Curry Recipes Online
British Indian Restaurant Recipes - Main Dishes => BIR Main Dishes Chat => Topic started by: sultry on August 03, 2005, 03:04 AM
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Can someone please tell why my kormas taste sour/acidic. I DON'T use yogurt in the korma so its obviously not that. Its something to do with the coconut milk, because a couple of minutes after i pour it in (whilst no cream has been added) it tastes as described.
Is it the coconut milk curdling? How can it curdle when i add it quite slowly-on a low heat? How long do i have to stir the coconut milk till i can safely stop? Can certain pan materials have this type of affect on such a subtle dish?
Would love to hear from the pro's, as I'm quite new to the world of making curries.
Thanks.
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Sour/Acid is strange, can you post the recipe?
Might be a combination of some of the ingredients reacting or are you cooking in a very old pan ?.(does it glow in the dark ? ;D)
There are some very good recipes on this site, have a good look you will find many Korma variations & judging by my experience of this sites recipes, i`m sure all will turn out a good meal.
DARTHPHALL.............. 8)
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Cant you use creamed coconut block instead of coconut milk?
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Hi Sultry,
I agree with Admin, Coconut block is a better option IMO.
Cheers Sultry,
Blondie
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OK, so coconut block is better, but this doesent necessarily mean that all coconut creams should taste funny.
I fry the onions (finely chopped) for 7 Min's-then add garlic/ginger coriander, cumin, turmeric & 5 green cardamoms, then i slowly add the coconut cream (about 250ML). I stir on a low heat for 4 Min's then i add around 50ML cream at the very end. It's not the cream thats making the korma taste strange coz Ive tasted it prior to adding it in.
Seeing that you guys are a little surprised, then I'm starting to wonder if it ACTUALLY IS the pan creating this taste. Its just an ordinary pan (no fancy chefs pan).
Thanks you guys anyway. This site is just up my street!
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Ill tell you exactly how it tastes; Im sure youve tasted FLAT pepsi after two days of the bottle being opened & the cap hasnt been properly sealed! A very subtle fizzy taste, right?
Or ...when you leave yogurt in the fridge & it matures a little & has a very slight fizzy/acidic taste.
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Hi Sultry,
Are you not using a curry gravy\base sauce to make your korma?
cK
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If you mean me using spices such as Coriander, turmeric,cumin..etc, then yes i do add all these spices. Anyhow, it mentions in my [Madhur jaffery cookery book], that yogurt should be added. I was rather surprised when i read this. I would have thought that adding yogurt, would have given the dish a soury taste & not quite as creamy!
Also...when ordering a korma from my local takeaway, i dont or cant taste yogurt in it at all. I was looking to emulate the takeaway type of korma...so thats why i prefer to leave the yogurt out. Even if the kormas I'm making didn't have that tangy unwanted taste, it still is nowhere near as good as the takeaway ones.
Ive read that most Indian takeaway chefs are actually Bangladeshy.
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Hi Sultry,
If you want to emulate the takeaway style curry your going to have to knock up some sort of gravy, you could give either of these two a go:
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3.0
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=179.0
Or have a look under the curry sauce group theres lots of discussion and recipes concentrating on just the gravy.
For the actual Korma itself when you have your gravy you could give this one a go:
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=232.0
I'm not a big Korma person myself so can't offer much more than that.
Ive read that most Indian takeaway chefs are actually Bangladeshy.
The majority that ive met and spoken to are.
cK
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Well Curry king, I'm not a? korma addict myself. Its just that when i read a certain recipe, i like to test my cooking skills & see if i can get a certain dish - tasting like it should. If i fail, then i get frustrated & rather annoyed :D. After my failed attempt, i sit down sulking & go into my own little world - obsessively asking myself what went wrong. I feel like hurting myself :D!
Like i mentioned, I'm rather new to making curries (AMATEUR) - but I'm sure that if Ive followed the recipe the correct way, then it shouldn't go wrong. Sadly it did.
Thanks for the links curry king. Ill check it out later. As for now, its time to read my A-Z of food encyclopedia.By the way, my favorite curry is the vindaloo
Long live cook fanatics.
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After my failed attempt, i sit down sulking & go into my own little world - obsessively asking myself what went wrong. I feel like hurting myself :D!
I would get used to that if I were you, ive slung untold "mistakes" in the bin? :-[
I assume the recipe your using, if its from a Madhur Jaffery cook book, is authentic and even if you cooked it spot on to the letter it probably still won't be anything like your local restaurants Korma.? ?It probably shouldn't be acidic and sour though, does it have lemon juice in it?
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Adding some sugar will help balance any acidity. The few restaurant kormas I've tasted were quite sweet.
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Madhur jaffery-followed it, except for the yogurt bit coz i thought it would taste even more sour. You know what i found quite bizarre In the Jaffery cook book. Well ...for the korma recipe, there was no mention of adding coconut milk at all. Just yogurt & cream. I mean, hello! Its like making bolognaise sauce without the tomatoes. Have i been teleported to the twilight zone or what!!!
I did add sugar to my recipe when the korma turned sour. This did help a lot but i always like to do things almost exactly as instructed.
Its like... if you watched a professional chef cook a perfect curry & went home doing exactly as he did (same technique) & it didn't turn out right, then id feel quite disappointed in myself. Its so friggin frustrating.
U know what? Reading all this has put me in the mood to cook a curry. Sod this - I'm off to cook somethin scrumptious.
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Madhur jaffery-followed it, except for the yogurt bit coz i thought it would taste even more sour. You know what i found quite bizarre In the Jaffery cook book. Well ...for the korma recipe, there was no mention of adding coconut milk at all. Just yogurt & cream. I mean, hello! Its like making bolognaise sauce without the tomatoes. Have i been teleported to the twilight zone or what!!!
There's authentic Indian kormas and BIR kormas, which are a totally different thing. Coconut is asscociated with BIR kormas but not often with the 'real' Indian kormas, which often use yoghurt. But yoghurt is often not used in BIR kormas. The korma recipe which I tried from this site turned out spot-on like a BIR korma.
Regards
George
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Hi George,
Where can I find the Korma recipe (on this site) that you used to achieve a good BIR style Korma. Could you give us a link to it please,
Thanks George,
Blondie
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Blondie
Sorry, I was being a bit lazy! If I could find the pages with the recipes I used within 1-2 minutes, I would have given the links. I will endeavor to find them later... OK here's a start:
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=312.0
The base sauce was one with 30 onions or something - I think - perhaps MarkJ's, which I scaled down. And stage 2 to produce the Chicken Korma was Ghanna's approach. It worked a treat, as I said at the time, a few months back.
Regards
George
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Well George, you've taught me something new there. I would definitely prefer a korma with coconut included in the dish though. Just goes to show you. I was quite ignorant towards Miss Madhur. My apologies Madhur.
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About an hour a go, i finished making a vindaloo. Half way through cooking, i? had a little taste to see if all was well... and guess what? There it was Once again. That same acidic taste turned its ugly head once again.
I can now rest assure that i have found the culprit. And the guilty party "ladies & gentlemen, IS"..........(everybody stops what they're doing & theres a sudden silence in the room, all eager to know who killed my poor little curries)...........It was my pan! ! !
(The crowd in the room gasp in disbelief :o :o :o).
Yes ladies & gentlemen. All this time, it was right in front of my eyes. There wasn't enough evidence & i couldn't go pointing my finger at all the other ingredients. I speculated that it might have been the coconut cream committing the crime. But all along you were innocent - weren't you Mr coconut milk?
"Mr pan" -? "I personally...will make sure you never do this to any of my curries ever again. Justice will be done!!!" "Straight in the bin you will go."
Misseur poirot.