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hey all, i've been cooking indian styled curries for around a year and i just thought i'd drop off some links that have been helpful to me good explanation of tempering: http://www.rasam.ie/how-to-temper-spices/ just note that they don't mention specifics like the difference in tempering time between a cardamom and a cumin seed for example. Or on a larger extreme, a cinnamon stick and a powdered spice. Just in general a more delicate spice must be tempered in less time. you can research this beforehand, or experiment based on common sense and toss out mistakes. excellent source of recipes (only vegetarian, but they've also got very basic things like how to properly make roti/chapati/pulkha, or basmati rice) http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/ another recipe source which looks just as good, but i haven't really gotten started on yet (i'm gonna make the black whole urad dal soon) http://www.northindiancooking.com/ bahvna's kitchen seems to have endless practical and easy recipes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=channel?UCM4vLyVm4MPhS3o5o729Udg vah chef is a great source of recipes, his recipes are often either on the extravagant side or take their own creative route https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=user?vahchef i like hissing cooker for quickly showing how a dish is made in video format, they also do many dishes from around the world https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=channel?UCSHrn5HWEL71EJyr46HPmJg outdoor indian cooking, this is less interesting unless you're the type to go grilling and you've got a clay pot lying around https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=channel?UCKEPJo5eTHbKDgHxvUSR9Jw greats fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Oct 5, 2016 |
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Oct 5, 2016 03:26
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Zeratanis posted:Add all the ground spices at once and constant mix to prevent burning, also adding splashes of chicken stock to keep it a little wet. After the spices are fried, add the tin of tomatoes and mix it thoroughly and let them cook, about 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. my recommendation is to wait until after you've completed the onion / tomato masala to your liking before adding powdered spices. this way you don't need to worry about burning them, and you have nothing to gain from adding powdered spices to a curry so early on anyway. There's still plenty of decisions to be made about adding powdered spices after the onion / tomato masala is cooked though. the 2 most usual ways to add powdered spices are as follows 1) once your meat is "fully cooked", you'll reach the point you want to reduce heat and begin simmering, so the meat can absorb the flavors. Most powdered spices you will add at this point. Reduced heat means they won't burn, and you'll get maximum contact with your main ingredient (outside of a marinade). Your typical spices such as tumeric, red chili powder, and cumin will go in here. 2) after simmering has completed, you can also add spices at the very end. this is common for more "delicate" spices that lose flavor as they cook. I'm not an expert on this subject, but usually things such as garam masala and mango powder go in here also that curry looks more like soup to me... if i'm having curry with meat i can't have it in such an overwhelming amount of sauce, plus too much tomatoes will ruin the flavor
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Oct 9, 2016 03:29
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TychoCelchuuu posted:If you have a pressure cooker you can do any curry super fast. Just pressure cool the lentils/beans until they are done, and meanwhile heat up oil, fry your spices, and then add them to the lentils/beans. ~15-20 minutes from start to finish. i believe you just described a dal which is not referred to as curry (though they do share many of the same techniques) but just for this reason, there is indeed pressure cooker curry recipes. i recommend starting from a recipe, since pressure cooking is not very easy to freestyle unless you're very comfortable with it already i've yet to delve into pressure cooking curry, but it is def a thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfAq4KRIVs4 this is a lamb based curry so it will take longer, but if you look for a chicken based curry recipe using a pressure cooker, you should be able to do it fast I personally find that in order to properly cook a chicken based curry, i need 30 minutes of cook time. For me i don't think this is very inconvenient since i've got many points at which i can walk away for a bit. BUT if you want something genuinely fast, it's either pressure cooking, or you look at a different type of dish. greats fucked around with this message at 04:30 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 9, 2016 04:23
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Zeratanis posted:That batch was decently thicker than the picture lets on, bout the same consistency you'd get at any restaurant, though sometimes it's thinner(and a lot of videos I see tend to look really thin). Liquid there was like, equal parts chicken stock, tomatoes and coconut milk. actually I don't really mind if a curry is thin or thick, it depends on what you're making (my mushroom peas curry usually is not a thick consistency and I love it that way) I just mean the quantity of sauce, could be the picture but it looks like there's a lot of sauce... I made it this way once to feed more people and I felt the flavor was too diluted (they were happy with it though lol) could just be the picture though. personally I like to shoot for roughly even quantities of sauce and meat / veggies, unless I'm in the mood for a thicker sauce, then I can cook uncovered the whole time and end up with something more like this http://www.recipesfab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/chicken-jalfrezi-recipe-by-shireen-anwar.jpg
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Oct 9, 2016 07:38
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i wish to help people make good curry, so here is some step-by-step pictures of me making some extra basic chicken jalfrezi, with descriptions about why i'm doing things, rather than exact measurements. In this curry I decided not to use any whole spices. If you have whole spices and you want to use them, i recommend 5-8 cloves, 2 black cardamoms, and a star anise. Then you can reduce the amount of garam masala at the end. I would usually do something along these lines for this curry. The first thing to do is to get your meat marinated. Marinating with this many spices is not that common in most traditional Indian curry making. However, chicken jalfrezi is a dish from Pakistan, and it has Chinese influence. So for whatever reason, it's done this way. Personally i find this to be incredibly practical, and I implement it to some degree in most of my curries. I used 4 chicken thighs, cut into small cubes. Larger and harder pieces of fat i have trimmed. Smaller and softer pieces are fine. Pictured: ~1 tsp salt ~1 tsp red chili powder ~1 tsp tumeric ~1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper 1 heaping spoonful of ghee (sold in the Mediterranean section in supermarkets, and of course in Indian markets) just enough water to get all the spices dissolved and sticking to the meat. do NOT add so much that it creates liquid at the bottom of the bowl Not pictured: I added the minced habenaros once I got to that.  Ok the habenaros are in this one  the marinade should look thick like this I chose to serve this with rice this time. If you're going to cook rice, you should start soaking it now, before you prep all the veggies. I like to add some star anise or cardamoms, chili oil, and salt. All optional of course It is basmati rice, which is of course recommended for curry. It's light and airy, and absorbs sauce easily.Also if you are cooking rice i hope you know to wash it! You should always wash rice, at least twice. I've met so many people that don't do this, blows my mind.  K, now that your meat is marinating, and your rice is soaking, you can take your time and properly prepare your veggies. Basic curry ingredients: 4 cloves of garlic, minced ~1.5" of ginger, finely minced 1 onion, minced 1 tomato, diced ingredients for chicken jalfrezi: 2 serranos, cut into thin wheels. 1 non-green bell pepper. I cut them into wide strips, then into thirds. 1 more onion (not pictured), to be added along with the other veg. I cut them into petals. for the marinade: 2 habenaros (I minced these first and mixed them into the chicken, i don't want large pieces of habenaro to be not fully cooked in my curry)  That wasn't too hard, now everything is ready for cooking. I'll be adding the ingredients from left to right.  To start, heat the pan (for my stovetop and pan, i heat it up on a perfect medium, and leave it that way until way later, on my older one i needed to go hotter). Once it's hot, add the oil. (if you're using a carbon steel wok, or cast iron pan, wait for the smoke. same as always) Make sure you coat the bottom of the pan with enough oil to make a layer. For any type of curry you need oil with a high smoke point. For this type, I'm going to recommend something flavor neutral. Canola oil or sunflower oil is best. Regular vegetable (soybean) oil is fine, but is less neutral. This is a wok so it's already seasoned with vegetable oil anyway. If you were to use whole spices for tempering, you would do that now, I'm not getting into that in this post. I used to make curry without a wok, using a flat bottom pan. It's still possible if you don't want to temper too many spices, and completely possible with this recipe. Just use your spatula or wooden spoon to manually keep everything in the middle for these early steps. For more complex recipes requiring many spices to be tempered, i used to temper them in a sauce pan, then transfer to a sautee pan. It worked beautifully, it just took more time and effort.  Add the ginger and garlic. You will know when it's done because it will become very fragrant (i hope you used fresh ingredients!). It's fine if the garlic becomes a little browned like this, but do not burn it. Stir a bit if you need to, to avoid burning.  Once that's done, immediately add the minced onion, and stir it in. With the onions reducing the heat of the pan, and also adding a buffer between your aromatics and the pan, they should not burn. Cook the onions until they are all translucent, and have begun to brown nicely. Just like with the above, stir occasionally to help them cook evenly and not burn.  Now that onions are done, add the diced tomato. It will easily turn to sauce, and i like to speed up this process by mashing it with the back of my turner. Same as the above, stir occasionally. In this picture i cooked the tomato until i was happy with the sauce. You can actually continue to cook it until it turns brown just like with the onions, it will give you great flavor, and a beautiful thick sauce. I was just being impatient.  Once you're happy with the tomatoes, it's time to add the chicken along with all the marinade. Mix it together fully, then try to avoid playing with it too much. You will need to turn and stir occasionally to avoid burning and get even cooking, but if you used a heap of ghee as i recommended, this will be an easy task. At this time, you should also start to boil your rice if you're making it. Cooking the meat, and the simmering that comes after makes up the majority of the cook time.  Ok meat is done. You want it to be kind of on the border of just fully cooked, and not quite fully cooked. Err on the side of fully cooked. You only need to be super careful about overcooking if you're using chicken breasts, as they will quickly reach the amount of stewed-ness you want, without giving you time to cook your sauce, if you're not careful.  Now we need to prepare for simmering. Simmering is a key step in making any meat based curry, as it will give the meat time to absorb all the goodness. In this case the meat is already marinated, but we want to absorb even more At the same time, we need to finish up the sauce, this is a 2-in-1 step. Actually at the same time, we're also going to cook the vegetables, so it's a 3-in-1. Onions and peppers are pretty easy cooking, so i think this is the easiest way to make jalfrezi. Traditionally they would be stir-fried separately and added in a little later. I am just trying to make life easier. At this time what actually needs to be done is the following: 1) stir in the veggies 2) taste test for salt and garam masala. At this point i decided to add some more salt, and ~1-2 tsp of GM (not measured, i just poured it from a shaker, see picture). I just taste tested by grabbing some of the sauce from my wok turner, for the final taste test you can grab a piece of meat. It's up to you, and how comfortable you are with it. 3) give it a stir  Simmering is easy. Reduce the heat to a low to medium temperature, and cover it up. I don't have a perscribed amount of simmering time but in total it will probably take at least 10 minutes, I usually check up every 5 minutes or so, since i'm doing other things and not watching the time.  Around this time my rice finished. I strained it into the sink, then put it back into the pot covered up like this. This way it will stay moist, but it also won't become soggy while you finish cooking. (i am pretty picky about over / under cooked rice)   Checked up around 5 minutes later. Onions look too raw still, gave it a stir and put the lid back on.  Around another 5 minutes later... This looks much better I gave it a final taste test, and decided it needed a bit more salt, and some heavy cream.  Done You don't need to continue cooking after adding the cream. Even though I didn't use any whole spices in making this, I'm still perfectly happy with the flavor. This is a very spicy and savory dish the way it came out this time. The floral notes are in the back. Using either whole spices, or more quantity of garam masala, would up the floral aspect of this curry. I do not recommend cumin for jalfrezi personally, though.   I don't know if you guys have cooked with habenaros before but they pack a real punch. This is actually quite spicy, around the level or maybe slightly more than whatever the hottest level is at most Thai restaurants. Only use one if you want a more normal level of spiciness, and fill the gaps with more red chili powder for something in-between. I made this partially because i loving love curry, and chicken jalfrezi. But also because I want to show you guys curry isn't all about sauce. I also want to show off one of my own recipes that i think is fairly easy and practical, considering how delicious it is
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Oct 11, 2016 03:08
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tonight i made pressure cooker lamb curry based on vahchef's video recipe here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfAq4KRIVs4 i own this pressure cooker, here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000Z6JIW today i learned that western pressure cookers have a different timing method than indian pressure cookers. Indian pressure cookers have a whistle that goes off to indicate the pressure is at the desired level. Indian recipes will usually prescribe a number of whistles to let you know how long you should cook for. Western pressure cookers do not have a whistle. Instead of whistling, there's a spring loaded stopper that will pop up once you reach pressure. You can also see that you've reached a higher level of pressure once the steam release gauge begins to release a constant stream of steam. If i want to cook under a lower pressure i reduce heat immediately after the stopper comes up, for high heat i wait for the stream of steam first. The general consensus i found online is that there is no consistent conversion you can use to go from whistles -> time under pressure. Reason being is that indian pressure cookers will whistle different amounts, so depending on who you ask, you would get a different answer anyway. The best advice seems to be lowball the estimated time, and re-apply pressure as needed (the first time). I wound up needing to cook for 10 minutes, then 5, then 5 more. All under high pressure. A total of 20 minutes under high pressure. This is my first time using my pressure cooker for an indian recipe and my estimation was for 8 minutes and it was way too low. Anyone else familiar with this stuff? taking like 20 extra minutes to constantly re-apply pressure every time you make a new pressure cooker recipe is worth it in the long run, but still a hassle.
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Oct 24, 2016 01:58
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SymmetryrtemmyS posted:Over time and with experience you'll gain an idea of what sort of result you get from what time, and what ingredients need to cook for how long. There's no straight conversion, but as long as you enjoy the results, don't worry too much about it. well it doesn't solve the problem but it's good encouragement nonetheless, thanks
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Oct 24, 2016 04:01
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TychoCelchuuu posted:This page and others like it are good references for cooking most things - use it to help you eyeball some cooking times and that'll cut down on the guesswork a bit when trying to go from "X whistles" to some measurement of time that actually works (I just ignore the whistle time measurements in recipes). oh this is awesome, and these times line up with my experience, many thanks made whole black urad dals last night according to this recipe and the recommended cook time is perfect (glad it wasn't whistles) http://www.northindiancooking.com/black-whole-urad-dal-black-grams-ma-ki-dal-dal-makkhani-kaali-dal.html had to simmer down some since my pressure cooker seemed to hold in more water than hers, something I'll have to keep in mind in later
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Oct 31, 2016 15:19
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 21:57 |
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coyo7e posted:I'm still going through the backlog however, I have always wondered if there are certain flavor pairings in curry which are mostly accepted, or anything to work off of along those lines? One of my most valuable cooking resource as I learned western/american cooking was a spice rack with a list of which spices you ought to have on hand, and what you want to be thinking about using them for. perhaps some resources like this would be useful? http://www.indianfoodsite.com/spices.htm I think the list here is kind of small, but for me simply researching individual spices as I learn about them has proved helpful. that's in addition to the occasional experiments
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Nov 2, 2016 14:29
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