Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Hi, Ray here again.

Once again the weekend arrives and it is time to chose a dish from one of the great Curry Focus recipes.

I checked my previous reviews and was surprised to learn that I haven’t tried a fish recipe since I started reviewing the Curry Focus website recipes. I saw the recipe for Fish Cakes. It has been a long, long, time since I’ve eaten fish cakes. And so it was the fish cakes recipe that I chose to make.

Most of the ingredients for the meal were already in the house and all I had to buy was the fish and spring onions (scallions).

It’s really such an easy recipe that it’s difficult to write much about it.

I cooked the fish and then let it cool while I boiled the potatoes and made the mash.

Then I crumbled up the cooled fish and mixed in all of the remaining ingredients.

I beat the second egg to use as a binder for the breadcrumbs.

Then I made the fish cakes. They were a bit small and quite crumbly and I had to handle them carefully to stop them from falling apart. The fish cakes were so small that I decided to make them bigger and I finished up with 12 fish cakes.

I heated up the frying oil and the oven and fried the fish cakes 4 at a time and kept them warm in the oven.

I served up the fish cakes with vegetables to the dinner group.

The fish cakes were quickly eaten by the diners and “tasty” was the main word that was used to describe them. They had a medium spice/heat flavour and received a good score of 7 out of 10.

One thing that could have made them taste even better was a sauce. Perhaps a tamarind sauce would have worked well with the cakes.

Overall, the fish cakes tasted great and I won’t leave it so long before I make them again.

Diwali is an annual festival of India and Nepal that takes place near the end of October or beginning of November.

The festival dates are not the same each year because they are based upon the lunar months in the Hindu calendars. In south India, the festival starts in the month of Ashwin and finishes in the month of Kartika. In north India the festival falls the middle of Ashwayuja/Ashvin. The festival happens at almost the same time all over India and Nepal – it’s all seems to be a bit confusing because the different regions use their own calendars.

In the Gregorian calendar, the next Diwali festival is on October 28th, 2008.

The festival is known around the world as the Festival of Lights.

It is called the Festival of Lights because of the lighting of clay lamps all over Hindu homes on Diwali night.

There are 3 main reasons for the lighting of lamps.

The first reason is to show the gods Rama and Sita their way home to their north India home of Ayodhya.

The second reason is that, to Hindus, darkness represents ignorance whereas light represents knowledge. The lighting of lamps destroys the dark forces of ignorance, and all of the negatives forces, and replaces them with the light of knowledge.

Diwali also falls over the start of the Hindu financial year and the third purpose of the lights is to welcome Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity.

Friends traditionally swap gifts of sweetmeats, nuts and dried fruit and Diwali day is spent eating these gifts as well as easting other cooked, savory, snacks.

Hindus have migrated far and wide and nowadays Diwali, the Festival of Lights, is celebrated all over the world with parades, music, dance, food and fireworks.

Go to a Diwali celebration if you get the opportunity. There is always great entertainment and the food is delicious.

Hi, Ray here again.

Once again it’s time to try one of the great curry recipes from the Curry Focus website and this time I chose the Beef Madras recipe. The recipe has been on the Curry Focus website for a long time and I’m a surprised that I haven’t tried it before now because I just love Beef Madras.

Like most of the Curry Focus recipes, this is a very easy recipe to follow and it only took just over an hour from starting the preparation to serving up the meal.

I bought some ordinary steak because the recipe did not say which type of beef cut to buy.

And I bought two stuffed paratha to eat with the curry.

I simply followed the recipe and everything worked out just fine.

The Madras kept getting dry near the end of the cooking and I added all of the masala gravy and also an extra ½ cup of hot water to prevent the curry from becoming too dry.

There was only two for dinner tonight, my flatmate and myself, and we both like hot curries. Which is just as well because this is definitely a hot, spicy, curry. The Madras was very tasty and with a strong flavor. The word “fiery” described the heat pretty well and I’m sure that the Madras was hotter than the Pork Vindaloo that I made not long ago.

Overall, the curry was given a rating of 8 out of 10 with a spice/heat rating of hot.

In my opinion, this is a simply a stunning curry and I recommend you should try the recipe if you like a delicious, and hot, curry.

Hi, Ray here again.

It is time to make another chicken curry from the wide range on the Curry Focus website and this week I went for the Jaipur Chicken Curry recipe.

I bought a couple of packs of chicken pieces for the curry with a pack of chicken drumsticks and a pack of chicken pieces.

I used the onion and chicken pieces to make the broth with the onion and chicken pieces and then left the chicken for about 10 minutes to cool down.

The meat easily came off the bones once it had been cooked and I didn’t even need to use a knife.

I just followed the simple instructions in the recipe and the meal was ready about an hour later.

I made some rice and it was timed to be ready when the curry was ready.

I soon served up the curry to the dinner guests.

The curry had a great creamy ginger taste. And most of the liquid had been absorbed into the curry so it turned out to be a dry curry with a good texture.

The Jaipur chicken curry received an excellent rating of 7 out of 10 with a spice/heat rating of medium.

This is an excellent curry that I recommend that you try.

It’s now time for a little confession. I made this curry last week using chicken breasts instead of chicken on the bone. I went shopping and forgot my shopping list. I knew that I had to buy chicken but forgot the type.

And 4 lb of chicken breast is a lot of chicken. Perhaps I should have put the chicken into the freezer, or chosen another recipe, but I went ahead anyway. The meat on the chicken breasts fell apart. It was a bit like eating shredded chicken. The curry was good but I was annoyed that I’d bought the wrong main ingredient.

The second making of the curry was a lot more successful using the drumsticks and chicken pieces. I remember reading somewhere that about 30% of a chicken is bone and fat. But I found that the drumsticks and pieces yielded less than 50% of the weight. Maybe I should have used a whole chicken. Maybe next time.

Hi, Ray here again.

I decided to be a bit healthy and make a vegetarian curry. I just love potatoes and so I went for the Gujarati Potato Curry recipe from the great range of recipes on the Curry Focus website.

This is the first recipe that I’ve made that has asafoetida as an ingredient. I dropped by my favorite Indian store and picked up a small container of the pungent powder. It has a really strong aroma. The container has a screw top that helps to keep the strong smell inside. Now that I’ve broken the seal and used the powder, I’ve stored the container inside an airtight jar just to make sure that the smell doesn’t leak out and contaminate my other spices.

The asafoetida is really pungent and gives a great taste to the curry.

I seem to remember that there is an Indian religious sect that isn’t allowed garlic or onions and they use asafoetida as a substitute.

I must say that this potato curry is really easy to make and it’s just a matter of following the recipe.

One thing that I thought was a bit odd, when I first looked at the recipe, is that it suggests that you serve it on rice. So you’re going to be eating a dry potato curry on rice. This looked like too much carbohydrate to me so I just made the potato curry by itself.

The curry was really dry, presumably because the potato soaks up all of the liquid.

I was dining alone tonight so simply served up a portion of the curry into a bowl with a a paratha that I heated up to go with it (even more carbohydrate).

The curry was adequate but was bland. There was a medium spice taste but no real “body”, or substance, to it. I couldn’t imagine eating rice with it – how bland would that be? Maybe the curry would have been better with some more vegetables in it – like the Spiced Potato and Cauliflower recipe.

I gave the curry a score of 6 out of 10 with a spice rating of medium. Overall, the potato curry was edible but a bit disappointing.

Its often the simple questions that have the most interesting of answers and this month we look at - Where Do Curries Come From?.

Ice Cream Recipe Review - So if you have a sweet tooth and are partial to ice cream, why not give this easy recipe a try?

Beef and Potato Curry Recipe Review - We recommend this curry if you want to try a curry that is not too spicy.

Top 5 Recipes for August

Chicken rules the roost yet again.

4 Balti Chicken
2 Chicken Tikka Masala
1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Naan Bread
3 Chicken Curry

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

We get a regular trickle of questions in regard to the dishes and ingredients that are in curries. Usually the answer is on one of the glossary pages on the website. A list of all of the more common dishes can be found on the Dishes page. And a list of common curry ingredients is on the Ingredients page. If you’re confused about terms such as “saute” , “garnish” or “marinate” then you’ll find a quick guide on the Methods page. Finally, there’s a handy measures conversion page where you can work out what some of the strange recipe measures that you come across - this is on the Measures page.

We hope that you find the glossary pages useful. If you think of any other glossary details that would be useful, let us know and we’ll do our best to include them for you.