Cooking a curry - how difficult is it?

Psycho is just expressing his frustration at those who are not open minded to try something different especially when its authentic, traditional and more likely to taste much nicer than the mainstream.

Anyone remember the Ramsey Kitchen Nightmare where he convinces an Indian Restaurant to use regional specialities from India rather than pandering to customer demands for 100+ dishes on the menu.

I wish you well Psyhco Sonny in your quest to improve the quality and presentation of desi food. You have managed to ignore many of the negative comments here and remain positiive and objective.
 
HamZilla said:
Psycho is just expressing his frustration at those who are not open minded to try something different especially when its authentic, traditional and more likely to taste much nicer than the mainstream.

Anyone remember the Ramsey Kitchen Nightmare where he convinces an Indian Restaurant to use regional specialities from India rather than pandering to customer demands for 100+ dishes on the menu.

I wish you well Psyhco Sonny in your quest to improve the quality and presentation of desi food. You have managed to ignore many of the negative comments here and remain positiive and objective.
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thats the thing - if you wanna do something - i think you should do it properly - if i wanted to deal drugs i would make sure i was the number 1 dealer int he country and wipe out my competition - if i wanna run a restaurant i want it to have the best food - but the system in place doesnt allow it to be - i saw the ramsay special - this restaurant succeeded due to the publicity of being on tv - without a drastic change throughtout the country to wake up and realise that it should be done, other places cannot follow suit

jamie oliver is trying to get everone to change to free range - people just dont care - even if the eggs have been proven to taste better - arent as runny, etc - they still wanna save money and go for the cheap, crappy option - same goes for free range chickens

with all these advancements in food - we have actually ended up with worse food than we had 60 years ago - modified - all sorts of colourings - preservatives, etc
which in my opinion make the food worse - although other people disagree and cant get enough of the stuff
 
I'm really game for cooking my own curry from scratch now :) -- do you have any advice on rice Psycho? I have been looking at a few pilau recipes, but dunno if they are just pandering to my white trash ways or authentic :(
 
I have found that the best, easiest and quickest way to make excellent curries at home is to use kits from these guys: www.spicentice.com

Basically, you get the spices premixed and ground, a simple shopping list and a simple to follow recipe ("add sachet 1 to meat etc etc....) and even with my limited culinary skills I can turn out a terrific tasting meal which is (in my opinion) every bit as good (and a darn site cheaper) than a trip to my local takeaway.

I have no idea how "authentic" they are - but when the food tastes as good as this - who cares!;)

My favourite is Methi Chicken and Pilau Rice - but every one that I've tried so far has been great.

Apols by the way if this has already been posted - scanned the thread but couldn't see any Spicentice references - but it has been a long day....

Enjoy!

TC
 
Deluxe1 said:
I'm going to try this one out tomorrow:

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons vegetable oil or ghee (clarified butter)
1 medium onion - finely chopped
4 cloves garlic - peeled and sliced
ginger powder
2 mild fleshy green chillies - de-seeded and veined then chopped


half teaspoon turmeric powder
crushed black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin seed
1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
1 teaspoon garam masala
half teaspoon paprika
1/2 can chopped tomatoes
1 tomato [found it after adding the chopped ones from tin] :rolleyes:
Salt
crushed black pepper

EDITED FOR ME
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will put some fresh chopped corriander in at the end. Have garlic taste difference naan which is great for supermarket stuff. Also basmati rice of course.

tried psychos tips and here is when i added the spiced up chicken to the onion/chilli/garlic mix:

imgp0108bh1.jpg


then after tomatoes and chopped tomatoes, plus a little water:

imgp0111gw4.jpg


*Images copyright of adams kick ass currys ltd.com/NoMnOm*

Will get a quick pic when ready.
 
Poor Psycho Sonny,

Obviously very passionate about his subject, therefore i forgive the abrasive comments on this thread.

But don't you think you need to re-evaluate what your trying to do here? Not only are you in Scotland (not exactly known for there love of quality food) but your in a rubbish area, too.
If you really want to do what you talk about, why not look for a better area where the clientele are not likely to be dodgy ignorants who demand their food colouring back?

my locla takeaway (a very good one i might add) doesn't use any preservatives or colouring, their mantra is to be as fresh as possible.
 
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neologan said:
Poor Psycho Sonny,

Obviously very passionate about his subject, therefore i forgive the abrasive comments on this thread.

But don't you think you need to re-evaluate what your trying to do here? Not only are you in Scotland (not exactly known for there love of quality food) but your in a rubbish area, too.
If you really want to do what you talk about, why not look for a better area where the clientele are not likely to be dodgy ignorants who demand their food colouring back?
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property isnt cheap the premises in paisley is worth over half a million pounds because its near the town centre - 30 second walk from it and a 30 second walk from the train station, etc 2 minute walk from a football stadium, it is a pretty decent spot in paisley, if there is such a thing, for the same size of property in a decent location your looking at over a million pounds
 
imgp0112ng8.jpg


Sooooooo much flavour and soooo OMNOMNOM. Not as spicy as I would have liked with 2 large chillies, but the flavours were amazing. What a curry 1111
 
Spektor said:
I'm really game for cooking my own curry from scratch now :) -- do you have any advice on rice Psycho? I have been looking at a few pilau recipes, but dunno if they are just pandering to my white trash ways or authentic :(
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add some peas to the rice, make sure they are decent peas though - i had to stop ordering from one supplier because his peas were simply awful, you want decent tasting peas that dont look radioactive

ive never cooked rice i have to admit - the chefs do that, but i think they add a drop of oil when its being boiled, and som jeera or zeera, can never remember the word and cant rmember what that is in english, also its the quality of rice that makes most of the taste as well as the cooking, rice we use used to be £35 a bag 2 years ago, its now rose to over £75 a bag

vegetable oil used to be £5 a drum like 4 years ago, now rose to over £17 a drum

vegetable have gone up loads too, bag of potatoes is about £8 and mushrooms and onions have near doubled in price over the past 3 years


you can add flavour to the rice by making the rice then a seperate fried mix then mixing them together

in the seperate mix have extremely fine chopped onions, peas and mushrooms and peppers, with some torka (ginger and garlic mix), you can then add this to your rice and fry them for a minute to blend in the taste

this would be like a special fried rice

im no expert at making rice though sorry, maybe someone else can help you in that matter, punjabis do not eat much rice, we eat chapatis

hindus and south indians on the other hand eat a lot of rice and hardly any chapatis, maybe 1 of them will have a decent recipe
 
-Ad- said:
will put some fresh chopped corriander in at the end. Have garlic taste difference naan which is great for supermarket stuff. Also basmati rice of course.

tried psychos tips and here is when i added the spiced up chicken to the onion/chilli/garlic mix:

imgp0108bh1.jpg


then after tomatoes and chopped tomatoes, plus a little water:

imgp0111gw4.jpg


*Images copyright of adams kick ass currys ltd.com/NoMnOm*

Will get a quick pic when ready.
Click to expand...

adding some fresh coriander at the end brings out some really nice smells, it also tastes very nice

another tip which ive learnt from one of my chefs is, for spicier curries, if you squeeze a bit of lemon juice out a fresh lemon near the end can also add a really nice taste to the dish

next time you make this curry even may try making it spicier with extra green chillis and then add some fresh yoghurt to add some balance - its a tasty fusion


edit - is there any ginger in your mix?
 
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i see, well how about another approach.

Have you thought about advertising the fact that you no longer use food colouring, etc. put it on all your menu's, outside on the window, educate the customers with details on why. I'm sure you tried that last time though.

i do feel your frustration, i'd be half inclined to just take all the junk out and sod them, they wouldn't be who i'd want in my restuarant anyway, but i imagine this will hurt your bottom line, at least initially. but it may also attract other types of people who are more concerned with what they eat, and quality. It'll mean losing and building up a new customer base, but i personally would risk it if you have the capital to back up the transition.

ps, i'm going to inquire about the staff curry next time i go to my takeaway :)
 
Deluxe1 said:
I usually add a touch of turmeric to my rice whilst its cooking to give it a diff colour.
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unfortunately in the restaurant we add

yellow colouring
orange colouring
red colouring
green colouring
onions
oil
zeera or jeera (can never remember it right)

and as you can pretty much guess it looks nothing like proper rice - but it does taste nice
 
neologan said:
i see, well how about another approach.

Have you thought about advertising the fact that you no longer use food colouring, etc. put it on all your menu's, outside on the window, educate the customers with details on why. I'm sure you tried that last time though.

i do feel your frustration, i'd be half inclined to just take all the junk out and sod them, they wouldn't be who i'd want in my restuarant anyway, but i imagine this will hurt your bottom line, at least initially. but it may also attract other types of people who are more concerned with what they eat, and quality. It'll mean losing and building up a new customer base, but i personally would risk it if you have the capital to back up the transition.

ps, i'm going to inquire about the staff curry next time i go to my takeaway :)
Click to expand...

mate when i stopped serving starters in the buffet and said you will now get fresh starters brought to your table, cooked especcially for you, rather than dried out ones that have been sitting their for half an hour - whatever starter you want, whether it be a mix or a full proper starter, i lost so many customers i had to resort back to the old system

as for staff curries - make sure you ask about it first - because it may not be one to your taste

keema
daal (lentil specifically all other daals cant compare to lentil daal)
chicken on the bone
poorjee
aloo gobi
channay
aloo sholay
saag

these are good staff curries, bad ones are

kerelay
pindia
brown daal (sorry dont know what this is made of, its brown in colour if it helps)

just try different ones each time and hopefully you will find that authentic curries taste a lot nicer - i just hope the place you go has a decent punjabi chef
 
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Psycho Sonny said:
adding some fresh coriander at the end brings out some really nice smells, it also tastes very nice

another tip which ive learnt from one of my chefs is, for spicier curries, if you squeeze a bit of lemon juice out a fresh lemon near the end can also add a really nice taste to the dish

next time you make this curry even may try making it spicier with extra green chillis and then add some fresh yoghurt to add some balance - its a tasty fusion
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips. I took the seed out the chillies, but played it safe this time as I can sometimes cry like a little girl with too much spice which ruins the taste. Will defos use 4-5 next time and will try the other additions.

It's all your fault I cooked this tonight, I was going to have a healthy smoothy :p
 
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