curry chronicles

Who's got a favourite recipe for a curry with a LOT of hot fresh chilli but that's also got a ton of aromatic subtlety to it? Happy with wet, dry, meat, fish, lentils, anything. It's been too long since I made anything at all with fresh chilli.

Thai curries are made with (usu) fresh ingredients (lemongrass, chiles, galangal, ginger, kafir lime leaves) and Indian style curries as far as i are based on dried spices. of course you can throw chiles into any dish. my fave curry that i haven't made from scratch in a long time is Sri Lankan which uses lots of dried spices (a fair bit of fenugreek which sort of stands out in a warming and nice way in the dish), tamarind, a little tomato and coconut milk. if you're interested i'll dig out the recipe. and Sri Lankan curry is supposed to be one of the spiciest/hottest curries so adding chiles to it is a great idea. esp, if like me you like these kinda things

yes please! I was thinking of Indian curries but I would love to try a Sri Lankan curry.

ooooh I am a big fan of Sri Lankan curries. Heavy on the coconut milk, kind of like southeast asian meets southern indian. Fresh curry leaves are U&K, imo; luckily I can get those pretty easily around here. I have a Sri Lankan cookbook called "Rice and Curry" and it is great!

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sri-lankan-chicken-curry/detail.aspx this is great

man that looks good

Anything with a coconut milk and cardamom combo is off to a great start as far as I'm concerned.

I have a Madhur Jaffrey curry and kebab book and my favorite one by far is a singaporean shrimp curry - curry leaves, tamarind, tomato, coconut milk, and lots of fennel and fenugreek seeds - which sounds a lot like some of the sri lankan ones.

that sri lankan recipe does look good. haven't come up with my olde recipe that i hope i'll find. it had fresh chopped tomatoes instead of paste, and the recipe included the spices being individually toasted and ground and didn't call for curry powder iirc. my favorite part of making this aside from eating (i useda make it with monkfish before the price skyrocketed) was the toasted/ground fennugreek scent would stick around for days and i loved it. i'll look for it harder tomorrow even though hrbl's looks fine and dandy

i meant "chili powder" (which seems incongruous for a curry recipe) not curry powder

gonna make this super simple dish in a bit here. http://www.mysrilankanrecipe.com/dhal-curry/. along with some basmati and a veg tbd

o_m those lentils look awesome
madhur jaffrey hamburger curry is a new staple for me but i'm gonna up the hotness/curriness in my recipe

Had curry from 2 sources this week.
Curried Goat at the official opening of Jamaica Joe's. Nice stuff. Slowly working through the menu there.
Had me wondering where they get goat from since they source locally. Also now how long each goat lasts, though its presumably one main cut. So what happens to the rest of the carcass?
Anyway tasted great.

Also had my weekly indian vegetarian which was chickpea based this week. & came home with a large pot for next few days feed.

this is really good, and fast! https://ministryofcurry.com/chicken-karahi/
you may want to use less kashmiri chili powder. it's not too hot as is. a substitute would be a much smaller amount of cayenne.
i used chicken breast because that's what i wanted to use up. i thought it would get too dry compared to thighs but it's perfect. these are cheap shitty grocery store chicken breasts, cut in large chunks.

maybe 1/2 teaspoon cayenne would taste equivalent. pretty hot.

this has become my go-to curry recipe
makes a ton of sauce, can stretch to a few days of leftovers by adding more chicken and/or veg if desired

https://www.theflavorbender.com/sri-lankan-chicken-curry/

that looks nice! i love that curry leaf flavor.

yeah it’s really good

the recipes on this site are great great great
http://maunikagowardhan.co.uk/cook-in-a-curry/

these suggestions all look extremely promising, will experiment. I keep fkn around w/ peanut butter as a base making pseudo-satays and the peanut+coconut combination is proving too powerful for me to resist, I can't go back to tomatoes

i got one of those boxed chicken masala mixes from the indian store and i'm about to make it, while my homemade naan dough rises. good luck usa me

update: a little weird. recipe wants you to use a cup of oil (i did not) and up to 3 cups of water. i just used 1 cup of water, but it has too much salt in it. it is also quite spicy but that's ok. i got 2 of these boxes so i have 3 more packets. i would do some more improvisations next time, such as add vegetables like potatoes, cauliflower, peas, chickpeas, idk.

is it something where they want you to cook it for a lot longer so the oil/water boils off? What you're describing reminds of the box recipe on this fish curry box mix ... I think I did what you did, or maybe something similar, and it wasn't what it was supposed to be, I'm pretty sure.

i would have thought so but no, it gives you times like "10 minutes" and i was using a big saute pan with a lot of surface area. i was thinking it might thicken because it contains corn starch but it must have only been a trace amount. and i was using cut-up chicken breast so i didn't want to cook it too long.

i'm not familiar with this masala mix, but the more you cook and stir cornstarch the more likely you are to lose the thickening power. the thickened product will get watery as the network which the starch causes to form breaks. personally i would just make the sauce by hydrating the spice mix and making a slurry, then slowly add that to the simmering water/fat while whisking and finding out how thick it ends up. and cook everything else separately and add it to the sauce. seems that would be more foolproof? sorry for completely unasked-for opinion!

no--that does make sense, but i wouldn't want to cook the meat and then coat it in stuff. i think it's just meant for lazy people. i will try the slurry when i use it with chickpeas though, since they'll already be cooked.

This person's videos have been a revalation for me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV38aaJSlTE&t=222s

The base technique there of ghee, frying off seeds, then onion, then spices, then tomato, is (I'm assured by my indian coworkers) basically the base for any curry. Ive tried it with toor dal, and as a base for saag, and it made such a freaking difference doing it properly.

Its a PITA having so many different packets of spices and seeds though. And they cook everything in pressure cookers so its hard to know how long to cook dal/lentils for.

Oh and watch the mustard seeds. One time I poured wayyyy too many in and also burnt them and the taste was bitter and horrid :(

trayce can you paste link to the video with a space in it to stop the autoembed? "an error occurred"

i am in the middle of rearranging/jarring all my various spices and seeds and it's a mess. i had too many bags in the cabinets.

The base technique there of ghee, frying off seeds, then onion, then spices, then tomato, is (I'm assured by my indian coworkers) basically the base for any curry.

Without being able to see the video I can at least agree with that statement! I did an Indian cuisine cooking class a couple of months ago and the one useful thing was the chef showing us 3 ways of bringing out spice flavors: bloom in ghee (for curry sauce), add to a liquid & simmer (dal), and...I forgot the third one but it must have involved the rice because that's the other thing we made.

Anyway the curry was boring as. She admitted it was just a "base" to be tailored by regional & family preferences.

can vouch for meera sodha's books as great curry recipe tomes; made in india is a bit better than her purely-veg fresh india, and has lots of great veg recipes too.

The base technique there of ghee, frying off seeds, then onion, then spices, then tomato, is (I'm assured by my indian coworkers) basically the base for any curry.

this is pretty much how every curry i make or attempt begins, cannot make any claims for their authenticity but they are often really nice! (Onion section is often a slurry of blitzed onions/garlic/ginger)

Eep I never came back to see the link hadnt worked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=L32CGVxvdVE

Or look up Swasthi's Recipes on YT.

i made chicken tikka masala and a spinach-onion pilaf both from 660 curries

the sauce for the tikka masala was a bit too sweet. i did make my own mistake by putting in one can of tomatoes instead of one CUP of tomatoes. but it has raisins in it (blended up with everything). the marinade is very good. i added lemon juice. pilaf is good, would make again. probably try a different CTK recipe next time but not bad or anything.

CTM obv
the raisininess is not a bad combo with the hotness of the marinade, it's growing on me

chana masala, i questioned the 660 curries recipe because it had raw onions added at the end. i don't mind the act of eating raw onions but i don't like the aftermath. no thanks. so i went to the old standby smitten kitchen (a madhur jaffrey copy). it has 1 tablespoon of amchur and lemon juice but i need more sweet/sourness. some recipes have anardana, dried pomegranate seeds. i will get the anardana, soon.

I've never tried it with anardana, sounds interesting

I went and made chicken tikka masala for the first time last night. The flavor wasn’t quite right but the texture was perfect and I enjoyed it. Could have been sweeter, actually. Think maybe because I used diluted tomato paste instead of puree/sauce but idk

The new David Chang on netflix has a curry episode that is very good. It's the only episode of the new series that I probably will watch.

xpost raisins!

madhur jaffrey ground lamb and peas curry. i believe i have made it 100 times now and it never fails.

That is a stone cold classic. Haven’t made it in a while but will now.

kheema matar! ive also made various versions of that like a million times

i got the anardana at the chinese store i visited for the first time today, had a very random assortment of indian ingredients. plus more amchur powder.

Threw out a whole, unopened packet of amchur powder last night bc full of MOTHS. THE WASTE.

i have looked for amchur powder at three different Indian grocery stores and haven't found shit, so I bought the pomegranate powder and am about to make another large batch of chana masala because i have a 4 lb bag of dried garbanzos that aren't going to cook themselves

That seems weird that three places would not have had it. In demand!

I don't really know what sort of packaging I am looking for and I haven't asked for help either -- nor did I google to see what packages look like.

wait i just googled -- it's the same as asofoetida powder?!!?!?

no not the same thing, right?!
i am confused
even after googling i don't think i have seen amchur powder in the stores i have shopped in and they are for sure the sort of places that would have such a thing.

it is NOT lol

it has a very unassuming appearance and should come in a bag. every indian store should have it. i can mail some to you?!?