Madras Curry Sauce

[traveller]

This recipe is from "Real Fast Indian Food" by Mridula Baljekar (2002).  I cannot say how close it to a BIR curry as I havnt tried a real BIR curry.  It is very tasty and forms a lovely sauce with few ingredients..maybe it is worth a try.

Makes 1.2 Liters (2 pints)

5 Tablespoons sunflower oil or vegetable oil
55g (2oz) fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
16 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
8-10 shallots, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons fresh curry leaves or 3 tablespoons dried curry leaves
1.5 tablespoons ground cumin
2-3 teaspoons chilli powder
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
85g (3oz) tomato puree
1.2 liters (2 pints) lukewarm water
2.5 teaspoons salt or to taste
1.5 teaspoons sugar
15g (.5oz) fresh coriander leaves and stalks, chopped
3 tablespoons lemon juice

- Heat the oil over medium heat and fry the ginger, garlic and shallots for 3-4 minutes, stirring continuously. Add the curry leaves, cumin, chilli powder and turmeric.  Fry gently for 2-3 minutes, then stir in the tomato puree.  Cook for 1 minute before pouring in the water.  Stir in the salt and sugar.  bring to the boil, reduce the heat to low and cover the pan.  Simmer for 20 minutes.

- Add the coriander leaves and lemon juice.  Simmer for 1 minute and remove from the heat, then leave to cool.  process the sauce until smooth in a blender.  Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator or freezer.

That was the recipe and I will post a recipe soon in which this is used as a base with some coconut from the same book.  I do believe that only fresh curry leaves will work for this - I used the frozen ones today with great flavor.  Dried ones wont give the real flavor.

Payal

[Mark J]

Hi Payal,

Could you substitute shallots for onions? How many would you use? Also how many fresh curry leaves, 20?

regards

Mark

[traveller]

The first time I made this Mark, I used the regular yellow cooking onion.  Yesterday, I used red onions as they were on sale and I can use them in more dishes than the other ones.  I dont really notice a difference - except in sweetness maybe.  I didnt add the sugar with the red onions as I know they have more natural sugars.
I threw in a bunch of leaves - maybe 10-15 of them....i love them and since that is the main flavoring, i think more is better!
I wil post a recipe from the book tonite or tomorrow in which this is used as the base...i made it today and it came out very good again.

payal

[Mark J]

So you used 8-10 tennis ball sized onions?

[traveller]

Oh no!!  I meant in terms of a similar substitute that onions were ok...shallots are very small so I used 3-4 of the smaller red onions this time and last week I used  2 of the much larger white/yellow ones.  I think I enjoyed the regular onion one better than the red onion one - even without the added sugar, it tasted too sweet, especially when i made it with coconut.  I will post that recipe tomorrow - it uses this madras sauce as the base!

Payal

[traveller]

Here is one recipe from the same book in which this base sauce above is used.

Fried Chilli Chicken With Coconut and Curry Leaves
serves 4-6

10-12 chicken thighs, skinned
2 tablespoons lime juice
half teaspoon salt or to taste
240 ml (8 oz) madras Curry Sauce
2 Tablespoons fresh curry leaves
4-6 green chillies
55g (2 oz) creamed coconut, grated

- Rub the chicken thighs all over with the lime juice and salt, and then place them in a large saute pan or fairly deep frying pan and add the curry sauce.? Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and cover the pan.? Simmer for 20 minutes.

- Remove the lid and increase the heat to medium, then cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the curry leaves and whole chillies. By this time, the oil used in the sauce and the fat content of the chicken will have seeped out, and the chicken should be frying.? Fry over low to medium heat, turning the chicken thighs occasionally to brown them on both sides.

- Finally, add the coconut and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes.? Remove from the heat and serve with any bread or rice, such as plain boiled basmati rice or ginger, turmeric and coriander rice (see page 192), and a raita or vegetable dish.

COOKS NOTE: Boneless chicken thighs and breast fillets can be used instead of chicken on the bone, in which case reduce the cooking time by about 15 minutes.

The first time I made this recipe, I made it following the recipe and used a Patak's creamed coconut packet for the coconut called for (its the box of 4 packets - I used just 1 of the 4).? The chicken was? little tough perhaps due to the long cooking time required to cook the sauce until the oil separates.? BTW, I only use boneles skinless chicken breast and had it sliced quite thin.
The second time i used Darthphall's chicken cooking? method and also this recipe's method side by side.? So in one pot, i had the chicken and sauce cooking, while in another i had just the sauce cooking down and precooked chicken ready to add.? When the pot of sauce was almost done, I added the precooked chicken and coconut and cooked for maybe 2 minutes only.? I was shocked at how the chicken did not taste boiled and had absorbed the spices right away!? It was much better than cooking the chicken in the sauce as per the recipe.? I ended up with quite a thick sauce with this recipe.? Very tasty though.
Another note, i removed the curry leaves before pureeing the base sauce as I was using a hand stick blender.