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

Just read your offer to Kelli (on the Skirts and Pants thread) for low fat, hot curry recipes. I made a prawn curry yesterday (first time in years) and had Googled for some recipes but didn't know which ones would be best so I just kind of 'winged it' and it turned out okay. But since you're an expert could I ask you to pass on a few of your favourite curry recipes? Oh, and while I'm here I'll extend an invitation to join us in my h2g2 friends photo gallery, if you'd like to. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F119314?thread=421977 Maybe see you there? az

Hi,

You did the right thing by just having a go.

Most curries are basically fried onions with a mixture of spices, some form of protein ie meat, fish, chicken, prawn or a vegetable and then something to make it moist ie tomatoes or low fat yoghurt or cooked spinach leaf.

You can fry the onions in olive oil, which is healthy, tasty, but high in calories or you can use that Fry light extra virgin olive oil spray. This is only 1 cal per spray and you can use about 5 sprays per curry.

Fry a large onion until going brown in a non stick pan

Add a teaspoon of each of the following

Corriander powder
Cumin powder
Ginger paste or powder, paste is best or you can use fresh chopped ginger

Garlic paste or fresh garlic glove

One green chilli chopped, leave the seeds in.

Half a teaspoon of tumeric powder.

Quarter of a teaspoon of hot chilli powder.

Pinch of sea salt.

Stir fry this lot in for 1 minute then add about half a pint of water.

Bring this to the boil and then add chopped chicken or vegetables if you dont eat meat. If you add chopped potatoes, you can add a bit more salt.

Cook slowly until the chicken is cooked. Keep an eye on it and dont let it dry out.

Towards the end add a small tub of low fat yoghurt and some fresh corriander leaf. The corriander leaf is very important for both colour and a lovely herby flavour. I buy mine in great bunches from an Asian supermarket and then wash under cold water, dry it, and then chop before adding to freezer bags and freezing. It keeps for about 3 months in a freezer. You can tell when it is past its best as it will turn black.

Cook for a further 5 minutes.

If you want it more moist, add more yoghurt.

If you want it less moist, boil off more of the water before you add the yoghurt.

If you do not want to add yoghurt, keep the mixture more moist by keeping the water level just above the chicken.

When the chicken is cooked, add a small tin of creamed spinach and heat this through. Always add the corriander leaf.

This gives a really rich green healthy curry.

For a prawn curry.

Do the same basics but

Add a large tin of chopped tomatos instead of water. Dont add extra salt as prawns are quite salty.

Let the mixture cook for 5 or 10 minutes.

Add either raw or cooked prawns and fresh corriander leaf, cook the prawns, takes about 7 minutes or heat though the pre cooked prawns, takes less than 5 minutes. We prefer to use raw prawns.

These are basic recipies.

You can adjust the hotness by adding more fresh chilli. Add it whole so you can see it on your plate. That way the whole chilli can be given to the guest who likes a hotter curry, they can break it up and take a little extra with each mouthfull of food.

You can play with the flavour by adding a range of extra spices to make it more exotic.

Green cardamom pods, 5 or 6, use them split whole or just use the seeds

Black cardamom pods, 4, split open and use seeds only. Works best with meat or chicken, not for veg or prawn

Whole cloves, add up to 4 but beware, this is the stuff that old chemist shops smell of as it was used a lot in cough linctus.

After all this curry you can finish it off with real Indian Tea, called desi chai.

Tea for 2 large mugs or 1 pint of tea.

2 tea bags, PG tips work well.
half pint cold water
half to 3 quarter pint full fat or semi skimmed milk. Do not use skimmed as you need some fat to make it taste good.
2 good teaspoons sugar
5 split green cardamom pods
1 clove
1 stick cinnamon

Method

Add water, sugar, tea bags, spices to cold water in a non stick milk pan.

Bring to a slow simmer for 5 minutes. The liquid will turn dark brown.

Add cold milk and bring back to the simmer. Simmer for 3 minutes.

Remove tea bags, all the spices and serve. China bowls are nicer than mugs, but it makes no difference. At a dinner party, we transfer the strained tea to a china tea pot for serving into little china cups.

For a nice pilau rice.

Take a large pan

Fry a medium onion in olive oil until it is very brown, you can let it almost blacken but dont let it burn.

Add a teaspoon of cumin seeds, fry for 1 minute

Add a mug full of basmatti rice. I buy which ever brand is on offer at my local Asian shop. Buy in 2KG packs or larger. It it much cheaper than those little packs at Tesco.

Add twice a much water as rice, ie 2 mugs.

Pinch of salt

Bring to the slow boil. Stir once. Cover with lid. Simmer slowly.

Do not stir again

Keep peeping under the lid to see the amount of water.

Towards the end , the rice will look moist with little holes in the surface where the steam has escaped. If you scape a spoon through the rice at the bottom of the pan, there should be no water left.

This needs to be watched as it can burn if left on the heat after the water has been absorbed.

The rice should be brown, in individual grains, and a slight exotic taste of cumin.

I hope this helps
Best wishes

Oldaardvark

for the advice!

It turns out that I did pretty much what you have suggested, though I was using a Sharwoods's pre-mixed curry spice and I wasn't quite sure how much to put in. It said it was a 'hot' curry spice mix but it came out more like 'medium hot' (perhaps I didn't use enough?). Anyhow, it suited my Heart's Desire just fine - I ended up added some crushed chili peppers to mine because I love hot food. And we had the yoghurt on the side - next time I'll follow your suggestion and add it to the sauce at the end so it's more creamy.

I'll also try your pilau recipe next time. Yesterday I cooked the basmati rice with a few whole black peppercorns in it, which was also nice.

The last time I made prawn curry (many years ago) I used a friend's recipe (which I seem to have lost) that also included some toasted mustard seeds. Anyhow, couldn't find any at the local supermarket so left them out this time.

It was curious to see that you just add the chicken, meat or veg to the water without sautéeing it first, which would be my inclination. With the prawns (which were pre-cooked) I just added them to the sauce. Anyhow, I'll try it your way next time I make a chicken curry.

Meanwhile, I see you have left a couple of comments on the photo gallery thingy. Would you also like to be in it? If so, you can send a photo to me at the email address in the first posting. Whether you decide to add your photo or not, please feel free to join in on the thread. It's a 'total drift' thread - most people just end up talking about whatever they feel like and this quite often makes for some entertaining stuff. Also, since you seem to be somewhat new to h2g2 it would be a nice way for you to meet more people.


az

Hi Az,

Brand new to H2, and not sure how it all works. I have tried to send you some impressions of myself rather than photos but my Hotmail has notified me of a delivery failure to your address.

On the subject of curry. My Pakistani friends never fry in the meat first, they just add it to the liquid to cook. This works best with on the bone chicken as the bones create a thick tasty gravy. It also works well with lamb but needs to be cooked over several hours to break down the fats and make the meat tender.

If you wish to fry in the the meat, this is bhoonoing and means you will need a lot more oil in the pan, otherwise the spices will stick and burn. This method is used in India and also used in a lot of restaurants, but they also use par cooked meats My wife is at Slimming world and so this is a non starter.

If the meat is added unsealed, it gives the spices chance to infuse protein strands.

Never use Curry powder as you can not adjust the heat without affecting the final taste.

Again my Pakistani friends prepare their own curry powder from dry roasting whole spices which they then grind and keep in a sealed jar. Chilli is not included. They use fresh Chillis when cooking and only use chilli powder when making marinades or Kebabs. A bit of chilli powder is added to curries for colour.

The best instruction book for Indian cooking is by Lalita Ahmed. Mine is over 20 years old. It may be out of print now.

My advice is to buy the following and keep them in tupperware.

Corriander Powder
Cumin Powder
Whole Cumin seed
Ginger paste in jars
Garlic paste in jars
Chilli powder
Red Chilli paste in jars
Tumeric powder
Whole Black cardamom
Whole green cardamom
Whole cloves
Whole cinnamon

Loads of fresh corriander leaf
Fresh green chillis


If you wish to try Bengali cooking, you will need the following extras

Mustard seeds
Mustard oil
Asofetida dried

If you ever buy a herb called Kasuri Methi, keep it in the garage becaause it will permeate your kitchen cupboards

Oldaardvark

Delivery failure? Hmmm. Well I have posted my email address with a couple of 'safety' measures to avoid spam.

The address is: azaharh2g2 (at) yahoo (dot) com.

If you put that altogether with no spaces and with an '@' for 'at' and a '.' for 'dot', it should work.

How are the 'impressions' different from photos?


az

Self image vs images percieved by my friends and colleagues. Pictures of other people that are said to look like me. I do not have any digital pictures available yet.

I though it might be fun to show how we see ourselves and then how we are seen by others. I am not trying to get all new age so, do not panic, as it says on the cover.

Thanks

I will have another go

OA

hi there,

Well, I did receive your images - very funny. I was especially impressed that you have the *very same* image of Wallace and Grommit that I have up on my bedroom bookcase. However . . .

I really can't post photos of people's 'wannabe' or 'as seen by others' images! If you don't have a digital camera (actually, neither do I - yet) why not scan a couple of photos? If you don't have a scanner most photocopy places will do it for you.

Okay?


az