2012 Cooking Club Week 2b: Indian Resturant curries

jimfinoc

Mrs Fox wrote: »

Finally got my hands on fenugreek leaves 50g for 95c at Eurasia. Whipping up some good Indian later this week.

€5.00 for a kilo box of them from supervalue in Ballahadreen.

Mrs Fox

jimfinoc wrote: »

€5.00 for a kilo box of them from supervalue in Ballahadreen.

Whaaaaah? I was robbed!

gerrybbadd

jimfinoc wrote: »

€5.00 for a kilo box of them from supervalue in Ballahadreen.

Would a Kilo not do you for 7 lifetimes though?

I bought 100g in a place in Dublin a long time ago, and i've only about half used - and i've made a load of curries!

Curry Addict

Mrs Fox wrote: »

Finally got my hands on fenugreek leaves 50g for 95c at Eurasia. Whipping up some good Indian later this week.

my fav indian ingredient after the dried red kashmiri chilli. such an amazing aroma when it hits a hot pan

eisenberg1

Hi CA,

I am going to have a go at the lamb Madras, everything is prepped.
I have a shoulder of lamb which I plan to cook in a slow cooker for a few hours, then cut it up and cook in the spices for 10 mins or so, and then proceed as per your recipe....do you think this will work? If not I can just get some chicken tomorrow and run with that.

Thanks in advance

Curry Addict

eisenberg1 wrote: »

Hi CA,

I am going to have a go at the lamb Madras, everything is prepped.
I have a shoulder of lamb which I plan to cook in a slow cooker for a few hours, then cut it up and cook in the spices for 10 mins or so, and then proceed as per your recipe....do you think this will work? If not I can just get some chicken tomorrow and run with that.

Thanks in advance

sounds great to me. I would recommend slow cooking the lamb in the spices.

jimfinoc

Can anyone tell me where I can buy "Frozen Coconut" please

BaZmO*

jimfinoc wrote: »

Can anyone tell me where I can buy "Frozen Coconut" please

Why frozen? There are so many other ways to buy it that would do the job no?

jimfinoc

BaZmO* wrote: »

Why frozen? There are so many other ways to buy it that would do the job no?

Just think the frozen block is more convienent. I got one before but forget where I bought it.

eisenberg1

Curry Addict wrote: »

sounds great to me. I would recommend slow cooking the lamb in the spices.

This worked perfectly. Today I made the madra,s, rogan josh and the korma.

All were fantastic. The whole thing seemed a bit daunting at first, but once you get all ingredients set up, it was easy enough and the results were really appreciated. I would say this is the closest I got to making restaurant quality food;)

Thanks again

Curry Addict

eisenberg1 wrote: »

This worked perfectly. Today I made the madra,s, rogan josh and the korma.

All were fantastic. The whole thing seemed a bit daunting at first, but once you get all ingredients set up, it was easy enough and the results were really appreciated. I would say this is the closest I got to making restaurant quality food;)

Thanks again

yes it seems like a lot of work to start but if you tip it along its grand. Glad you got a lot out of it...

jimfinoc

Restaurant quality food!!! There are lots of restaurants serving lots of different tasting quality food.

I have cooked a lot of Curry Addicts receipts and found them very good.

A few weeks ago I bought a book "Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible" and have been trying out some of the dishes in it. There are so many curries with so many different delicious flavours.

Think I now prefer delicious home cooked food to restaurant food.

gerrybbadd

Has anyone here seen Julian Voight's YouTube series on Indian food (he calls them BIR curries, British Indian Resturant)

He's got some interesting takes on base gravys and things like vindaloo, where he will use Ketchup instead of tomato puree and vinegar

eisenberg1

jimfinoc wrote: »

Restaurant quality food!!! There are lots of restaurants serving lots of different tasting quality food.

I have cooked a lot of Curry Addicts receipts and found them very good.

A few weeks ago I bought a book "Madhur Jaffrey's Ultimate Curry Bible" and have been trying out some of the dishes in it. There are so many curries with so many different delicious flavours.

Think I now prefer delicious home cooked food to restaurant food.

!!!!! yourself, you know what I meant.

jimfinoc

eisenberg1 wrote: »

!!!!! yourself, you know what I meant.

OK. Hand slapped.

Turtle001

Hi CurryAddict,

I stumbled across this thread a few weeks ago and want to say a huge thanks for your input and insight here. The recipes are AMAZING.

Just for background, I lived in the UK for a number of years and read many Indian cookbooks via my local library however none of them came anywhere near what you get in an Indian restaurant. The receipes and techniques you have outlined here have changed all that to which I am truly grateful. I sincerely hope you can get a book deal for these as I really don't think there is anything like them on the market at the moment.

To the comments above on Madhur Jafferies curry bible, I feel her earlier and more basic books are better. Her Chicken tika masala is certainly worth trying

MissFlitworth

jimfinoc wrote: »

Restaurant quality food!!! There are lots of restaurants serving lots of different tasting quality food.

eisenberg1 wrote: »

!!!!! yourself, you know what I meant.

Both snideness & rudeness DEEPLY unwelcome around these parts, Curry Lovers. Mind yer manners, thanks.

scorpio.045

I second that, Turtle 001, nice post in recognition of curry addicts valuable information, have tried a few dishes using the info posted here and they all turned out as good as any ive tasted in a restaurant!

earlytobed

The local Indian take away no longer gets my business thanks to these recipies. One section of my freezer is full of take away cartons full of curry base and cooked chicken

Thanks again Curry Addict:)

Muahahaha

earlytobed wrote: »

The local Indian take away no longer gets my business thanks to these recipies. One section of my freezer is full of take away cartons full of curry base and cooked chicken

Thanks again Curry Addict:)

I'm the same, I haven't ordered an Indian in well over a year since getting into making these curries. I've also got a ton of base gravy and pre-cooked meats made up in the freezer which means making the actually curries can be done in under 15 minutes while the rice simmers away.

The recipies are so good that I'd done ordering Indian take aways. I do miss their bubbled up naan bread and have learnt that a conventional oven at home can never replicate the temperatures of the tandoor so copying it the way they do seems beyond the home cook. But other than that I'm happy to keep my money in my pocket and avoid Indian takeaways, preferring instead to save it for a proper meal out in a decent Indian restaurant like Ananda in Dundrum.

Curry Addict

its interesting how your perspective changes as you learn more and more. when i do order the occasional take away or eat in an indian restaurant etc. i'm more often disappointed with the food than happy. either the balance is not great, the meat quality is poor or its a bit bland.

In my area there is at least 10 indian's but 9 of them I would never order from again they are just crap. just 1 i can order with confidence from. This good one is also very expensive!

omri

Curry Addict wrote: »

its interesting how your perspective changes as you learn more and more. when i do order the occasional take away or eat in an indian restaurant etc. i'm more often disappointed with the food than happy. either the balance is not great, the meat quality is poor or its a bit bland.

In my area there is at least 10 indian's but 9 of them I would never order from again they are just crap. just 1 i can order with confidence from. This good one is also very expensive!

Before I went ahead with mr. CA's recipe for the chicken korma, my wife's favourite korma came from indian restaurant in sandymount. I found it bit hit and miss on few occasions - sometimes the flavour was kinda buttery (not nice) but sometimes it was amazing. We were wondering if it was to do with different chefs working different shifts.

Since I cooked 7L of the curry base we've been having korma quite often. My better half loves it, but I find it much different that the very good korma's from that restaurant and by no means worse, however I was wondering mr. CA did you have a chance to try their korma to determine the difference in the actual recipe ?

Curry Addict

omri wrote: »

Before I went ahead with mr. CA's recipe for the chicken korma, my wife's favourite korma came from indian restaurant in sandymount. I found it bit hit and miss on few occasions - sometimes the flavour was kinda buttery (not nice) but sometimes it was amazing. We were wondering if it was to do with different chefs working different shifts.

Since I cooked 7L of the curry base we've been having korma quite often. My better half loves it, but I find it much different that the very good korma's from that restaurant and by no means worse, however I was wondering mr. CA did you have a chance to try their korma to determine the difference in the actual recipe ?

inconsistency in a dish can be for many reasons including the ones you mentioned.
unfortunately i haven't ever ordered in the sandymount area so its impossible to say. you could try some variations yourself maybe cashew nuts instead of almond, palm sugar instead of regular sugar, coconut milk etc..

omri

Curry Addict wrote: »

inconsistency in a dish can be for many reasons including the ones you mentioned.
unfortunately i haven't ever ordered in the sandymount area so its impossible to say. you could try some variations yourself maybe cashew nuts instead of almond, palm sugar instead of regular sugar, coconut milk etc..

I already tried few things - in your recipe you have creamed coconut from a block - is that supposed to be dissolved in water ? For now I'm using the regular coconut milk.

Curry Addict

omri wrote: »

I already tried few things - in your recipe you have creamed coconut from a block - is that supposed to be dissolved in water ? For now I'm using the regular coconut milk.

coconut milk is my fav. restaurants usually use coconut flour. coconut block no need to dissolve just add it.

irishproduce

Do you find upon opening the coconut block that 80 - 90% of it is yellowy or off white and then like a snow cone, about 10% is pure white and tasteless. How is all this supposed to be used?

Curry Addict

irishproduce wrote: »

Do you find upon opening the coconut block that 80 - 90% of it is yellowy or off white and then like a snow cone, about 10% is pure white and tasteless. How is all this supposed to be used?

its supposed to be a white block. it sounds like your is off.

jimfinoc

For the coconut shavings or pieces my favourite is the frozen coconut. I tried the desiccated coconut but did not like it.
I use the coconut mike from the tins.

irishproduce

Curry Addict wrote: »

its supposed to be a white block. it sounds like your is off.

No seriously. I'll take a picture the next time I open one. Really. Its an off white colour all through and then the top is white like a cone and tasteless

Lovely Bloke

Made this tonight for Valentine's dinner, Madras for me, Korma for the mrs and baby.

Baby's first home made Indian, and it got the "spoon-licking good" seal of approval.