Chicken Curry and Beyond - The CurryFocus Blog

Reviews, new features and the latest hot gossip from the Curry world, we have some great content for you once again!

A delicious spicy scrambled eggs breakfast is reviewed and guess what? It’s simple and easy to cook as well!

A mild Coriander Lamb Korma meal is well received from the diners. If you are an expert on Indian cooking perhaps you can answer the question asked within the article. We will give special mention to whoever can help in our next newsletter.

With more of a focus on Lamb this month, we look at a Keema Lamb Curry that has a kick to it, for the spice lovers amongst you, and is quick and easy to cook.

A popular meal handed down through generations of curry lovers, Curried Beef Sausages comes across a bit bland, so Ray advises how this could be spiced up a little to improve its taste.

Recently, we received an email asking us which were the mild recipes on the website from somebody who wanted to try a “safe” curry as they had a bad experience eating a curry when they were younger.

We have been reviewing recipes for a long time but the information was buried amongst the reviews making it almost impossible to find a “mild” curry without reading all of the recipe reviews.

So we were inspired to create a new web page to help you find a recipe that suits your heat/spice levels.

A quick change to the database, a little bit of data entry and writing some code has produced a review page that will help you.

You can reach the new page by clicking on the “Recipe Reviews” link in the main navigation line or from the navigation links at the foot of the website pages.

You’ll see a list of recipes, the taste rating (out of 10), the heat rating and a link to the recipe review.

If you click on the orange triangles, the details are sorted. A triangle pointing upwards sorts the details into ascending/increasing order whereas a triangle pointing downwards sorts the details into descending/decreasing order. So you can sort into recipe name, taste rating or heat rating sequence.

Some of the early reviews didn’t include ratings, which explains the “unrated” values.

Remember that everyone has different tastes and the listed ratings are the opinions of our regular staff reviewers. But we think that they are pretty accurate.

We hope that the new page is useful to you and inspires you to try different curries from the website.

The page content will grow as more recipes are reviewed.

Tell us, from the Contact Us page, if you’ve got any ideas for new pages on the website and we’ll see what we can do..

Top 5 Recipes for October

Chicken rules the roost yet again.

1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Naan Bread
3 Chicken Curry
4 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
5 Chicken Tikka Masala

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

Another month passes by and September was another busy month at Curry Focus headquarters with more and more delicious recipes, reviews and information added to the site.

We add fish to the menu this month with a review of the tasty Fish Cakes Recipe.

Diwali, its that time of year again so read more about the Festival of Lights.

If you like hot spicy curries you need to read Ray’s Review on our Beef Madras Curry Recipe.

Here’s an excellent chicken curry that we recommend you try! Remember to buy the right chicken though as Ray finds out the hard way when cooking this dish. Read the Jaipur Chicken Curry Recipe Review

Ray tries a vegetarian dish and finds it edible, but a little disappointing, read the Gujarati Potato Curry Recipe Review.

One of our site visitors had a great idea, which was to provide a “hotness” or “spice” rating to the recipes on our site. We think that’s a fantastic idea and are already beginning to work on the addition so keep an eye out for this exciting new feature in the near future. If you have any ideas of features or things you would like to see on the site, please contact us and tell us about it!

The 2008 British Curry Awards will be held in London on October 19th. We’ll keep you posted on who won the awards around the UK so you can see who makes award winning curries - maybe you could go and try a meal at one of the restaurants to see what great food is all about.

As mentioned earlier, it’s Diwali at the end of October. Try and get along to a celebration near you for good food and entertainment.

Chicken curries rule the roost yet again!!!

Top 5 Recipes for September

Chicken rules the roost yet again.

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

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

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.

Our writers have been busy this month reviewing recipes and taking a closer look at some of the ingredients used.

Ray puts together some of the things he has learned in the last twelve months making curries and produces a full meal - Putting It All Together.

Passatta. What Is It? - Passatta is a cooked tomato concentrate that we talk about in this article.

Cauliflower and Potato Recipe Review - A great side dish that is not only tasty but easy to make.

Poppadom Recipe Review - Poppadoms end up being a challenge to cook.

Beef Pasanda Recipe Review - If you like a mild curry and red wine then this could be just the curry for you.

Lamb Rogan Josh Recipe Review - this curry did not turn out as expected so we are looking for more Rogan Josh Recipes to review.

Top 5 Recipes for July

1 Balti Chicken
2 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
3 Easy Chicken Curry
4 Naan Bread
5 Chicken Curry

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

Another busy month as we try more recipes, look at how to match wine to a curry and continue to add new features to the website. We’ll let you know about the new features once they are ready. If you think of something that would make your visits to the website more enjoyable, just give us your ideas from the Contact Us page.

Last week we were asked where our website visitors come from. To be honest, we didn’t know the complete answer - we knew where most people lived but not them all. So we checked with Google and the answer was that we have had visitors from 145 different countries. Now that’s a lot of countries. Most of the missing countries in the world are from the African continent - maybe we need some more spicy African curry recipes on the website?

Ray cooks and reviews a delicious Jamaican Chicken Curry Recipe

Time to try out another great recipe from the Curry Focus website. I liked the look of the Lamb Rogan Josh recipe but hadn’t looked at the recipe early enough. The lamb needs to marinate overnight and the dinner guests were arriving in 6 hours. So, instead, I went for the Jamaican Chicken Curry that looked pretty easy to make…. read more

Cumin Chicken Curry Recipe Review

Time to try out another great recipe from the Curry Focus website. This time it’s the Cumin Chicken Curry recipe.

I only had to buy the chicken – the other ingredients were already in the kitchen.

This is really a very easy curry to cook… read more

Top 5 Recipes for June

1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Naan Bread
3 Chicken Curry
4 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
5 Balti Chicken

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

May has been another month where again chicken has come out on top looking at our most popular recipes. We have added some more great articles as well and we hope you enjoy reading them.

What Is A Karahi?A karahi is a the traditional Indian cooking utensil that is similar to a flat-bottomed wok.

A karahi used to be made only of cast iron but, nowadays, a karahi can be made out of stainless steel or or some other metal that is coated with non-stick material, such as tefal…..

Pork Vindaloo Recipe Review My girlfriend wasn’t going to be here for my weekly curry so it gave me an opportunity to try a great Pork Vindaloo recipe that had been given to me by my flatmate’s mother. A vindaloo is a very hot curry (although not as hot as a phal)…..

Naan Bread Recipe Review I few weeks ago I made a great aubergine curry (here is the review of the aubergine curry).

At the time, I also ventured into making naan bread….

Easy Chicken Curry Recipe Review Curry time again so once more I scan through the Curry Focus recipes. This time I was immediately attracted by the word “Easy” in the Easy Chicken Curry Recipe. And it looked an easy dish to prepare….

We’ve had some positive feedback with the revised search processing where the search looks for common mis-spellings and alternatives for search words. Thanks for letting us know that the changed search is helping you find the recipes that you want.

One of the suggestions that we’ve had is to include the blogs in the search, as well as the recipes. The blogs cover a wide range of subjects and it would be good to let you search them. It won’t happen this month but we’ve moved this request up the list and will tackle it next month. We’ll let you know when this has been put into the website.

Top 5 Recipes for May

1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Chicken Curry
3 Naan Bread
4 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
5 Chicken Dhansak

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

April has been a productive month for the CurryFocus.com website with a major upgrade to the recipe search feature of the site.

We’ve changed the way that the recipe search works so that now you’ve got more chance of finding a recipe that you’re looking for.

The search now looks for alternative spellings and alternative words for the main recipe names and ingredients.

For example, if you look for saag, then the search looks for saag, saagwalla, sag, sagwala, sagwalla, spinach and spinage. All of the words, except for spinage, mean the same and spinage is a commonly used bad spelling of spinach.

You still only see a recipe once in the results list, no matter how many times words are found in the recipe.

We hope that this change to the search helps you find a great recipe for you to try.

More changes to the web site are in the pipeline. We hope you like them.

And chicken recipes are top of the charts yet again, along with Naan Bread.

Top 5 Recipes for April

1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Naan Bread
3 Chicken Curry
4 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
5 Balti Chicken

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

March has been a great month for the CurryFocus.com website with our traffic increasing 22% on the previous month. We have added more great articles and below are the latest.

World Rice Shortage Worsens
Following on from our recent blog on the world rice shortage, this weekend’s news from Vietnam confirms that the problem has got worse.

Vietnam is the usually 5th largest producer of rice, and the 3rd largest exporter, of rice in the world…..Read More

What Is Garlic?

Garlic is part of the onion family of plants and, like onions, is a key ingredient in many curry recipes.

Garlic has a pungent spicy flavor that mellows in cooking.

The main part of the garlic plant is the bulb that has lots of small segments that are called cloves. Curry recipes that use garlic …. Read More

What Is Sambal?

Sambal is a spicy relish that is often served as a side dish to a meal.

Sambal features a lot in Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine.

One of the simplest sambals is made from chillies and salt but more elaborate sambals can contain onion, garlic, lemongrass, vinegar, lime juice, sugar, fruit and nuts….. Read More

Top 5 Recipes for March

1 Easy Chicken Curry
2 Chicken Curry
3 Balti Chicken
4 Chicken Curry (Kodi Kura)
5 Beef and Onion Curry

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

February, although a short month, has been our busiest to date in terms of visitors to our site and we have added more articles and recipes throughout the month.

Onions and Curry. A Culinary Blend

Making a curry without onion is almost unthinkable. Nearly every curry starts with cooking onions. Some curries have a lot of onions and some have only a small amount of onions. But the onions are always there….Read More

What Is Paprika?

Traditionally, paprika is made from red bell peppers. The peppers are allowed to dry and then the stalks and the inside veins are discarded. The pepper fruit and seeds are separated from each other and separately ground into powder. This process is done for different types of bell pepper and the resultant powders are blended to produce the required taste…. Read More

What Is Tamarind?

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

Top 5 Recipes for February

It never ceases to amaze us here at Curry Focus how often chicken appears in our top five recipes and this month every one of the top four is a chicken related dish.

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

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

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.