Curries are an essential part of Indian cuisine. They have spread to other countries and have become very popular in America. They are now a part of the daily diet of many people, with recipes available in cookbooks, restaurants and even at grocery stores.
Curries are easy to cook if you know some basic techniques. If you have tried out recipes from cookbooks, you may have had disappointing results as they tend to use difficult ingredients and long cooking times. This can make curries seem more like a challenge than a meal. In reality, curries do not need any special ingredients or equipment and can be made in the comfort of your own home.
Trying out new recipes can be fun, especially when it is for something that is such a favorite at my home–curries. I am always looking for new recipes that use easy-to-find ingredients and minimal cooking time.*
Curry powder is not a spice mix, it’s just a few spices ground together. But in the UK, we’ve got loads of different curry powders. You can’t buy a standard curry powder.
Tandoori chicken, chicken tikka masala and balti all use different spices. So do Goan fish curries, New Zealand lamb curries and Bangladeshi beef curries. And there are hundreds of more regional recipes. It’s impossible to keep up! But you don’t have to.
You can create your own curry powders at home by just mixing together a few spices you already have. Get some coriander seed, cumin seed, chilli flakes or powder and turmeric. If you want to get fancy you can add mustard seeds or fenugreek leaves too, but they’re not essential for most curries.
Curry powder. The name is so misleading! A curry, in the Indian sense of the word, is not a spice mix but a combination of spices with other ingredients. Sometimes, when I’m trying to explain to someone what I mean by “curry,” I say that it is this: a complex flavor, including heat, along with onions or shallots and a liquid and some sort of protein (meat, fish or tofu).
Thing is, though, you don’t need to stop at that definition. You can add more ingredients: raisins and nuts and chocolate and apples and pineapple. And you can keep the consistency relatively thick—a stew rather than a soup—or thin enough to pour over rice.
By my broad definition of curry, you can make any dish into a curry. Which also means that most of us already have every ingredient we need right in our pantry to make a curry at home tonight.
I’m always interested in curries, I like to make them at home as well as eating at restaurants that offer a good curry. Here are some tips about how I do it.
When making a curry you have to know the basics of the ingredients you’re using and what they give to the dish. For example, onions, garlic and ginger are very important in a curry because they gives flavor to the food and makes it easier for the body to digest. The real secret is to make a paste out of these three ingredients. If you don’t have any of them then get them, they will give your curries an amazing taste.
It’s also important to remember that not all curries are made with chicken or lamb, sometimes people use pork so if you want to make a vegetarian curry then you need to think about that too.
A couple of years after my husband and I got married, I was given a gift from my mother-in-law. It was a jar of curry powder she’d made herself and the recipe for it.
Her instructions were to mix 1/4 teaspoon of the mixture with 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. You could use it like that, or you could add other spices and herbs to customize the flavor for your dish.
Trouble is, we didn’t have a measuring spoon handy, nor did either one of us know how big a quarter teaspoon was. The first time we tried the recipe, we failed miserably. The second time we figured out the right amount and followed it more carefully and got something quite edible (and not just edible, but delicious). But I’ve always wanted to figure out what that original recipe called for in terms of teaspoons and tablespoons to make it easier to follow.
But now that I’m making curry powder like this in my own kitchen, I’m discovering that it’s easier than I thought to create my own recipes!
Curry powder is a spice mix commonly used in Indian cuisine. Many varieties of curry powder are sold and the exact ingredients vary. The term “curry powder” is used in America and the United Kingdom to refer to spice mixtures that typically include turmeric, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, red pepper flakes, and other spices.
Treatment of curry powders differs by country. In America, curry powder can be made from a single or a mix of spices (usually turmeric, cinnamon, cumin seeds, mustard seeds) and is often used as an ingredient in recipes for dishes such as chicken curry or shrimp curry; in the U.K., the term refers to a mixture of spices including turmeric and other ingredients but excludes chili pepper. In India, curry leaves are often added to homemade curry powders.
Curry powder is a blend of many spices. It originated in India, and it’s now an important part of Indian cuisine. It was introduced to the West in Indian cooking and it has since become popular around the world.
