Cooking a curry is usually a lot simpler than you think; for sure, there are some real intricate ones with spice mixes added at different stages and a host of other rules to get just right. But I like village food curries. Simple, humble curries that are accessible to all.
I was lucky enough to travel around India for a few months and fell in love with the country, especially the street food. I know what people say about food poisoning but you know what, I ate at tons of street food stalls and wasn’t sick once.
Maybe luck, maybe it just isn’t that bad. But I digress (you can read more of my travel adventures here) I also managed to attend a couple of family run cooking schools that were amazing.
Basically what I learnt was the most humble of ingredients and spices; if cooked well are delicious. Sounds corny I know, but it’s true. So there.
I’m by no means an expert in making curries; or developing curry recipes, seriously I’m not even close (so would love people to leave comments about their knowledge on making a decent ruby murray). But a couple of the bits I have picked up I thought I would share.. here goes..
How to make a curry top tips:
- Firstly, look after your spices. They don’t last forever and it’s a really good idea to store them in the dark; sunlight will bleach some spices and degrade their flavour, alot.
- Try to keep whole spices and grind them when needed, this also holds their flavour really well (and grinding spices in a pestle and mortar only takes a few minutes – I keep garlic and ginger in mine until needed!).
- Toasting your spices will help release their flavours; not necessarily to the point of actually changing their colour, but dry frying until you start to smell them kick starts them a little.
- Another big thing is the base of your curry (usually onion, garlic and ginger blended into a paste). This paste is the foundation of your curry; and if you rush the foundations your curry house will fall!
- Cook the base long and slow until the onions, garlic and ginger paste turns a deep dark colour for a deep earthy curry, while cooking out the curry paste for less time (still cooking out the onions, garlic and ginger but not until dark) will be great for a lighter more fresh tasting curry.
Check out some of my Indian inspired recipes..
