Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Making a curry without any onion is hard to imagine. Almost every curry recipe starts with cooking onions. Some curries have a small amount of onions while some have a lot of onions. But the onions are always there.

Onions are grown all over the world and their taste varies from sweet to very pungent (Indian curries usually use more pungent onions). Their aroma varies from almost nothing to a pungency that makes your eyes water.

Just why do some onions make your eyes water? It’s because they contain enzymes that begin to break down when you cut the onions. The enzymes create mild acids that are unstable and turn into a gas. The gas contains sulfur and the gas moves through the air and reaches your eyes where it reacts with the water in your eyes to form a mild sulfuric acid. Not surprisingly, the acid irritates the nerves in your eye and makes them sting. The eyes react to the stinging by producing tears that dilute the acid and clean out your eye.

But not all onions are this strong. If they are, or you cry easily when cutting onions, you can take some avoiding actions. You can try cutting the onions under a running tap so that the gas reacts with the tap water, not your eyes. Or you can cut up the onions in a bowl of water to have the same effect. Most of the enzymes are concentrated in the root of the onion so you can cut off the root last (and under running water).

Once the cooking has started, any eye-watering problem is gone.

You should always take care when cutting up onions and not rub your eyes with your fingers because that is really going to hurt. If this happens, wash out your eyes with lots of cold water.

Onions are an integral component of curries. Most recipes start with instructions to heat up the oil, over a medium to high heat, and cook the onions until they are soft (onions soften and have a golden color when they are cooked but some recipes tell you to keep cooking the onions until they are black and crisp). The onions are often cooked with ginger root and garlic.

Once they have been peeled, onions are usually finely chopped, coarsely chopped or sliced. All things being equal, finely chopped onions take less time to cook than coarsely chopped onions. Curries will be browner and darker the longer the onions are cooked – you should only cook the onions until they are soft (around 10 minutes, depending upon the heat of the oil) unless you are told otherwise.

Deep fried, or blackened, onions are sometimes used as a garnish for curries such as on a Do Piaza (or dopiaza).

And onions are good for you. They contain anti-cholesterol, anti-cancer, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory components that are effective in treating a wide range of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and even the common cold.

Next time you make a curry, make sure that you have a couple of good onions nearby.

Here is one of the easiest recipes that you’ll ever find. It’s for a delicious Indian dessert (or snack) sweet and, as usual, you can see the recipe for Jaggery Caramlized Walnut on the Curry Focus website. If you’re not sure what jaggery is then you can check out an article here.

The only two ingredients are jaggery and walnut halves.

You use about twice as much jaggery as walnuts and the Curry Focus recipe has 2 oz of walnut halves and 3 ½ oz of jaggery, and these are good amounts to use first.

I bought the jaggery from my usual Indian supermarket where it is sold in 1 lb balls or blocks.

I carefully sliced off the required amount of jaggery from the ball (being careful with a knife on a round object is a good idea), chopped it up a bit and then put it into a small saucepan over a low to medium heat.

Whilst the jaggery was melting, I put some greaseproof paper over a dinner plate.

The jaggery needs to be stirred regularly and prodded with a wooden spoon to take out any remaining lumps.

Once the jaggery was melted, I added the walnuts and quickly mixed the two ingredients together and made sure that the walnuts were fully covered with the jaggery.

Then I poured the mixture onto the greaseproof paper and spread the walnuts out evenly with the back of the stirring spoon.

The jaggery-coated walnuts were then put into a cupboard for a while until they cooled.

Once the caramelized walnuts had cooled, I broke them up into pieces and stored them in an airtight jar until they are needed and stored the leftover jaggery ball in another airtight jar.

It’s really as easy as that.

I serve the caramelized walnuts in a little side plate at the end of an Indian meal. The walnuts are very sweet and most people can only eat one piece.

Try it. It’s delicious.

There really is no easy answer to this question because there are lots of different types of paprika.

Paprika is made from red bell peppers. First, the bell peppers are allowed to dry and the stalks and inside veins are thrown away. The pepper flesh and the seeds are separated from each other and are separately ground into powders. This process is done for different types of bell pepper and the resultant powders are blended to produce the required taste.

Some peppers are dried over fires to give them a woody flavor.

And some pepper powders are mixed with powders from the fruits of other members of the capsicum family to give a paprika with some heat (bell peppers, by themselves, have no heat as recorded on the Scoville heat scale).

You can get hot, sweet or bittersweet flavours of paprika depending on the peppers used and even where the peppers were grown – the same plants produce different flavored peppers in different parts of the world.

Indian cuisine uses paprika mainly to add a red color to a dish whilst Hungarian cuisine uses paprika a lot to give their dishes flavor, as well as color.

Tamarind is extracted from the pods of the evergreen tamarind tree.

The tamarind tree is a tropical tree that originated in east Africa. The main growing country is now India but the tamarind tree is grown in such diverse tropical locations as Florida, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, northern Brasil.

The sticky, brown pulp is extracted from the pods of the tamarind tree. The extracted pulp is squeezed into flat blocks and the blocks are processed to produce tamarind paste and concentrate.

Tamarind does not have much of an aroma and has a sour, fruity taste.

Tamarind is added to curries (such as vindaloo) as well as pickles and chutneys to make best use of the sour taste.

Tamarind sauce, served in Indian restaurants to accompany other dishes, is made by mixing tamarind concentrate with water.

Hi, Ray here again. Time to cook another delicious chicken recipe from the Curry Focus website. This time it’s Chicken Bhuna, one of my all time favorites.

As usual, I had most of the ingredients and only had to pick up the chicken and I also grabbed a pack of frozen chilli and garlic paratha to have as a side dish.

I had previously avoided trying this recipe because it looked so complicated - there were so many lines in the method part of the recipe. But I thought that my newly acquired vast cooking experience would triumph and making the dish was surprisingly easy.

As usual, I prepared everything before starting to cook. One of the guests volunteered to help so I had my assistant chopping up the onion and ginger whilst I prepared the chicken.

I prepared a small plate of spices and then chopped up the garlic and green chillies – I only used 2 green chillies because one of the dinner guests didn’t like spicy hot curries.

Then the cooking started.

I heated the butter and mixed in the garam masla. Then I coated the chicken in the mixture. I didn’t need to do the chicken in batches because my large frying pan was big enough to hold everything with ease.

The oven was already preheated by the time I had coated the chicken. I put the chicken and half a can of tomatoes into the casserole, mixed them up, put the lid on the casserole and put it in the oven for 20 minutes.

After 10 minutes I cooked the onion and ginger in the butter (there’s a lot of butter in this recipe – yum).

Then in went the plate of spices for a stir-fry.

After that I added the cup of water and simmered for 5 minutes before adding the rest of the ingredients.

I then tipped everything into the casserole, along with the chicken, and mixed it all up and popped the casserole back into the oven for the last 25 minutes of cooking.

Whilst this was happening, I chopped up the bell peppers and started cooking the rice.

And then I messed up – I forgot the chopped fresh tomatoes and left them happily in the fridge. I didn’t realise this until the next day when I was reviewing the recipe. Doh!! Never mind, I don’t think it detracted from the curry.

When the rice was nearly ready, I quickly heated up the paratha.

I served up the chicken bhuna on rice, garnished it with the sliced red peppers and served up a plate of paratha for the assembled dinner guests.

It was another success and the bhuna had a wonderful flavor. Except the guests thought that the garnish of uncooked red peppers was a bit odd. The peppers “lacked flavor” and would have tasted better if they had been quickly fried to soften them up. There are critics everywhere!!!

One guest commented that a bowl of raita would have gone down well with the bhuna – the bhuna was only a medium “hot” but they felt that the tastes would have complemented each other. Maybe they were right – I love raita. And at least this was a positive comment.

All in all, the meal was voted a success and scored a rating of 7.5 out of 10 with a medium heat ranking.

Another successful meal from the Curry Focus website.

The poppy seeds that are used in cooking either come from the Blue Poppy or the White Poppy plants. The seeds are very similar and it is the seeds from the white poppy that are used in Indian cuisine.

Poppy seeds have a nutty flavor that is fully released when the seeds have been toasted. Toasting only takes a few minutes for the sweet aroma to be released along with the flavor.

The seeds are often ground to a powder and used to thicken Indian curry sauces. Also, the seeds are sprinkled over dry vegetarian or meat dishes.

Poppy seeds are tough and hard to grind. You can even buy a special poppy seed grinder. When grinding poppy seeds, don’t forget to toast them first to release the full flavor.

There are medicinal uses for poppy seeds including cough medicines and treating toothache and earache. The seeds themselves are used to stimulate the appetite. The dangerous derivatives such as heroin, morphine and codeine come from poppy pods and stems, not the seeds.

Hi, Ray here again.

Time to try another Curry Focus vegetarian curry. This time it’s the Mushroom Curry - it looks easy to cook and I love mushrooms.

It was a really big bag of mushrooms. Surely these were too many? Not to worry, I know they won’t go to waste.

I cleaned and chopped up the mushrooms. Before starting to cook

Cooking the curry itself was easy.

I heated the oil and did a stir-fry on the first lot of spices before adding the onion.

Once the onion was ready, in went the spice powders for a quick stir-fry.

Then in went the chilli, garlic and ginger for another stir-fry.

All this stir-frying made me think that I was cooking a Chinese meal but the delicious Indian spice smells drifting around the kitchen reminded me what I was cooking and had me almost drooling in anticipation of a great meal.

Then in went the tomatoes and at the same time the rice went into the microwave.

Finally, the mushrooms entered the frying pan. The pan was almost overflowing with the mushrooms and I had to stir the mixture pretty carefully to make sure that I didn’t spill any.

I did a quick taste test after 5 minutes of cooking the mushrooms and realized that it was going to be a spicy hot curry. This didn’t worry me but I knew that a couple of the diners wouldn’t cope too well. So I quickly raided the fridge and got together a bowl of yogurt with diced cucumber – a pretty rough raita.

After 10 minutes the curry and rice were ready. I served them up, with the bowl of raita, and sprinkled some cilantro over the top.

Another great Indian curry was ready for the assembled dinner guests.

And the curry was eaten pretty quickly, despite the heat.

I loved the curry and it scored an overall rating of 6.5 out of 10. Not a really high score and the curry being very spicy hot contributed to this score.

But I do recommend that you try this curry for yourself. If you don’t like your curry too hot then you can miss out green chilli to keep the temperature down a bit.

Kaffir lime, also called makrut lime, is a lime that originated in Southeast Asia and is now grown in such diverse areas as Florida and Australia.

The kaffir lime fruit is green in colour and has the shape of a pear.

Both the leaves and rind are used in cooking, particularly in Thai cuisine.

The leaves give a particularly tangy citrus taste and are used in curries, soups and salads.

The rind has a slightly bitter citrus taste and is grated and used in curry pastes and fish cakes.

The`zest (the fruit part of the rind) is used in Creole`cooking to add its distinctive citrus flavor.

It’s always best to use fresh kaffir lime leaves and rind when you can because the flavour is quickly lost from the fruit once it has been cut open, You can freeze leftover rind and leaves by storing them in ordinary freezer bags.

Medicinally, kaffir lime rind is used for digestive problems and the rind is used in some tonics that are good for the blood.

2008 has started with a bang for those of us at Curry Focus, with it being our busiest month to date. We would like to share some of the articles that have been added in the last few weeks..

Naan Bread With An Indian Curry

Naan (or Nan) is a flatbread that can be eaten with most curries. It is a leavened bread, which means that it rises using yeast.

The Moguls brought naan bread to India hundreds of years ago (the Moguls came from Persia, now called Iran, and naan is the Persian word for bread).

Naan is almost a compulsory component of an Indian meal. Naan is usually eaten with the main curry dish and can be used to scoop up the curry (instead of using knives and forks)
….. Read More

What Is Dill?

Dill is an herb that grows to about 2 ft in height.

The feather-like leaves grow to a length of about 6 in.

Both the seeds and leaves are used in cooking.

The fresh dill leaves are sometimes called dill weed.

In Indian cuisine, dill is often used to make masalas, curry powders and to flavor spinach and other leafy green vegetables. The dill seeds have a flavor that is similar to that of caraway seeds
….. Read More

Review of the Mango Lassi Recipe

Hi, it’s Ray here again.

If you haven’t tried mango lassi then you’re really missing out on a taste sensation. Mango lassi is a refreshing drink and the Curry Focus website has a very easy mango lassi recipe for you to try.

My local Indian store sold large cans of mango pulp. The cans were pretty large which was good because then I can make several batches to drink….. Read More

What Is Nigella?

Nigella is a spice that is mainly used when cooking Indian flat breads, such as naan, and vegetarian dishes.

The spice has a strong taste that is similar to oregano.

The Nigella spice is the seeds of the plant called Nigella Sativa. The seeds are tiny and black in colour. The seeds themselves don’t have much of an aroma but the oregano aroma is released when the seeds are fried or crushed. The taste is a bit like cracked pepper and is bitter…. Read More

Top 5 Recipes for January

1 Chicken Curry
2 Easy Chicken Curry
3 Balti Chicken
4 Chickpea and Spinach Curry
5 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)

Why not tell us the recipes that you like? You can submit a new recipe here and a restaurant here.