Topic: Cooked my FIRST curry last night, thanks to this site!

[k21000]

Hi all. I share your love of curries and I have always fancied having a go at making one myself. I'm not a good cook at all, but I do have a fairly basic understanding of what's going on.

I'm originally from Yorkshire, but now live in Newquay, Cornwall. My favourite Indian restaurant so far in Cornwall is the Shanaz in Truro. Their onion bhaji's and naan breads are amazing. If anyone has been there, I would like to hear what you think of it.

Anyway, I usually go for a chicken madras or biriyani when I eat out. Yesterday, I finally decided to pluck up courage and make a chicken madras from scratch with a recipe from SnS. I made it as close to the recipe as I possibly could. I was really pleased with the final result, but not sure if I got it 100% right. The gravy and final curry seemed a bit too 'orange' in colour to me. The restaurant madras curries I have had are usually a lot darker brown in colour. I was also confused about adding the chicken pre-cooked. I thought that the chicken would have to be somehow marinated to taste better. I just cooked mine separately in a small amount of onions and garlic and added it in to the recipe when it said 'add pre-cook meat'. Is that correct?

Here are a couple of pics of the finished gravy (-2 portions for me and the other half!). Does it look right? I had WAY too much to drink to photo the actual finished curry itself, but it looked good and the consistency was right! I will try again next time!

[joshallen2k]

Welcome aboard mate!

As far as the colour goes, if you're using the "SnS June 2008" base, that colour isn't far off my effort. Too bad you didn't have a pic of the finished Madras. What should happen is once you add the Base to the final curry in the pan, the way it mixes with the other spices, along with the evaporation that goes with cooking the Madras, will naturally darken the finished product.

I've never had a curry come out anywhere near resembling the base I started with.

Great effort. Keep it coming!

-- Josh

[Bobby Bhuna]

Looks good mate, you can't really go too far wrong at the base stage. Let's see some pictures of the finished curry and we'll see what went wrong. If I can give any advice about colour, I would say that adding finely crumbled dried methi at the spice frying stage darkens things up nicely. Also cooking the spices properly darkens things a little too. You may also be using too much base sauce.

[k21000]

Here is the finished version tonight. It does look a bit darker than the base, but still not dark brown as I expected. The taste is amazing though, real BIR and the texture is just right. I used basmati rice, garlic & coriander naan, home fried poppadoms and a mint raita sauce recipe I found on this site. The dip was good, but I added some extra fresh mint to it. Thanks for your replies.

PS. I know I may be a bit heavy handed with the fresh coriander, but I do love it! I hope all the photos came out clear enough for you to see the colours and were not blurry....

[JerryM]

I usually go for a chicken madras or biriyani when I eat out

me too. spot on choice. if it's on the menu i also go for sylheti.

in terms of the darkness i feel it's down to the cooking technique - the frying of the spices - try gary's (parker21) "toffee" method. the choice of spice mix also affects the colour (more paprika - redder etc). SnS's spice mix has cumin which tends to produce the "brown" colour so u should be able to get it once the frying technique is mastered.

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,1454.msg12717.html#msg12717



wow! - u've also managed to get the kashi - very envious

on the pre cooked chicken - i've not got it 100% yet so tend to use nothing or go whole hog with tikka (use CA's or Blades)

link to pre cook chicken : http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,602.msg5563.html#msg5563

[Yousef]

Welcome to the fourm k21000,

Great post, very impressed with those pictures.  Your Madras looks just like the one's i buy from a takeaway.
A great effort and I hope it tasted as good as it looked.

If you want post your pictures again in the 'Pictures of your Curry' Section it would be appreciated.

Stew

[Bobby Bhuna]

I don't what you mean it's too orange. That curry looks spot on to me! Nice one!