Essence of Curry - Curries in a Jiffy: Recipes to get you started

I have been meaning to pen this post for a while - I have spoken about "pyaaz ka masala or sauted onion paste" before! But suddenly I see more of a flurry around the "curry" and especially trying the make it yourself kind and mine being a typical north indian household I have to have "A CURRY" made for dinner aat least 3 days a week! So I thought why not I try to simplify it as much as I can for all our readers.

Firstly, dear readers let me tell you that I couldn't cook to save my life before marriage - especially Indian food. Give me a Pav Bhaji or Pasta Dish and I could whip it up in no time but Indian food always seemed way to time consuming for me to even try my hand on. Until I got married and realised that I can live on "chawal (rice)" but my hubby needs his "curry" so I decided to get some tips from the ever dependable mother and tried to turn my cooking skills around bit by bit...

I feel the essence of the curry is to get a flavorful gravy together without it being too full of oil and spices. The base of 90% of the curries in India is a good "pyaaz ka masala or sauted onion paste". So once in a week, I have my help make it and I shall tell you how useful it is and then give you the recipe for it.

To get together any curry in my house, I just have to use a tablespoon of my sauted onion paste to a tablespoon of oil and crackling cumin, add a little tomato puree or freshly grated tomatoes - saute it some more. Add any spices, vegetables or meat to this basic paste - add water - give this a whistle in the pressure cooker or slow cook it in a heavy bottom pan and voila the curry is ready!!!! Yes, it's that simple. 

The only thing you need to add or subtract from the above is the kind of spices used, the amount of tomato puree or onion paste used etc - you get the drift. Now let me give you the recipe for my sauted onion paste.

I use about 1kg red onions, 10 big cloves of fresh garlic and the same amount of chopped ginger. I half the onions and add the onions, ginger and garlic mixture to my food processer and blitz it all together till it forms a paste. don't feel hesitant to add a couple of teaspoons of water to this to get it together. Once this is done - take a heavy bottom pan and put the paste in this, sprinkle a little bit of salt on this and let it cook on low heat. The original color of the paste is more towards lilac but after being cooked for almost 20 minutes it starts browning and that is what you to patiently wait for since this is what adds the flavor and color to your curry. If you think the paste is sticking to your pan too much - add a couple of teaspoons of water to this - enough to scrape the stuck onions paste from the bottom of the pan - the darker it - the better you curry is going to look and taste - just be careful not to burn it but making this paste is going to take a good 20-30 minutes. This can be stored in the fridge for a week or two in an airtight container but that container will probably have to be dedicated to onions after that 'coz it's going to get a strong smell.

Now here are a few basic curry recipes to get you started:

Aloo Matar ki Sabzi (Curried Potatoes 'N Peas) Recipe:

Ingredients:
2 potatoes cut into small cubes
Half the amount of frozen peas
Spices: 1 bay leaf, a teaspoon of cumin seeds, 1 teaspoon ginger-garlic paste, 11/2 teaspoon coriander powder (dhaniya powder), salt and red chilli powder to taste, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 small grated tomatoes or about 11/2 tablespoon of tomatoe puree
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon sauted onion paste that you have prepared
1 cup water

Recipe:
1. Take a pressure cooker or heavy bottomed pan -> Add the oil and let it heat a bit - add the bay leaves and cumin seeds and wait till cumin splutters.
2. Then add the ginger-garlic paste, onion paste and tomatoes and saute it. Add the coriander powder, turmeric powder, salt and chilli powder to this and saute this till you can see it sticking to the bottom of the pan and oil leaving this mixture. Add about a tablespoon of water to this so that the mixture doesn't burn. 3.Add the potatoes and peas and saute it in the mixture till well coated. Now add the cup of water to this and let it cook till the potatoes are cooked. If you are using a pressure cooker - this will cook in two whistles.


For easy variations :
1. You can use a mix vegetables like beans, carrots and peas instead of potatoes = Mixed Vegetable Curry
2. You can make the curry only with peas and add hard-boiled eggs (w/o the shells) to the curry = Egg Curry
3. You can make the curry only with peas and add sauted cottage cheese cubes/paneer to the curry = Paneer Matar or Curried Cottage Cheese and Peas

(Healthy) Butter Chicken

Indian cooking is done from the heart and I don't think measuring spices and quantities to the 't' can give you the perfect end result - so you can slack a bit on the measurements I have mentioned and keep tasting the gravy to make it your liking. Good indian gravies always smell as nice as they taste so if you start getting a wierd whiff of anything, stop and take a step back. Taste your gravy and see what's gone wrong with it. Also, I have never been able to stick to the original recipe of any cookbook coz the personal touch you add to the recipe will give it it's unique flavor.

Indian cooking as most people know also gives also a dense heady aroma of spices so I like to prepapre my dishes in advance so I don't smell like the dish. I remember my rommie in NY would get a bit annoyed when I cooked in our small apartment coz she felt her coats would smell of the dish I had cooked (as you can guess her coat stand was right next to our open kitchen)! You need a nice big ventilated kitchen to be able to cook gravy and curry dishes and always switch on your exhaust!

My recipe for the butter chicken follows. Feel free to email me for any clarifications... and pictures will follow soon. I don't think I should bother being apologetic about not getting pictures up soon enough because a baby at home keeps my hands rather full. It seems like a rather long list of ingredients but don't get daunted!

Ingredients:

500gm boneless & skinless chicken breasts – cut into bite sized pieces

Marinade

3-4 cups yogurt / curd (hang in muslin cloth for 30 mins) – Use 1 cup for marinade and 1 cup for gravy. Squeeze as much water out of yougurt as you can before removing from muslin cloth.
2tbsp ginger-garlic paste
2tbsp any tandoori chicken masala (Recommended: Roopak’s Chicken Mughlai Masala)
1 pinch turmeric powder
Pinch of salt

Chicken Makhani Gravy
2-3 tbsp oil, 1 bay leaf (tej patta), 1tsp dry fenugreek leaves (kassori methi), 2 tbsp ginger-garlic paste, 1 tbsp sauted onion paste*, 1-2 whole dried red chili (kashimir mirch)
5-6 medium sized tomatoes blanched, peeled and pureed
1/2 cup tomato puree (ready-made)
2 tbsp cashewnuts (soaked in hot water, drained and ground into a fine paste)
1 cup milk
1 tbsp cream for garnishing
1tsp garam masala, ½ tsp red chili powder and ½ tsp dried coriander powder (optional)
¼ tsp sugar
Salt as per taste
1tbsp tandoori chicken masala (same as marinade)

Method:

There is prepration required to make this dish but if you plan a bit in advance you can prepare this in 30 minutes. It tastes great and is always great to have on the menu when tertaining and it isn’t too heavy on the waist. This can be made with chicken on the bone too but I prefer this with boneless chicken breasts.

Wash the chicken. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade in a big bowl. Cover with cling film and put in the fridge. (The chicken can be marinated overnight also).

Take a heavy bottom non-stick pan or non-stick pressure cooker. Add the oil – let it heat. Add the bay leave and stir for a couple of seconds. Now, put the sauted onion paste, ginger-garlic paste and red chili into your utensil of choice and saute for a couple of minutes. At this point I also add all the dry spices - garam masala, tandoori chicken masala, coriander poweder and fenugreek leaves and saute this further for a couple of seconds.

Add all the pureed tomatoes (first fresh and then ready-made) and sugar and cook till the oil starts separating from this mixture and the color turns slightly brownish.

Now spoon in the prepared cashewnut paste and stir for a few minutes till it has completely mixed in the gravy. Add about ½ a cup of water or keep adding more till you get a slightly thich gravy / curry.

Add the marinated chicken, 1/2 of the remaining hung yogurt and simmer till the excess water given off by the yogurt has evapourated and the chicken is almost cooked. Add salt to taste. Give this a whistle if cooking in the pressure cooker or simmer and cover utensil till chicken is cooked if using a heavy bottom pan. Incase you feel the gravy is not creamy enough - add the remaining yogurt.

Add the milk and keep stirring slowly and bring to boil. At this point do taste your curry and see how it tastes and tinker with it a bit to refine it! Remember to not overcook the chicken since the chicken breasts can become a bit chewy if they are.

Garnish with swirls of cream and enjoy!

TIPS:

If it’s too spicy and thick – you can a couple of tsps of milk and simmer it.
If your gravy is not creamy enough or it’s too spicy – you can a tbsp of yogurt.
If the spice level is a bit on the lower side – you can add more of the tandoori masala.
* I always keep a paste of well sauted (browned) onions in my kitchen and use it in all my gravy dishes. Instead of the sauted onion paste you can use a small finely chopped onion. After sauteing it - do puree it otherwise there will be onion pieces floating in the gravy. You can also elimitae the onion paste - but I think it adds flavor, color and a nice earthy taste to the makhani gravy.