Help needed

[foureyes1941]

I've been a Member of this Group for quite a while and have been cooking curries for the same amount of time with various results. I tend to start off with a recipe and then somewhere along the line start to 'wing it' and stop measuring but keeping to the ingredients and at the end add what I think is needed if such is the case. A couple of questions I'd like to ask is 1. Do you stick religiously to a recipe to get perfect results or do as I do for a hit and miss affair that appears to be happening on a more regular basis? Don't get me wrong, people say that my curries are nice but I'm not always too happy myself. Another question I'd like to ask is when making a curry I usually add oil to a pan, add mustard seeds, curry leaves, onions which I slowly fry till quite soft and golden then add tinned tomatoes and slowly fry till  everything is soft and merged, but am finding that the sweet tomato taste is prevailing no matter how long I cook this mix ( I usually add 2-3 finely chopped onions and 400ml tin of tomatoes) I usually finish up putting in lemon juice or tamarind to take the sweetness away. Can anyone tell me where I'm going wrong please I sometimes finish with base sauce, sometimes not.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Quick answer :  with a new recipe, I try to stick to it as exactly as I can, omitting any ingredients which I detest (e.g., nuts, celery).  With a tried and tested recipe, I will have developed my own variant over time, which I can sometimes (but not always) recall as needed.  As to tomatoes, I find I can make an excellent curry with almost no tomato content at all, which suits my own palate.
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** Phil.

[foureyes1941]

Thanks for the reply Phil, I'm thinking it's time to have a change of thinking and go back to basics as you suggest as I'm finding that every single curry that I make tastes different. Husband says ' Oh that was lovely, we'll have that again' Next time round, I can't for the life of me remember what I did, so yes, start with a recipe and stick with it until the end taste. Then write down exactly what extras go into it.  As for the tomatoes, will try with just a couple of fresh ones added to see if that makes any difference.

[Stephen Lindsay]

I'm sort of along the same lines as Phil, and  I try to stick to the recipe as much as I can. For example I have adapted lots of recipes for the Taz base/method and I stick to them pretty much to the letter. I've done so many of them over the years I can do them without thinking now and without the recipe in front of me.

As far as going back to basics is concerned I think this always helps, especially when you stick to as simple a recipe as possible. If you try a basic medium curry, then there isn't a lot of strong flavours such as coconut or chilli to hide behind. A simple curry pretty much stands or falls on consistency of technique in my opinion.

[Robbo141]

I find I only get decent BIR style results if I use a curry base. Taz base worked very well for me.
As I'm yet to move into a new house, I don't have curry base, so need to cook non-BIR from scratch.
I recently saw this video on cooking a Pakistani Karahi dish, which I am going to try.

https://youtu.be/4PMmH2-5wJM

Although he does use tinned tomatoes, the amount isn't huge, so maybe that would produce a less sweet tasting dish?  The technique is straightforward and nothing unusual about any of the ingredients.

If you have an electric pressure cooker, I have been getting great results with this recipe.
https://twosleevers.com/instant-pot-butter-chicken/

Probably really easy to adapt to regular pressure cooker too.  The sauce it produces is initially too thin when blended with the stick blender.  I cook it ahead of time, let it cool for an hour or more, then warm it through, adding butter and / or cream and it thickens up nicely.  I follow this recipe straight when cooking for the missis, but have experimented with mix powder, fresh chilies, fresh coriander stalks, chilli powder instead of cayenne and the results have been very tasty.  No onions seems weird but it works.

Robbo

[foureyes1941]

https://youtu.be/4PMmH2-5wJM

Wow! I cooked this tonight and stuck exactly to the recipe, it was really easy to cook and absolutely spot on to our taste. I was quite wary having no onions at all in it but will certainly cook it again.

[Robbo141]

Excellent!  I will definitely be trying this once we're in the new house.  Have a look on that guy's channel for cooking paratha too.  They look delicious.

Robbo

[Peripatetic Phil]

https://youtu.be/4PMmH2-5wJM

Wow! I cooked this tonight and stuck exactly to the recipe, it was really easy to cook and absolutely spot on to our taste.

Well, he describes himself as "a nerd", and given that he says that the recipe "clocks in at 660 calories and 58 grams opf protein", and "will take about 32 minutes to make" (as opposed to "about half an hour"), so I think that his self-assessment is pretty accurate !  But that apart, I too would be willing give his chicken karahi a go ...
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** Phil.

[livo]

I made this last night with a couple of modifications.  It is a different curry but I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I was concerned about "wet cooking" the spices but it was fine. Well worth a try.

I did start by using onion, which he explains is more Indian than Pakistani. I couldn't locate my normal garam masala but I had a small amount of balti gm so I used that along with a bit of kitchen king masala.  Everything else was as per his ingredients, except double.

I'm not sure about the tip of using the gas stove like that.  I can't see how it provides "more heat" but it may direct more heat to a smaller area of the wok.  There is still the same amount of gas flowing through the same sized gas jet.