Gourmet curry sauces/spice mixes
Discussion
We tried Hello Fresh and enjoyed their curries, but when you break down the recipe most of the good stuff is in the sauces and spices, so if we had some of those we could probably freestyle it based on our normal supermarket shop.
So what good jar sauces/pastes/packet spice mixes are available? Don't mind paying a bit more if they are nicer than the usual middle-shelf supermarket sauces.
So what good jar sauces/pastes/packet spice mixes are available? Don't mind paying a bit more if they are nicer than the usual middle-shelf supermarket sauces.
Curries aren't difficult, you just need to find a decent Indian run Kwik-E-Mart to get better quality ingredients. My local post office is run by an Indian family and after striking up a conversation the matriarch now supplies me with her family's garam masala which is as amazing as it is secret!
The staff at my nearest Indian shop are also very happy to swap recipes.
The staff at my nearest Indian shop are also very happy to swap recipes.
Bacon Is Proof said:
Curries aren't difficult, you just need to find a decent Indian run Kwik-E-Mart to get better quality ingredients. My local post office is run by an Indian family and after striking up a conversation the matriarch now supplies me with her family's garam masala which is as amazing as it is secret!
The staff at my nearest Indian shop are also very happy to swap recipes.
This. You have correctly identified that a lot of the secret to a good curry is the spices and how you use them. But you don't need a kit to do it. Most standard curries are just a kind of stew with a few more ingredients and one or two more stages in the process than we Brits are used to. V simple in principle and much easier than they seem.The staff at my nearest Indian shop are also very happy to swap recipes.
Get some recipes - Madhur Jaffrey is the Delia Smith/Jamie Oliver of curries, easy to follow and they work, if not the most adventurous a great place to start.
It really is worth learning the basics because there is so much amazing Indian food to cook once you get some confidence.
Yeah I appreciate that, but we're more just looking for a mix/sauce we can add to meat and veg, any more involved cooking we do tends to be Italian. The couple of links given above seem ideal, the second one seems to be available in supermarkets too, guess we've just never looked for them before!
I'm not sure what variety of curry you prefer but Nonya's range of SE-Asian/Singaporean pastes and sauces are a firm favourite in our kitchen: https://nonyasecrets.com/shop/
Not cheap on the face of it but when you factor in that they're pastes and not sauces they're very reasonably priced for the quality IMO.
Not cheap on the face of it but when you factor in that they're pastes and not sauces they're very reasonably priced for the quality IMO.
ScotHill said:
Yeah I appreciate that, but we're more just looking for a mix/sauce we can add to meat and veg, any more involved cooking we do tends to be Italian. The couple of links given above seem ideal, the second one seems to be available in supermarkets too, guess we've just never looked for them before!
Fair enough! I guess I did the classic thing of not really answering your question;) Good luck with the search.dontlookdown said:
Bacon Is Proof said:
Curries aren't difficult, you just need to find a decent Indian run Kwik-E-Mart to get better quality ingredients. My local post office is run by an Indian family and after striking up a conversation the matriarch now supplies me with her family's garam masala which is as amazing as it is secret!
The staff at my nearest Indian shop are also very happy to swap recipes.
This. You have correctly identified that a lot of the secret to a good curry is the spices and how you use them. But you don't need a kit to do it. Most standard curries are just a kind of stew with a few more ingredients and one or two more stages in the process than we Brits are used to. V simple in principle and much easier than they seem.The staff at my nearest Indian shop are also very happy to swap recipes.
Get some recipes - Madhur Jaffrey is the Delia Smith/Jamie Oliver of curries, easy to follow and they work, if not the most adventurous a great place to start.
It really is worth learning the basics because there is so much amazing Indian food to cook once you get some confidence.
British Indian Restaurants/Takeaways follow a specific method that uses a base gravy.
They then make every curry by adding spices an ingredients to their base gracy. So Madras would add chilli, tomato, lemon juice - Korma would add coconut, cream etc.
If an online recipe isn't based around using a pre-made gravy, it's going to taste nothing like a British Indian Restaurants/Takeaway.
Some will be delicious in their own right, but if you're goiung for that takeaway taste, you need to make a batch of base gravy to store individually in the freezer, then make your curries from that.
anonymous said:
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I'd like to try one of these.Like OP, I'd happily pay extra if there was something really nice on the market.
I don't mean this as a dig to you Armchair - but the amount of times I've raid that a particular jar is really good and got it, only for it to taste like Pataks in unbelievable!
Do you like curries from Indian Takeaways?
Tony Angelino said:
anonymous said:
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I love curry but can't stand tomatoes. I notice that these are all 50%+ tomato, are they completely blended (like a thin, smooth pasata) or are they left in tact please do you recall? Indian takeaway curries are basically blended onions with oil and spices. That's the 'gravy', then ingredients are added, so Madras, Rogan Josh etc would have a bit of tomato added.
These are all 50-60% tomato, so without the recommendation above, I'd be certain they taste like spiced pasta sauces.
The jars like Lloyd Grossman etc are made up of around 50-60% tomato, and they are basically a pasata with cumin.
I would like to try these ones, but I wouldn't be getting my hopes up.
We really liked https://www.thespicery.com/ after receiving one of their meat free magic subscriptions as a gift.
They provide the spices pre ground and recipe instructions, you have to buy the rest of the ingredients.
They provide the spices pre ground and recipe instructions, you have to buy the rest of the ingredients.
22s said:
anonymous said:
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Wow you really do love them.The final result looks nice bar the amount of grease on top! I'd find that so offputting. Is that from the sauce itself or do you use a lot of ghee when cooking the meat initially?
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