Curry Recipes Online
Traditional Indian Restaurant Recipes => Traditional Indian Recipes => Topic started by: Robbo141 on June 11, 2021, 05:34 PM
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In a recent post about Balti, I recounted how I had taken evening classes on Indian cookery. Well here is the typed recipe we were given that I still have, 28 years later. Took the course at Monkwearmouth School in Sunderland and now posting from home in North Carolina. Funny where life takes you.
(https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/4dd1f07587656d923198f6ce69319f26.jpeg) (https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/#4dd1f07587656d923198f6ce69319f26.jpeg)
I remember my dish came out more salty than I liked and looking at the recipe I?m not surprised. 2 - 3 tsp salt?
The hand written notes are mine which I added that matched the actual times we ended up taking for each stage. I might give this a bash, just for posterity.
Robbo
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That doesn't look too shabby, as it goes-I'll give it ago next week. Looks like-at worst!-a good basic chicken curry (and you can never have too many recipes for them, right?). Cheers!
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Looks pretty good to me, Robbo, and looks as if it has some informed input, although I am not convinced that someone from the sub-continent would have wanted the chicken pieces skinned. Were they left on the bone, do you recall ? Anyhow, well retrieved from the filing system ! Oh, and for my taste, 2
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A lot of Indian videos show the use of skinned chicken, particularly tandoori style but I've seen it done in curries as well. I think this looks like a pretty standard chicken curry which should be a nice dish and a good starting point to make a nice meal. I'd go with 2 tsp salt (level) or 1 rounded, and taste it towards the end.
Cinnamon at 3-4 is quite a lot if it is whole sticks. 3-4 inches in 1 stick maybe. Or is it 3-4 pieces of cassia bark (Cinnamon)? Do you remember what this was Robbo?
I'll be happy to give this a try.
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For tandoor use, skinned would indeed seem to be order of the day. But I am less convinced in the context of curries. Certainly in the "real" Indian restaurants that I know in the UK (not BIRs, restaurants targetted primarily at clients from the sub-continent), on-the-bone and skin-on is the norm in my experience.
** Phil.
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Cheers guys, certainly a blast from the past. The chicken would have definitely been skinless, probably breast at the time, although I default to thighs these days. I also agree 3-4 cinnamon is too much too, but I bet I put 3-4 sticks in there. Rajnee was an intimidating woman, I dared not deviate! I?m pretty sure I still have the Dum Aloo she had us make documented somewhere and will try and dig it out.
Robbo
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It reminds me of that 1970s curry house menu that floats around the internet...couldn't find it on here, but god knows what name it's under! Iif I recall, all its chicken dishes were thigh, and if you wanted breast meat, that was 25p more :like:
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This one (https://www.criticalmuslim.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ana_purnaMenu-copy.jpg), Onions ? It is pre-1995, since in that year the exchange code changed to 0121. Possibly 1960s, given 48p for a chicken curry.
(https://www.criticalmuslim.io/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ana_purnaMenu-copy.jpg)
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Nice one! That's certainly the kind of thing-possibly even earlier than I was thinking-breast meat only 5 p more?! And doing Chinese food too, is actually quite modern. Was it common then, d'you know?
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I remember my dish came out more salty than I liked and looking at the recipe I?m not surprised. 2 - 3 tsp salt?
Robbo
Doing this later today. As you say, I'll be reducing the salt (!!!) and raising the chilli powder, but apart from that, it's time to wheel out the Dolorean!
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And doing Chinese food too, is actually quite modern. Was it common then, d'you know?
Lord, that was a very long time ago. I would have started eating Indian food in Birmingham in around 1972, and I would not have chosen to order Chinese food from an Indian restaurant, there being even at that time very authentic Chinese restaurants in Birmingham ("Happy Gathering" being my favourite
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(Apropos nothing, but did anyone ever tell her she missed adding cumin in the method section?!)
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I was amused by the final instruction to "sprinkle the coriander leaves over the tope". Do you think she meant over a small, grey, European shark with rough skin and a long snout, or over a grove of trees?!
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Wow, tough audience. Well let me tell you both, I doubt any of you would have stood up to that diminutive Indian lady. She was fiesty so even had I spotted the cumin omission there is no way I would be bringing that to her attention, let alone the tope issue.
I look forward to hearing and seeing the results. Don?t think I will get around to it this weekend but maybe through the week as it?s a relatively non-spicy dish Mrs Robbo can handle.
Robbo
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Yeah, we have, the bravery of being out of range!
Well, I did it; some of the quantities / times had to be guesstimated, esp. as cooking on electric. But a wee taste of the gravy is gorgeous. There's a really different flavour in there. Not sure, yet, exactly where it comes from, but I'm guessing the hard spices at the beginning?
Photos tomorrow, as it'll only improve after an overnight melding! And it's fajitas tonight :like:
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Very good sir. We just received a family gift food delivery from Taste of Chicago so tonight is hot dog dinner with chilli for me. Really fancy a curry but nothing new about that. Maybe tomorrow.
Robbo
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Well, after Onion's rave review, and not really feeling like a hot dog dinner with chilli, I decided to dust off my trusty Remington and type up the recipe anew. Attached hereto.
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** Phil.
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Nice one Phil, the typewriter is a classic touch. Perhaps stain it in cold tea for that ye-olde authentic look :like:
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Won't work, I'm afraid — we only drink green tea (usually Jasmine) in this house, and it doesn't stain particularly well. Would a nice monsooned Malabar coffee stain do instead, do you think ?
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Indeed, straight from a verandah!
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Slight cock-up on the catering front, as Geoffrey Palmer might say: forgot to take the pre-serving photos, so we gotta make do with the last-minute left-overs for the father-in-law! (At least, re: the above, the tub's authentic!)
It was bloomin' marvellous, if I say so who shouldn't. Cheers, Rob! Does it look about how you remember it?
(https://i.ibb.co/zr5PzcH/curry.jpg) (https://ibb.co/nb0QF28)
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Looks great Onions, nice job! I honestly can not remember how mine looked, although the over-salt experience still smarts a bit. That’s a great result from you though. Who knows how long that battered old piece of A4 would’ve just sat inside one of my cookbooks but now I have to give it a go, for posterity.
Had no luck finding the Dum Aloo recipe so far. Really wish i had kept everything from the course. Would be a good walk down memory lane…
Robbo
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And Phil, great job on the typing. I have an app (from Tom Hanks, believe it or not) that replicates typewriters too. I would have kept the ‘tope’ word at the end, just for authenticity. I wonder if I can laminate the original? No A4 size laminator pouches here, only what the Americans call Letter. Feeling all sentimental about being in my early 20s in Sunderland now…
Robbo
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Indeed, straight from a verandah!
To hear is to obey. Now attached with monsooned Malabar stain and "tope" to finish ... Oh, and typed on American "letter" paper so that Robbo can laminate it ...
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Wasted talent Phil. But I think I shall try the trim and laminate method of the original, thus preserving its future value at auction.
Robbo
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I've just cooked this Robbo, with a few minor adjustments. I'm going to leave it sit for 24 hours as I believe traditional curry always benefits from a rest period. (I might have a little for samples tonight with a toastie naan.)
The adjustments I made were basically due to the fact that I cooked it as a staff curry in a big pot out of jointed chicken wings. I'm not sure how much it weighed as I bought a whole heap of reduced price chicken pieces and used just the wings for this dish. I'd estimate 1.5 kg or so. I just felt it needed a little extra kick so I added a bit of mixed curry powder, not much, and then halfway through I tasted it. It still needed something so I added a tsp or so of Kitchen King Masala.
It is already a delicious curry and I'm sure it will be amazing by tomorrow night for dinner.
Wifey is already complaining about another curry with bones and she hasn't even tasted it yet. She complained about bones in the lamb staff curry but was ok with the bones in the lamb shank Raan. Its hard to please everybody.
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Just tell her that the day she can stand up without any bones, you will make a curry to match !
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I love that this recipe is getting cooked by you guys. I just took out a portion of base from the freezer to cook a curry tonight to celebrate my 7th wedding anniversary but you know what? I’m going to put that base in the fridge and cook BIR tomorrow and give this old thing another go, moderating the salt this time. I have skinless, boneless thighs to hand and will pair with Phil’s aromatic pilau and some (sorry) store bought roasted garlic naan.
90 deg F today so more comfortable cooking indoors too, rather than outdoors on the grill burner like I usually do for BIR.
Will report back on my results. Ah, the nostalgia of being in my 20s…
Robbo
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Cooked with slight modifications. Less chicken (am running out of room in the freezers) and added 1/2 tsp mix powder. An enjoyable dish, well received by Mrs Robbo but I could have done with more heat, inevitably. Some sliced fresh chilies would perk this up nicely.
(https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/7ac523215cc4ce3f26e166396b839ae0.jpeg) (https://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/#7ac523215cc4ce3f26e166396b839ae0.jpeg)
Robbo
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Finally got around to cooking this today, and overall impressions are "not bad". Despite the fact that I like (and normally add) considerably more salt than most people, even I found this dish on the salty side, and I failed to get the penultimate step to work as intended ("Mix and cook uncovered for 2–3 minutes until the sauce is nice and thick") — mine failed to thicken. I put this down to the fact that I had (very unusually for me) used a low-fat Greek yoghurt — I bought this because the tub of yoghurt that I had originally bought for the recipe turned out to be extra-creamy, and I felt that it would be too rich for this dish, so I bought a tub of low-fat Greek yoghurt intending to blend the two. Unfortunately I forgot to do this, used only the low-fat yoghurt, and the sauce did not thicken as it should have done. I have eaten most of it, but have three pieces of chicken (and plenty of sauce) left, which I will eat tomorrow. I hope that by then the flavours will have blended more, as I felt that eaten straight from the wok the individual elements were rather more obvious than they should have been.
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** Phil.
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Unlucky Phil, hate it when all the effort doesn’t quite produce the desired results.
On to the next!
Robbo
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Day-2 is gently warming on the stove as I write ...
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Well, it did come with a salt-related health warning. Can't remember how much I put in, but; a teaspoon perhaps?
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Just finished today's portion, and I now better understand exactly which element(s) seemed overly intrusive when I ate it yesterday — it is a sharp / tangy / almost citrus element, and I can't work out where it came from. Any idea, chaps ?
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** Phil.
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Have you tasted the yogurt you used on its own? Although, I doubt a sharp yogurt would be too noticeable in the finished dish.
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I haven't, Livo, but that was also my own suspicion, since every other ingredient features in most if not all of my curries and none have ever carried this strange taste before ... Ah well, I will just have to stir in a good measure of Camp coffee and consume it as coffee-flavoured yoghurt.
[Afterthought : stir in to the yoghurt, not the curry !]
[After-afterthought : or it might have been the ginger, which was quite elderly — I shall have to try eating a slice in its raw state].
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I had the same taste when i cooked a base for 40 plus curries and it was down to the garlic cloves, a sour acidic taste to it.
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Tried again this evening, this time with 50% meat and the rest judged by guesswork. No yoghurt on this occasion, but cooked until sauce had achieved desired consistency. A very pleasant dish, IMHO.
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** Phil.
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Result!
Still didn’t find the Dum Aloo recipe from the classes but always hopeful.
Robbo