Curry Sauce from scratch?

This is a bit long-winded, but worth it. The recipe was entrusted by the Punjabi chef at a Balti restaurant in the Black Country township of Lye to a bachelor architect friend of mine who ate there two or three times a week. It will keep up to four days in the fridge or you can freeze it partially-made.

The recipe, I must stress, is only for the basic sauce and makes enough for eight main dish portions. Indian restaurants make much more - up to three days' supply at one go - and then add different curry spices into the basic sauce, depending on what the customer orders. Whatever special spices you add for your choice of curry dish, they must first be cooked in oil or ghee before you add them to the cooked meat and, maybe, vegetables of your choice. The basic sauce is then poured on, mixed together and everything is cooked a little longer for chicken or fish and rather longer for lamb. Instead of preparing your own curry spices, you can of course use your favourite curry paste - not to be confused with those jars of (usually mediocre) cook-in sauces.

Ingredients
2 lb (960g) cooking onions
2oz (50g) green ginger
2 oz (50g) garlic
2 .75 pints (1.570 litres) water
1 teaspoon salt
1 x 8oz (225g) tin tomatoes
cup of vegetable oil
tbs tomato puree
tbs turmeric
desert spoon paprika
tsp black pepper

STAGE 1
Peel and rinse the onions, ginger and garlic. Slice the onions and roughly chop the ginger and garlic.

Put the chopped ginger and garlic into a blender with about half a pint (275ml) of the water and blend until smooth.

Take a large saucepan and put into it the onions, the blended garlic and ginger and the rest of the water.

Add the salt and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat to very low and simmer, with the lid on, for 40-45 minutes.

Leave to cool.

STAGE 2
Once cooled, pour about half of the boiled onion mixture into a blender and blend until perfectly smooth. Absolute smoothness is essential. To be certain, blend for at least two minutes. Pour the blended onion mixture into a clean pan or bowl and repeat with the other half of the boiled onions.

(If you wish to freeze the sauce, or are making, say double the quantities and wish to freeze a proportion of it, then it is best to freeze it at this stage before going on to Stage 3 on the day you cook and serve).

STAGE 3
Open the can of tomatoes, pour into the rinsed blender jug and blend. Again, it is important that the tomatoes are perfectly smooth. Keep blending them for a full two minutes.

Into a clean saucepan, put the oil, tomato puree, turmeric and paprika.

Add the blended tomatoes and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and cook for 10 minutes.

Now add the onion mixture to the saucepan and bring to the boil again. Turn down the heat to keep the sauce at a simmer. You will notice at this stage that a froth rises to the surface. This needs to be skimmed off.

Keep simmering and skimming for 20-25 minutes, stirring now and again to prevent the sauce from sticking to the bottom of the saucepan.

Use immediately or cool and refrigerate for up to four days. Remember, this is the basic sauce. You add the relevant spice mixture to make the sauce into your favourite Madras, Vindaloo, Balti or whatever.

Last time I used the basic sauce recipe was when I cooked for our Indian parish priest and his visiting cousin from Mumbai. I gently sweated some sliced onions and set them aside. I then cut some lamb shoulder into smallish chunks, fried the pieces in oil until light brown and then added a quarter of a jar of Balti curry paste and the onions and fried them all together in a heat-proof casserole dish for a few more minutes. I then added the basic sauce, brought it up to a gentle boil on the hob and put it in a moderate oven for an hour. When I asked was everything OK compared with what they would eat at home and would they be constructively honest, the cousin said: "I can only give your lentil side dish 6 out of 10, but I give your curry 11 out of 10!).

Chilli powder
Turmeric powder
Cumin power
Coriander powder

About a teaspoon of each....a touch of gram masala can be added...

Coconut milk ....if required
Ginger and garlic

Coriander leaves ....you can freeze them
Curry leaves ....dry or fresh...which can be frozen ....

I love cooking with spices ....have fun x

I cook with these most times using tomatoes and onion as well so many ways and tastes ......

I was luck enough to have been born and brought up in India so I feed my family loads of Indian food.

My favourite recipe is this one - I often cook it with chicken, eggs, meatballs or just veg. The sauce is great - very LCHF and can be made as hot as you like by just adding in a few chopped fresh chillies.

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts - sliced (or meetballs, eggs or spinach and mushrooms)
1 onion – chopped
1 tbsp. oil
1” fresh ginger – grated or finely chopped
2 tsp. ground coriander
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. garam masala
½ tsp. cayenne pepper
¼ tsp. salt
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. tomato puree
1 chicken stock cube
Double cream
Fresh chopped coriander
Mushrooms / spinach – if you want them
Method
Add oil to pan and lightly fry the onion for 4 minutes. Add the ginger and cook for one minute. Add the ground coriander, cumin, garam masala, cayenne pepper, salt and lemon juice and cook whilst stirring for 1 minute. Then add the chicken and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring while it cooks. Add ¼ pint of water and the stock cube and then add the cream – as much or as little as you want.
Turn the heat very low and let it cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add mushrooms and spinach if you are using them. Then add the fresh coriander.

Some times I leave out the stock if I want to make the sauce very thick to use to make an egg and pea curry. In this case, cook the boiled eggs and peas seperately and then pour the sauce on top.

I eat it with spinach or aubergine - no rice or naan!

HpprKM said:

KAT 100 - thanks for reply, sounds simple I will definitely try!

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You are welcome ....use meat or veggie dishes to try it all out x

Get hold of the Hairy Bikers' Great Curries, often on special offer at WH Smiths. It has obviously many curry recipes but also quick curries and curry bases and tips on freezing etc. One dish I like to do is a Goan Fish Curry. It's very simple and very tasty.

Also very good, though a little more involved is Prashad's Indian Vegetarian Cooking. I often use the mixed lentil or chick peas recipes. However, if I am stuck for time, I substitute their massalas with the Hairy Bikers' which I have frozen.

For rice, try Morrison's converted brown rice. It is only about 20g carbs per 100g and you only need about 75g for a portion. Being a converted rice, it is also about 1/3rd the calories of say a basmati brown rice. You can also use pearl barley as a rice substitute if you are doing something like a biryani. I also make my own wholewheat rotis and find them OK if I stick to 3.

I could never get them more than about 6" and asked a chef about this. She told me that because it is wholewheat, you can't get the elasticity to make them bigger and that was about right. She went on to explain that the large ones you get in the restaurants or in packets have many other flours and additives to make them elastic enough but sticking to just wholewheat flour and water, they are going to be small. make sure you get proper wholewheat flour though.

HpprKM said:

are the Hairy Bikers recipes diabetes friendly, realise this may be a redundant question as you have diabetes, but thought I'd check anyway? Shop bought blends are bland and have sugar and other rubbish in them

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They are nearly all from scratch, roasting, crushing and blending your own spices. Some recipes like this chicken jalfrezi need to be adapted but it's only a question of substituting the teaspoon of sugar with say a quarter teaspoon of Truvia. I actually leave it out anyway because I don't like to add sweetness. But, everything else is basic stuff. I like the East End garam masala but I often make up a batch from scratch if I know I will use it all within a few days. Actually, my local store now sells packs of ready mixed seeds for garam masala but I like more cinnamon in it, so I tend to add that.

But you don't have to worry about those gloupy thick sauces. I agree, they just look dodgy, even if some of them aren't. You'll get to know the spices, cumin, corriander, turmeric, ginger, chilli, garlic, paprika, fenugreek, cinnamon, cardamon. If you have some of those in stock along with some tins of tomatoes, some lemons, limes and shrimp paste and coconut milk, you're kitted out to make mediterranean, indian, chinese and thai. Make the sauce and just add prawns.

Truffle said:

I was luck enough to have been born and brought up in India so I feed my family loads of Indian food.

My favourite recipe is this one - I often cook it with chicken, eggs, meatballs or just veg. The sauce is great - very LCHF and can be made as hot as you like by just adding in a few chopped fresh chillies.

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts - sliced (or meetballs, eggs or spinach and mushrooms)
1 onion – chopped
1 tbsp. oil
1” fresh ginger – grated or finely chopped
2 tsp. ground coriander
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. garam masala
½ tsp. cayenne pepper
¼ tsp. salt
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp. tomato puree
1 chicken stock cube
Double cream
Fresh chopped coriander
Mushrooms / spinach – if you want them
Method
Add oil to pan and lightly fry the onion for 4 minutes. Add the ginger and cook for one minute. Add the ground coriander, cumin, garam masala, cayenne pepper, salt and lemon juice and cook whilst stirring for 1 minute. Then add the chicken and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring while it cooks. Add ¼ pint of water and the stock cube and then add the cream – as much or as little as you want.
Turn the heat very low and let it cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add mushrooms and spinach if you are using them. Then add the fresh coriander.

Some times I leave out the stock if I want to make the sauce very thick to use to make an egg and pea curry. In this case, cook the boiled eggs and peas seperately and then pour the sauce on top.

I eat it with spinach or aubergine - no rice or naan!

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Hey truffle (what's your real name lol)

I love the sound of this recipe. Is it just a normal curry sauce? Hoe would you adapt this? Say to make korma or massala?

Or is this recipe completely of track for those two dishes.

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I used to make my own, after picking recipes up from my travels, but now its easier to open a jar of Pataks paste and embellish on it if needed