Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

A few months ago we reported on an exceptional curry delivery from Yorkshire all the way to the south of France.

A similar story has come to our attention where somebody talked a friend into delivering his favourite curry from an Epsom restaurant all the way to Greece.

The Epsom restaurant is quite used to receiving orders from overseas and didn’t seem too surprised to learn that they were supplying a curry to a diner in Greece.

Some people really have a passion for their favorite food and don’t stop a little thing like distance from keeping them away from their curry cravings.

You can read the full story here.

Just what is the Tiffin Cup? None of the Curry Focus team had heard about the award until we spotted a blog aout it.

The Tiffin Club is a group of MPs who run an annual competition to find the best South East Asian restaurant. The restaurant can be from any of the South East Asian countries, including Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc. In fact, the restaurant can serve food from any South East Asian country from all the way from Pakistan to Vietnam. The competition is not limited to Indian curry houses.

There are about 60 MPs in the Tiffin Club and they ask their constituents to vote for their favourite constituency with the most popular restaurant being put forward. The competition is usually heavily promoted within the constituencies by the MPs with lots of local newspapers getting behind the event and encouraging the readers to vote.

A shortlist of about a dozen restaurants is compiled and the chefs from the selected restaurants are asked to take part in a “cook off”, in Parliament’s own Bellamy’s Restaurant, where one of the restaurants is chosen as the winner of the Tiffin Cup.

The objectives of the Tiffin Cup award are to raise the awareness of South East Asian cuisine and also to raise money for charity.

This year’s charity is World Vision and food made during the “cook off” is sold to all those present at the event.

The Tiffin Cup has been awarded each year since 2006, with the following past winners.

Nominations for this year’s Tiffin Cup closed over a week ago on July 20th so you’ve missed your chance to vote this year.

We’ll keep an eye open to see who wins this year’s Tiffin Cup.

Newcastle University scientists have been experimenting with some commonly used curry spices such as cumin, turmeric, cloves, cilantro (coriander), cloves and cinnamon to find out if they reduce the production of methane gasses from sheep.

The scientists created an experiment that simulated sheep’s stomachs and measured the methane that was produced from them.

They found out that the curry spices reduce methane output with the most spectacular reduction of 40% being achieved by using cilantro (coriander).

The UK has 30 million sheep producing 600 million litres of methane each day and so this would translate into a massive reduction in methane emissions.

We don’t imagine that any farmer will feed a curry to their sheep but it’s more than likely that curry spices will be added to the sheep feed in order to cut down on methane produced by their sheep.

Read more about curry spices reducing methane emissions.

In the past I’ve noticed that a curry made at home often tastes better the day after it is made.

I wondered why this was the case and carried out some research on the Internet to discover why this happens.

One explanation was that the spices and flavors have more time to infuse themselves with the main ingredient.

Another reason that I found said that the flavor changes because the curry is frozen and then later defrosted.

The most compelling reason that I found was that you’re cooking the curry twice and so all of the ingredients have more of a chance to blend together (than when they are only cooked once) and that the effects of reducing the liquid causes the flavour to be more concentrated.

The most common reason that I found was that the spices have a second opportunity to pass their flavors into the curry.

I didn’t find any scientific explanation for the better taste but most people, including chefs, confirm that curries really do taste better if they are cooked for a second time and that freezing, defrosting and cooking a curry again produces an even better tasting curry.

I always freeze any leftover curry that I make and enjoy a tasty curry lunch at work.

If you’ve got an explanation for curries tasting better the next day, then why not post a comment against this article and share your wisdom with everyone?

Over the past three years I’ve been testing the Curry Focus recipes and have learnt a fair amount about cooking curries (I’m no expert – believe me).

At the start, I messed up a lot due to my inexperience but also because some of the recipes were hard to understand and follow.

I’ve created a list of 9 things that should be looked at carefully in a recipe so that the cooking experience is fun and not stressful.

Here are the 9 items, in no real order of importance.

1 - The recipe ingredients should be listed in the same order that they are first mentioned in the recipe method.. Having the list of recipe ingredients in the same order that they are used in the method really makes the recipe easier to understand.

2 - Make sure that the cooking steps are in the correct order. I’ve seen recipes that start you cooking and then just give an instruction to “Add 2 cups of cooked rice”. If rice needs to be precooked for the recipe then the instructions to do this should be near the start of the recipe with a note to save the item for later use (for example, “gently simmer the rice in a cup of water in a covered saucepan over a low heat for 15 minutes and set aside”).

3 - The cooking time for every step should be clearly stated. I regularly see recipes that have vague instructions such as “fry the onions until they are cooked” or “simmer the beef until it is nice and tender”. What does that mean? For an inexperienced cook, these instructions are usually meaningless. I know how long to cook onions and beef but didn’t know any of this information 3 years ago. You must clearly write how long each step takes. The length of time to cook an ingredient does depend on the heat that is being used so it is OK to say “about 8 minutes” or “60 - 90 seconds”.

4 - The ingredient measurements should be consistent. Don’t start using the metric system (for example, “750 g of chicken”) and then switch to the imperial system (for example, “4 oz of coconut”).

5 - Use readily available ingredients. Recipes that are published on the internet are seen all over the planet - if you want people to use your favorite recipe then they need to be able to buy the ingredients. If your recipe calls for a particular ingredient that you know is difficult to find then suggest an available alternative.

6 - Use common ingredient amounts. This is really important if you are using canned ingredients. For example, coconut milk is often sold in 400 ml cans so it’s going to be hard for people to find 500 ml of coconut milk for a recipe without wastage (and people hate waste) - somebody would probably use just one can of coconut milk than buy 2 cans of coconut and waste most of a can.

7 – Keep it the recipe simple. Recipes that have a lot of ingredients and also have a lot of difficult cooking steps frighten people off from trying them. Short and direct sentences are far better than rambling descriptions.

8 – You would think that this is obvious - make sure that the recipe works. Follow the recipe yourself and be sure to follow the instructions exactly as they are written. You’d be amazed at how many recipes use an ingredient that isn’t listed or don’t use an ingredient that is listed.

9 – finally, make sure that the cook ends up with yummy food. This is obviously down to personal taste but the food should be tasty and reach the expectations of the cook..

If you have a favorite curry recipe, why not share it with us by putting the details into the Curry Focus “Add Recipe” page? We’ll format it so that it is in the same style as our recipes and then publish it for everyone to enjoy.

The Daily Mail reports that a woman called Suki Burai has lost 42 lb (3 stone or 19KG) by eating curries from recipes that she has developed. And she has started a successful slimming group that uses the recipes.

Making your own curries to stay slim and healthy is not news to the frequent visitors of the Curry Focus website who have been able to read articles such as “How Many Calories In A Curry?” and “Curry Calorie Count”.

The main point in the articles is that you are in control of how many calories there are in a curry when you make the curry yourself. Curries that you buy from a restaurant (either dine-in or takeaway) are often laden with calories.

Most diets tend to be boring but eating a curry is seldom boring.

There are a lot of yummy curry recipes on the Curry Focus website and a lot of the curry recipes have been reviewed so you can see their heat and taste rankings on the recipe review page.

There’s no reason why you can’t keep an eye on your calorie intake, as well as eating delicious food, so make sure you read the “How Many Calories In A Curry?” article to find out about curry calories.

An article on the times of India website talks about the high level of salt found in some purchased curries (purchased from a supermarket or a curry restaurant).

It seems that daily salt for a grown up is from 4-6 grams a day and that some takeaway (carry out) curries, along with the extras such as naan bread, can have a massive 21g of salt in them.

On average, people in India generally have a high daily level of between 9-15 grams.

The article recommendation is that you should make your own curries at home so that you have total control over the amount of salt that goes into the meal.

Not surprisingly, all of us here, at Curry Focus, think that this is the best advice and that you should test some of the great curry recipes that are on the Curry Focus website.

You can read the article yourself on the “Times of India”.

You can eat a real British curry if you catch the latest curry festival in Kolkata (Calcutta) in India.

One of the city center’s restaurants is making curries in the “traditional” British styles.

The British have adapted curry recipes to suit their own tastes for a long time and now is exporting the flavors to India.

The most popular British dish, Chicken Tikka Masala is amongst the offerings, along with Balti Chicken.

And the Kolkata population is flocking to try out the great curries.

If you can’t make it to Kolkata, you can make your own from the great range of curry recipes on the Curry focus website. Amongst the curries on the website you can find Balti and Chicken Tikka Masala recipes.

The Economic Times carries the full story.

We’ve just read a report about a curry restaurant that gave a delivery service way above what you’d reasonably expect.

A restaurant in Selby, North Yorkshire, delivered an order of curries to a regular customer in the south of France - without even charging for delivery! The journey distance was 700 miles which meant a 1,400 mile round trip for the delivery team.

The curry recipients must have been extremely good customers to warrant such exceptional service.

However, we don’t really rate your chances of success if you ask your local curry house to do this for you.

The story is on the Express website.

In its simplest terms, a Jalfrezi is a stir-fry curry that has a “hot” spice/heat level.

Onions and spices are stir-fried until they are cooked and then meat, fresh chillies, bell pepper (capsicum) and tomatoes are added. The meat can be substituted with vegetables. The resultant curry has a thick sauce.

The Jalfrezi was invented by the British and came from the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent.

There are dozens of ways of spelling jalfrezi, including jhal frezi, jalfrayzi, jalfrazi.

The Curry Focus website has some great Jalfrezi recipes that are very east to follow. The most recent Jalfrezi to be reviewed, the Chicken Jalfrazi, received a stunning taste/flavour score of 9 out of 10.