Topic: Help me identifying these curries/dishes from a takeaway

[Netik]

Dear Community, I'm swiss and regularly eating in asian takeaway (probably indian/thai) and indian restaurants. I now had (especially) 3 dishes which just blew my mind and I fail to reproduce them at home:

Curry 1, in the right of:
http://oi42.tinypic.com/68znd2.jpg
I'm not sure if this is indian or thai or another countries curry. Probably it was fish (Pangasius / iridescent shark) or chicken. It was just legendary. I have to say I did not feel tomatoes, it was pretty hot and very .strong/salty in it's taste. And I couldn't feel the typical thai tastes like lemon grass so I guess it's more indian. But what could it be? All these famous indian curries look different.

Dish 2, in the left of the picture above.
It's Okras/Ladyfingers (but I had it with kohlrabi, carrots, spinach and other vegetables already) in a..coconut sauce. I tried many recipes already. There are curryleaves and onions, I can't find anything else in it. So I tried:

-Heating oil, putting in some mustard seeds and curry leaves
-Frying onion slices for 1-2 minutes
-Adding ladyfingers, 1 min
-Adding a cup of coconutmilk
-Cooking for 5 mins
-Adding some turmeric and vinegar

It tastes ok, but definitely not as good as in the takeaway. What else can I try? How is this dish called?

Curry 3:, yellow fish curry in http://oi43.tinypic.com/tao48z.jpg
Definitely indian, it's also Pangasius / iridescent shark, I could identify mustard seeds and curry leaves, but that's it. I tried many recipes like goan fish curry or madras fish curry, but that's not it.

I found the ebook about how to cook BIR style curries and I will try them out this week, but as I said...on the pictures and videos they look much different from the curries I posted.

Thanks A LOT for any help and tipps!

[StoneCut]

Neither looks like a BIR curry to me. The ingredients are not typically BIR either (no curry leaves in BIR, but lots in traditional Indian). I have no idea what they are. Do you know Chonk?

[fried]

The  style of the dish and the ingredients look more south Indian or Sri Lanki than typical Bengali BIR dishes.

[Netik]

Thanks guys. Yeah I also expected them to be more south indian/sri lanki.
What do you think - can the methods of how to cook a BIR curry with base gravy etc. be adapted to south indian/sri lanki recipes? Or are they using different methods?

[vindapoo]

looks like slop.

Wouldn't touch it.

[fried]

The only good restaurants where I live are Tamil. My impression is that the dishes are cooked one-pot traditional style. I've never been in the kitchens though. If you wanted to use a base sauce it might need to be adapted somewhat. I find that there are some specific flavours that come from the use of Tamil curry powders (the shops around the area have huge catering size containers). I've never used fresh curry leaves, how long do they need to be cooked for? In the base? or added later?

[Netik]

@vindapoo, believe me or not, it tastes fantastic.

Hmmm it depends, some recipes use curry leaves just to infuse the oil in the beginning, others add them in the end. Very special taste though.

I don't really like the idea of making one sauce for every curry, so I don't necessarily want to cook one pot style. I have just read the book of Julian voigt about how indian curries are cooked in takeaway style. What I did not consider is, that our takeaways in Switzerland might differ from yours in UK, and that the curries I like so much are not these curries you have (butter chicken etc.) but more south indian, coconut based curries. Seems to be different to find informations about the secrets of our takeaways/restaurants :/

[chonk]

Hi Netik!

Unfortunately, I'm not into coastal dishes, (or anything with fish) but these remind me of south indian "karis". The yellow fish curry looks a little bit like a pachadi, could be "meen molee", but I obviously don't know for sure ;P The okra dish could be simply called "Bhindi (Eggplant) Masala" (or [Bhindi] Sabzi/Sabji, if other vegetables are used), or something with "vendakkai" (another word for Eggplant") or "thengai" / "nariyal" (both words meaning coconut). They could be sambars, too, but I doubt that. Can't help with the first curry, but it seems to me that both of the fish currys (and probably even the okra dish) contain some yoghurt.

Greetings!

[StoneCut]

Netik, how about you ask which region the dishes are from next time you go there? Here in Germany, the restaurant owners are usually very friendly (even if the food sucks) and they're happy to talk about origins of dishes, ingredients and so on.

[DalPuri]

Curry 3 looks like a Sri Lankan white curry.
You could try this recipe swapping the potatoes for fish. The ingredients list sounds similar to your description.

1 lb Potatoes, boiled and peeled
1 onion chopped
1-2 green chillies chopped
1 sprig curry leaves (optional)
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds (optional)
1 inch piece cinnamon
5 inch piece of rampe (optional)
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mustard seeds
1-2 pieces goraka*
1- 1 1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tbsp vegetable oil
Salt to taste

Method and comments found here: http://www.infolanka.com/recipes/mess3/127.html

Cheers, Frank.