (around 1-2 minutes) drop in the tamarind concentrate, the blitzed tomatoes and chillies, again stirring until the mix is warmed through. At this stage your toor dal and potatoes will be cooked through. Drop them into the curry pot, don’t worry if you get some water in there with them but try not to get more than ¼ cup at this stage, if either the toor dal or the potatoes need a little more softening up, leave the mix on the heat, when ready take it off the heat and let it cool for a few moment… then remove the final cardamom pod and blitz the hell out of your curry with a hand held blender?
Once you’ve got a smooth texture, drop a cup of chicken stock into the mix, do this in stages and check the texture to make sure you’re happy, 1 cup was perfect for me but you may want to add more or put less in. Let it cool totally while chopping up some chicken (or lamb/tofu/paneer), once it’s cool, get the chicken in, stir so the chicken is completely swamped and stick the pot into a fridge and let the chicken marinate through the day. For context, I started this curry at just gone 9am and it was in the fridge just after 10am… didn’t need to touch it again until 20mins before I served it that evening!
- Get on with your day -
When you’re about to cook up the curry in the evening , stop. Go to the fridge, remove a beer and continue back to the cooking area. Stick the curry on the heat and start to heat the chicken through (around 20 minutes), with 10 minutes left to go, put the rice on, naan in the oven and, finally, serve.
Enjoy
Edited by Potatoes on Saturday 4th March 19:07
This was my effort on Saturday. I work in Batley which has a large Asian population so I'm quite fortunate that the Tesco five minutes' walk from my office stocks large tubs of Laila garlic paste & piri piri sauce which I use in my curry sauce base and it usually turns out fairly well. I was pretty pleased with this week's effort. I don't measure anything so it would be a bit difficult to share the recipe for this specific curry but two golden rules I always follow are:
1. Roast enough tomatoes for the requisite amount of sauce then blitz them in the blender. Gives more depth of flavour.
2. Cut half of the required onions very finely and cook over a low-medium heat in plenty of oil until they start to look burnt then add the remainder of the chunkier cut onions with the garlic.
The dhal is really, really easy to make but I've never had one as good anywhere else. Even Mrs 1879 AKA the pickiest eater in the world loves it.
Dhal recipe:
Ingredients:
1 medium onion
250g red lentils
1 veg stock cube
3-4 cloves of garlic (or equivalent volume of lazy garlic)
3-4 tsps. cumin
1-2 tsp turmeric
1 green chilli
Fresh coriander to garnish
Method:
- Wash the lentils in a sieve and leave to drain.
- Chop the onion as finely as possible.
- Fry in plenty of ghee and a splash of oil over a medium heat until it's browned. ( I use a large saucepan all the way through to save messing about)
- While this is cooking, boil the kettle and make up a pint of veg stock. (I once used chicken stock and it ruined the dish!)
- Add the garlic and finely chopped chilli and continue to fry for another five minutes over a low heat.
- Add the lentils to the pan and give it a good stir.
- Add the pint of veg stock, cumin and turmeric and give it a good stir again. It'll look quite stodgy at this point as the lentils soak up the stock so you'll need another pint or so of water to keep adding in until you've got the right sort of consistency.
- keep adding water and as it's getting towards the desired consistency, add another knob of butter/ghee and stir in.
That's about it. Serve & garnish with finely chopped coriander.
1. Roast enough tomatoes for the requisite amount of sauce then blitz them in the blender. Gives more depth of flavour.
2. Cut half of the required onions very finely and cook over a low-medium heat in plenty of oil until they start to look burnt then add the remainder of the chunkier cut onions with the garlic.
The dhal is really, really easy to make but I've never had one as good anywhere else. Even Mrs 1879 AKA the pickiest eater in the world loves it.
Dhal recipe:
Ingredients:
1 medium onion
250g red lentils
1 veg stock cube
3-4 cloves of garlic (or equivalent volume of lazy garlic)
3-4 tsps. cumin
1-2 tsp turmeric
1 green chilli
Fresh coriander to garnish
Method:
- Wash the lentils in a sieve and leave to drain.
- Chop the onion as finely as possible.
- Fry in plenty of ghee and a splash of oil over a medium heat until it's browned. ( I use a large saucepan all the way through to save messing about)
- While this is cooking, boil the kettle and make up a pint of veg stock. (I once used chicken stock and it ruined the dish!)
- Add the garlic and finely chopped chilli and continue to fry for another five minutes over a low heat.
- Add the lentils to the pan and give it a good stir.
- Add the pint of veg stock, cumin and turmeric and give it a good stir again. It'll look quite stodgy at this point as the lentils soak up the stock so you'll need another pint or so of water to keep adding in until you've got the right sort of consistency.
- keep adding water and as it's getting towards the desired consistency, add another knob of butter/ghee and stir in.
That's about it. Serve & garnish with finely chopped coriander.
Obviously all these curry creations will need a dal accompaniment. I often eat my version with rice as a stand-alone dish.
Kitchen sink dal
This is my own recipe, evolved over a number of years from many others.
Ingredients
500g yellow split peas, soaked overnight in cold water
Handful dried curry leaves
2 dried red Kashmiri chillies, cut into small pieces
1 cube frozen ginger/garlic mix (from Asda), or a teaspoon each of crushed fresh ginger and garlic
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 tablespoons cold-pressed rapeseed oil*
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
Large pinch asafoetida (hing)
Method
Simmer the split peas until soft together with the turmeric, chillies, curry leaves, garlic, ginger and salt. I add water to the level where it just covers the soaked peas, but you can add more or less depending how runny you like it. Keep an eye on the pot so it doesn’t boil dry, and blend the split peas with a hand blender once they’re soft. Depending on how fresh the split peas are, they will take anything from 20 minutes to an hour to cook.
Heat the oil in a heavy pan and sizzle the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida until the mustard seeds start popping. It should be frothing and smelling nice and nutty. Add the onions and gently fry on a low heat until they’re translucent and brownish in colour, stirring frequently. These need to be far darker than you would use in a western dish, and will take at least 20 minutes to cook.
Pour the onion mixture over the pea mixture and stir well. Serve with flatbreads or rice, with some chopped coriander over. Add chopped green chillies if you prefer it hotter (I do).
* You could use butter or ghee, but I find that cold-pressed rapeseed oil has a ‘mustardiness’ which goes really well in this dish.
Kitchen sink dal
This is my own recipe, evolved over a number of years from many others.
Ingredients
500g yellow split peas, soaked overnight in cold water
Handful dried curry leaves
2 dried red Kashmiri chillies, cut into small pieces
1 cube frozen ginger/garlic mix (from Asda), or a teaspoon each of crushed fresh ginger and garlic
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon salt
2 large onions, finely chopped
4 tablespoons cold-pressed rapeseed oil*
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
Large pinch asafoetida (hing)
Method
Simmer the split peas until soft together with the turmeric, chillies, curry leaves, garlic, ginger and salt. I add water to the level where it just covers the soaked peas, but you can add more or less depending how runny you like it. Keep an eye on the pot so it doesn’t boil dry, and blend the split peas with a hand blender once they’re soft. Depending on how fresh the split peas are, they will take anything from 20 minutes to an hour to cook.
Heat the oil in a heavy pan and sizzle the mustard seeds, cumin seeds and asafoetida until the mustard seeds start popping. It should be frothing and smelling nice and nutty. Add the onions and gently fry on a low heat until they’re translucent and brownish in colour, stirring frequently. These need to be far darker than you would use in a western dish, and will take at least 20 minutes to cook.
Pour the onion mixture over the pea mixture and stir well. Serve with flatbreads or rice, with some chopped coriander over. Add chopped green chillies if you prefer it hotter (I do).
* You could use butter or ghee, but I find that cold-pressed rapeseed oil has a ‘mustardiness’ which goes really well in this dish.
DRFC1879 said:
I'm finishing the leftovers from Saturday as I type this. I forgot how good that curry was; even better for infusing the flavours over a couple of days in the fridge. ??
It's amazing what a few days in the fridge does to a curry! Your recipe looks awesome, I'll give that a go.I'm not far from you actually, I'm up in Stanley, Wakefield.
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