h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I quite like a curry, although I don't like too spicy food, as I can't taste it properly if there is a hot flavour overpowering everything else.

My dad makes a mean curry, especially at Christmas with leftover roast turkey I don't often have curry at other times of year, but strangely I have eaten curry twice this week.

Although they were both dishes called "curry", they were actually quite different things - one was an Indian style curry, Tikka Masala, and the other was a Thai curry. The one thing they both had in common, though, was that they were surprisingly hot!

The Tikka Masala was just a ready-meal. I had had one earlier this year (as the shop had run out of Korma) and found it to be a bit warmer than mild, but not too bad. This one, however, had a real kick to it Luckily it came with a cute little naan bread as a cooling flavour

The Thai curry was freshly made in a restaurant, and was excellent - I could taste the lemongrass flavouring, which I do enjoy. However, the dish was generously topped with chillis, so the aftertaste was again rather powerful Coconut rice went very nicely with it as a cooling flavour, though

Yes I love curry but I tend to make it myself to get the balance right. I love to be able to taste the spices with the heat. Sadly many restaurants are into that boy game of 'I can eat hotter curries than you can' which is a complete waste of time. I have two brothers in law who are always competing to find a curry sauce that is hotter than the other can swallow. I just laugh at them.

Did that 'I can eat a hotter curry than you' thing, in my twenty's. I won, every time... since which time I developed soem sense of taste, so don't tend to do it so* much now

I do* love hot curry, though, from time to time; nothing towards the 'I can eat a hotter curry than you' level of insanity, but a good Indian takeaway dansak that mix of spicey hot, spicey spicey, bitterness, and the sour too, plus the earthy lentils : I do a half decent home version of it, but its a bit* of an effort for me to make, so I don't do it very* often
My default 'curry' at home, tends to be more towards the cook it like I like it/can be bothered variety; I've all the spices I might need in, in seed form, to dry fry, grind, or do whatever I want/need....
I do a thousand versions of what I call 'generalised' 'Biriani' which I can do ultra hot/spicey, medium, or just not very hot/spicey at all... basically its a pilaf afterall, and it useually follows the same basis, but just with variations in bitterness, sweetness, hotness, depending on how I fancy it There's a loverly one I was given a recipie for years ago, by someone on Hootoo i think, which is dead easy, for a yogart based curry, which I tend to do with chicken, which again can be very mild, a bit spicey, or made to be very* hot if one wants... and it only takes I dunno... ten or fifteen mins to make really

I do a fair few 'spicey' dishes, which I guess might edge towards the curry end of thing; spicey lental stuff, useually with some form of meat, like lentil spicey sausage 'thing' ... not really a soup... not really a dal... but just tasty.. easy to make and comfort food definately Still can't quite manage to make naan bread right.. though I keep trying from time to time... same goes for my onion bhajis... they're so* close... yet not quite how I'd want them to be... or maybe not how I expect* them to be...

Used to do a lot of noodly soups, vaguely Tai spicey ones. . oo not done those for ages

I tend to prefer Thai curries, though maybe that's because I've had them more often.

Deb

"I have two brothers in law who are always competing to find a curry sauce that is hotter than the other can swallow. I just laugh at them."

sensible indeed, I think.

I'm definitely in a curry phase at the moment, but all different types, which is good. Last night I had a Moroccan Tagine, which was surprisingly spicy, but very nice, and the Yoghurt curry 2legs mentioned was very tempting so I bought some ingredients yesterday...

I found the recipe in the Guide, so I shall try that this week

I wonder if its the same recipie...
*thinks*
hmmm... can't quite rmeember the one I use, sure I've got it on a computer harddrive somewhere, I've not done it so long I can't quite remember it
Think it was basically frying onion, garlic, ginger (as a paste), then chicken, with some* spices (tumeric? Garum Muccarla? cumin, maybe.... hmmm....)
Then adding in yogart, once that was sort of basically cooked, and then just throwing in fresh Coriander near the end... I'll try find it... of course that might be more or less the one you've found...

Sounds like the Guide recipe indeed A897889

Very simular... well, lets face it, most currys tend to be quite simular.... Same sort of ingredients, cooking methods etc, even teh spice mixtures used, don't necessarily vary hugely between differnt ones, a very small alteration in the spices can change it so* drastically.... For this reason, and because I rarely measure ingredients carefully (or at all), wehn cooking (as opposed to when baking, where I do* measure them), I just tend to wing it with wahtever I'm maing.... I've done it often enough, adn used the various spices etc., that I can useually end up with something close to what I was aiming for, flavour wise anyhow and, well, if not, it useually tastes fine.... unless I've really gone overboard and thrown something really strong/powerful in, to too greater an extent (be careful with the Fenurgreek!)

I'll try hunt down this actual recipie, I think I was given it by someone on Hootoo just in a conversation thread... and now of course I can't remember who it was, or in which thread, so I can't credit their being the inventor I'm sure I hid a text file of the recipie on a harddrive or virtual harddrive near by.... if I can just find wich one

I wonder if it was this one?

F50359?thread=7803301

I'm going to try it just now

Wish me luck... (although whatever happens, I know who to blame )

yep... that's the one, in post 6! (I think it was post 6)... how on earth you found that I never pay a great deal of attention to cooking stuff like that (as opposed to baking), so I don't think you can go wrong with it!

Sometimes the h2g2 Advanced Search works really well! (and I made a good guess with my keywords )

Unfortunately, my "curry" did go a bit wrong I think I must have cooked it at too high temperature, so the yoghurt curdled and the dish tasted very sharp rather than spicy...

Never mind - it wasn't totally inedible, and I did learn something

Oops... I guess it might curdle, if its near boiling, rahter than simmering, wehn the yogart is in it I must actually make the dish for myself some time soon, I cna't have had it in ages... and its dead quick to make and just with some boiled basmati rice I always thought worked well I just seem to be eating Pierogi thesedays and pasta and butter, of course... and cheese... and ....