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.

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.

Hi, Ray here again.

Last weekend, a couple of old friends that I hadn’t seen for over a year were coming round for dinner. They both liked curries so I decided to make a range of dishes for them to sample.

I made a spicy potato and cauliflower, chicken jalfrezi and dhal, all from the great menu of delicious Curry Focus recipes.

My friends were bringing round some fresh fruit for dessert so I chose to make some Indian ice cream (kulfi) to go with the fruit.

I know that there are machines that make ice cream. But I don’t have one of them. And the Curry Focus ice cream recipe doesn’t need anything more complicated than a whisk.

I bought the ingredients, conscious that there was a lot of fat and calories going into this simple dish. But I don’t have ice cream very often and it’s a bit of a treat.

The recipe was simplicity itself to follow.

The only thing that I had to work out was the freezing and unfreezing of the ice cream.

Before I added the last ingredient (of whisked egg whites), the ice cream needed to be 80% frozen. I had to make a guess at what this meant. I kept checking the mixture every 10 minutes after an hour of freezing and finally decided it had frozen enough after 90 minutes.

I then left the ice cream in the freezer overnight.

The next morning I checked out the ice cream and found that it had frozen solid. I couldn’t chip out any ice cream to test. The ice cream must have frozen solid because there are no added preservatives – supermarket bought ice cream never freezes completely when you have it in the freezer and this must be the result of some additive in the ice cream.

I left the ice cream in the kitchen for an hour to let it thaw. After an hour, the ice cream could be spooned out of the bowl but still had a fair amount of ice inside it.

I needed to go out of the house for the rest of the day and put the ice cream back into the freezer (I didn’t want it to melt back into its original state).

An hour before we were scheduled to start eating, I removed the ice cream from the freezer again. It was completely frozen. When the time arrived for dessert, just over 1.5 hours had gone by and the ice cream had thawed almost perfectly. I mashed the ice cream with a fork to make sure that the few solid bits were broken up and then served it with the fresh fruit.

I had another hit on my hands!! Everyone loved the ice cream and it received an excellent rating of 8 out of 10.

If you are partial to ice cream, why not try this easy recipe?

Hi, Ray here again.

Once again, it’s time to make a yummy curry from the great range of recipes on the Curry Focus website. My local supermarket was advertising a beef special so I chose the Beef and Potato curry to take advantage of the good price.

This is yet again another very easy curry to make and all that has to be remembered is that the curry simmers for around 2.5 hours – so if dinner is scheduled for 7pm then making the curry needs to start at about 4pm.

I cut up the beef and mixed it in with the salt and turmeric.

Then I peeled and prepared the onions, garlic and ginger. Now I was ready to start cooking.

I stir-fried the onion, garlic and ginger for around 10 minutes. Then I added the beef with the spices and stir-fried for 5 more minutes.

Then in went the water. I brought the curry to a simmer, covered it and left it for 2 hours, returning to stir the curry every 10 – 15 minutes.

I peeled and cubed the potatoes just before the 2 hours were nearly up and then added the potato cubes to the curry, stirring the curry well and covering the frying pan again.

I started to microwave rice after 5 minutes and the curry and rice were both ready just 20 minutes after the potato was added.

I served up the Beef and Potato curry to the lone other diner (there was only 2 of us for dinner tonight) and we tasted the results of the cooking.

And it was a good curry. Not a great curry, but a good one. The spice rating was mild to medium and the beef was really tender. There wasn’t much color on the plate so I maybe could have garnished the curry with some fresh cilantro to add a touch of color. The curry was given a good score of 7 out of 10.

There was way too much curry for just the two of us so we ate the same curry the following night and it tasted a little bit better than the previous night (it’s funny how curries do that). And we still couldn’t finish the curry so we put the remaining curry into a container and popped it into the freezer for another day.

I can definitely recommend this curry if you want to try an easy curry that is not too spicy.

Hi, Ray here again.

I needed to get back into the cooking saddle again pretty quickly after last week’s bad experience with the poppadom recipe.

This time I went for the Cauliflower and Potato recipe from the great curry range on the Curry Focus website.

The only ingredient that I didn’t already have was the cauliflower so this was going to be a very cheap meal to prepare.

This is really a simple dish to make and it tastes absolutely delicious.

I followed the recipe, step by step, and pretty soon I had a plate full of delicious food (I was dining alone tonight).

And the food was delicious. There was a divine spice taste and everything was cooked to perfection. There was easily enough curry for 2 (I had the second plateful the next day for lunch) and this would be a great side dish for a dinner party of 4.

A few days later I had friends around for dinner and decided to cook saag gosht again. The recipe was a big hit the last time I made it and this time I had a great side dish to go with it.

I ran a bit late with the cooking and the guests were very eager to sample the food when I eventually served it up.

The saag gosht went down well but the big hit was the cauliflower and potato side dish.

The word “stunning” came out of the mouth of one of the guests which was high praise indeed.

The dish had a little bit of a spicy kick to it but wasn’t too hot. And the textures and flavors were great.

The cauliflower and potato dish scored a great 9 out of 10 with a heat rating of medium.

This is the recipe for you if you want a great side dish that is easy to make.

Try it for yourself.

Hi, Ray here again.

I’d recently been looking through some of my curry recipe books and was struck by the lack of recipes for Poppadoms. Some books even said just to buy some from a shop and then just cook them. I have a vague memory of somebody saying that poppadoms were difficult to make.

So I had found a challenge. I did good at making naan bread so poppadoms should be easy enough.

There’s an easy looking Poppadom recipe on the Curry Focus website.

I got the ingredients together and started by making the dough.

It was much too dry. Way, way too dry.

So I added more water, a little at a time, until I got what I thought was the correct consistency.

But it was obviously wrong. The dough was very sticky.

So I added more flour to dry it up a bit. Eventually I thought that I had it right.

I rolled the dough out into a log and sliced it into equal sections and put a dab of oil on the top of the slices.

Then the fun began. The dough kept sticking to my rolling pin. I put flour on the work surface and the rolling pin but the poppadoms kept attaching to the rolling pin and splitting.

I was ending up with strips of poppadoms.

I rolled up all of the dough together a couple of times and tried again but no luck.

I don’t know whether I messed up the recipe or that the recipe doesn’t work. I am fully prepared to accept that the problem was me. I don’t have a real rolling pin and use an empty wine bottle but can’t see that the blame can be put on the rolling pin. Maybe I wasn’t careful enough. Or maybe I’m not adaptable enough in the kitchen – I assume that real cooks automatically compensate for dough inconsistencies.

It wasn’t a big problem because I had bought some ready-made poppadoms earlier.

I’ll try the recipe one more time and I’ll buy a proper rolling pin to see if that makes a difference.

And if the recipe doesn’t work, I’ll hunt down another one.

I won’t be beaten. I need to find a basic recipe that works so that I can create my own flavors.

Hi, Ray here again.

This week I decided that I wanted to try a recipe for a dish that I’ve never eaten before. I searched thru the great recipes on the Curry Focus website and chose the Beef Pasanda.

The beef had to be marinates overnight and so I made sure that I got all of the ingredients in plenty of time.

The marinade is simply half a bottle red wine. Here I had a difficult decision to make. I didn’t want to buy an expensive bottle of wine just for cooking (I know that is probably the wrong decision to make) but I didn’t want to buy cheap and nasty wine either (because there would be a couple of glasses left over to drink). I eventually went for an average merlot.

I have to say that this is easily the noisiest curry that I’ve ever made. I don’t have a meat tenderizer and so I ended up putting the beef onto the kitchen work surface, covering it with a plastic meat preparation board and pounding the board with a hammer. I made a lot of noise but the beef was flattened just fine.

I put the marinading beef into the fridge overnight.

The next afternoon, I started to make the Pasanda.

I prepared the onions, garlic and ginger and stir-fried them for 10 minutes. The mixture gets very dry so needs to be kept moving at all times. There was a lovely aroma from the ginger when the cooking stopped.

I mixed up the spicy paste whilst the onion mixture was cooling.

After a while I put the onion mixture, along with the cilantro and coconut, into the food processor and made a puree.

After that the spicy paste was stir-fried for 90 seconds to be joined by the puree to be stir-fried for 5 minutes.

I mixed in the ground almonds and tomato paste and then removed the mixture from the heat.

The oven had already preheated and the beef, marinade and cooked ingredients all went into a large casserole. After mixing everything well, the casserole went into the oven.

I checked and stirred after the 30 minutes and cooked it for another 30 minutes.

I checked the Pasanda once again and all was good.

I returned the Pasanda to the oven whilst the rice was started.

After a five minutes I turned off the oven, leaving the Pasanda to cook for another 10 minutes.

The pasanda was served up to the waiting dinner guests.

The sauce was rich, thick, smooth, nutty and tasted of the red wine. And the beef was very tender. The Pasanda was eaten quickly enough but failed to ignite much enthusiasm. One of the guests commented that it would have been better with some yogurt. I did a quick search on the internet and most of the Pasanda recipes did indeed use yogurt for the marinade. So I need to find another Pasanda recipe to try. One of the guests was looking for some red wine to go with the food but I had already drunk the remainder of the wine whilst cooking – it’s thirsty work in the kitchen and the wine is a valid cook’s bonus.

Overall, the Pasanda was very tasty and scored 7 out of 10 with a heat rating of mild.

If you like a mild curry and red wine then this could be just the curry for you.

Hi, Ray here again.

Last week I had wanted to make a Rogan Josh curry but had left it too late to make because I had forgotten that the lamb had to be marinated overnight.

So this week I was better prepared to make the Lamb Rogan Josh from the Curry Focus website.

I made the marinade and mixed in the lean lamb and then put it into the fridge to marinate overnight.

Two hours before dinner, I started to prepare the ingredients which only involved getting ready the onion and second garlic clove.

Then the cooking started.

I stir-fried the cumin seeds and then the bay leaves and cardamom pods.

Then I stir-fried the onion and garlic for 5 minutes before adding the cilantro, cumin and chilli powder.

Soon the lamb went into the frying pan.

And not long after this, in went the chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and water.

Everything well mixed and brought to a simmer.

The lamb simmered for 90 minutes and the basmati rice was timed to be ready at the same time as the curry.

Whilst I was serving up the Rogan Josh, I quickly heated a couple of stuffed paratha in the microwave.

The Rogan Josh was served on rice and was met with only mild enthusiasm.

The lamb was really tender but this wasn’t the curry that we expected. The curry had a lot more liquid than usual and, to be honest, it was more like a thin stew than a curry. And it was very mild.

The Rogan Josh was awarded a sympathetic 6 out of 10 with a spice heat rating of mild.

I carefully reviewed the recipe to make ensure that I had followed the steps correctly. And I had. Maybe leaving the frying pan lid would have allowed the curry to reduce and thicken a bit. But the spice level was too low – I’m used to a Rogan Josh with some bite.

But this failure won’t stop me. I’ll be searching for another Lamb Rogan Josh recipe to try because it is usually such a tasty dish.

I’ll let you know what I find in due course.