Topic: cooking times

[tomek]

hello,

when i've been making my curries without a base sauce, just using passata, i've cooked on low heat on the order of about 2 hours.  this made the meat very soft and tender.

i'm going to try darth's madras tonight and i'm surpised to see that after the chicken and passata are added the curry is only cooked for about 10 minutes.  how does this affect the taste?  i know from cooking italian food that tomatoes are greatly affected by cooking time and become sweeter and darker the longer they're cooked.

anyone have any opinions or experience about this?  slow cooking the curry?

[Curry King]

Hi Tomek,

The reason it's not cooked for long is that the chicken has been precooked so the making of the final curry becomes a quick a simple process ala BIR restaurants.  When I am fully prepared it takes 10 minutes max to make a curry from start to finish. 

The only thing I would slow cook is lamb, on a really low heat for over an hour maybe more so that as you say it is tender and you could chew it without teeth!  Even so that is precooked on it's own rather than cook the whole curry for over an hour. 

cK

[Serum]

Hi Tomek,

The reason it's not cooked for long is that the chicken has been precooked so the making of the final curry becomes a quick a simple process ala BIR restaurants.  When I am fully prepared it takes 10 minutes max to make a curry from start to finish. 

The only thing I would slow cook is lamb, on a really low heat for over an hour maybe more so that as you say it is tender and you could chew it without teeth!  Even so that is precooked on it's own rather than cook the whole curry for over an hour. 

cK

I hear you on the lamb thing, the meat has to just fall to bits in your mouth. 

I like to be able to taste the meat in the sauce, I often keep some lamb stock in the freezer for this.  Some BIRs defintely don't cook the lamb long enough for me.  That's my only gripe with the cooking style.  What you can do to compensate is make lamb stock.  You can buy your meat on the bone, get it cut off but keep the bone aside and boil up some stock at the same time.

There are some restaurants near me that will use a plain lamb curry like a base so you get the meaty sauce but the freshness of the spices being added the way you would with the  standard BIR method, this doesn't really work well with creamy dishes but is great for others.  Tried this last the weekend with one of my slow cooked lamb curries and it tasted really good.  Gave it a nice fresh taste.