Topic: dry powdery aftertaste.

[andy s.]

My curries often have a dry,powdery aftertaste . What am i doing wrong ?

[chef888]

hi andy it may be that your not frying ur spices off Long enough mate i mix my mix powder with water to make a paste then fry it off after i have fried the onions and garlic/ginger paste , or it could be that you may need some fresher spices mate as they get old they tend to dry out and loose there aroma and flavour leaving and powder taste . help this helps ( ivan )

[JerryM]

i had this when i was trying to increase the heat of vindaloo by increasing the amount of chilli powder (based around CA's vindaloo).

chef888 is spot on for me ie not frying/cooking out the spices. some add water to the tom puree. i add a chef spoon of base. the length of spice frying is important. the amount of tom puree might be too little.

you're after an "emulsification" of the oil, spice and puree. it takes a bit of practise to get the end point right - you certainly don't want to over do the end point. i look for cratering on the surface. i don't want the oil to separate either by over frying. the more you fry the darker the curry.

there is some discussion from the Zaal restaurant visit in which a "burn" and singe point is described. ps is certainly does not mean burn in the literal sense.

[SteveAUS]

i had this when i was trying to increase the heat of vindaloo by increasing the amount of chilli powder (based around CA's vindaloo).

Me too JerryM when I tried making it for the first time couple of weekends ago. It was very disheartening. Thanks for the tip.
Cheers
Steve

[JerryM]

SteveAUS,

i don't know what the limit is for "dry powders" in a 300ml single portion of curry. CA's vindaloo has 20ml and i can now make that cook out using the extra water. i've not worked on using more powder (chilli) as i switched to using fresh chillies to get the vindaloo heat but adding them intially into a sauce. i've now added in the nagga chilli sauce which does the job very well.

links

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5224.msg53844#msg53844
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3908.msg35388;topicseen#msg35388

[SteveAUS]

SteveAUS,

i don't know what the limit is for "dry powders" in a 300ml single portion of curry. CA's vindaloo has 20ml and i can now make that cook out using the extra water. i've not worked on using more powder (chilli) as i switched to using fresh chillies to get the vindaloo heat but adding them intially into a sauce. i've now added in the nagga chilli sauce which does the job very well.

links

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5224.msg53844#msg53844
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3908.msg35388;topicseen#msg35388

No worries, thanks for that. I only added one extra teaspoon of chilli powder so it was obviously in my method and not getting the timing right and not "cooking it out" properly. I dicked around with more base and water but by the time it was half decent the chicken breast was tough.
Cheers
Steve