Hi, Ray here again.
This week I was cooking a curry that was to be eaten a friend’s house and I had been told by my girlfriend that the Beef Madras Curry was the one that should be made. We’ve had this curry a lot of times and it’s a surefire winner. I wrote a Review of the Beef Madras Curry Recipe a while ago.
Both my girlfriend and I love the Beef Madras and know that the spice/heat level is fine for us. But we weren’t sure about the other diners – they might find the curry too spicy-hot despite the medium spice rating. I decided to play safe and make a raita. There are some simple raita recipes on the Curry Focus website and I chose to make the Cucumber Raita. Using a raita is a delicious way to cool down a curry – there’s a blog about this, called “How to cool down a curry that’s too hot“, on the Curry Focus website.
Even if a curry does not need cooling down, a raita is a very simple and tasty side dish to eat with a curry.
I got some yogurt and a cucumber when I was at the store.
I made the Beef Madras Curry on Saturday afternoon which only left the Raita to make on Sunday (I was going out on Sunday afternoon so doing most of the work on Saturday suited me just fine).
It really is easy following this recipe. It’s just a matter of grating the washed cucumber, chopping up a fresh chilli and mixing all of the ingredients (apart from the fresh cilantro) in a bowl and then covering with kitchen film and putting the bowl into the fridge for a few hours. Real easy.
I took the curry, raita and a pack of poppadoms to my friend’s apartment and it was a breeze heating up the curry while the rice was cooking. I broiled the poppadoms at the same time and kept them warm in the oven.
I sprinkled the fresh cilantro over the raita when everything was ready and served up the meal.
It was delicious. I knew that the Beef Madras Curry would be good, simply because it is a great recipe. And the Cucumber Raita was really good as well. As it turned out, nobody had any problems with the heat/spice level of the curry and so the raita was simply a delicious side to have with the curry. The raita received a great rating of 8.5 out of 10 with a heat/spice score of “Very Mild”.
If you want to make a great raita then you really should try out this recipe.