First time curry making help please?

flutterbyuk25

Hey all

I want to learn how to make curry from scratch as this is one of the only meals I have never made from scratch. I'm a veggie too.

I have a big bag of spinach to use up, so was thinking of a spinach and potato curry. I've done a search on here and can't seem to find an actual recipe for it (if there is one please accept my apologies, and kindly pop the linky up).

I don't really want to have to buy anything to go in my curry this week but I may need to (but will for future ones).

I'm thinking I just need to chop onion and fry, add potatoes, curry powder, then add spinach at end? How do I get a sauce with it? Could I add tinned toms maybe? I have no creamed coconut or yogurt but I do have low fat creme fraiche.

Many thanks

x

HariboJunkie

I'd use veg stock instead of tomatoes and I'd just pop a bit of the creme fraiche on top at the end.

This is a recipe I have loosely followed in the past. You can substitute curry powder for all the spices mentioned.

esmf73

I have a lovely spinach & potato curry recipe - it's slimming world - hang on will get receipe.

Here we go - two veggie ones

Spicy Vegetable Curry - serves 4 1 Green syn per serving

2lbs potatoes peeled & chopped
2 carrots, 2 red onions (I use any colour) 3 celery sticks (I don't use these), 4 Courgettes all chopped
1/2 head each broccoli and cauliflower
fry light or small amount of oil
2 level tbsp curry paste (I use curry powder)
2 garlic cloves
400g can chopped tomatoes
4oz peas
3 handfuls of spinach
6 cloves, 1/2 tsp turmeric, 1tsp chilli powder and 5 cardamom pods (I've never used these!)

Peel & chop veg, heat opil and saute curry paste, celery and onion, crush garlic and add to pan and stirfry for 3 mins.

Add potatoes, cook for 2 mins and tomatoes and remaining veg, 3floz water and spices. Cook until tender.
Top each serving with coriancer and enjoy with pile of rice!

SPICY SPINACH & POTATO CURRY - serves 4 Green Syn free

2tsp each coriander seeds, cumin seeds and black mustard seeds (I use curry powder again)
1/4 tsp cardamom seeds (never used)
fry light or oil as before
1 red onion (I use any colour)
1 red chilli (I use chilli flakes as I have these)
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp grated ginger (or powdered ginger)
1lb new potatoes
1pt chicken stock
1lb 2oz spinach
Salt & pepper
8 tbsp very low fat natural yogurt

Crush coriander, cumin, mustard and cardomom seeds, place in frying pan and stirfry for 1-2 mins. Halve and thinly slice the onion, deseed & chop the chilli, peel and crush the garlic, add onion, chilli, garlic & ginger to the spices and stirfry for 2-3 mins.

Halve potatoes, add to the pan with the stock, cover and cook gently for 25 - 30 mins stirring occasionally until potatoes are tender. Wash and pat spinach dry and add to pan. Cook for 4 - 5 mins stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and serve seasoned to taste drizzled with yogurt.

YUM YUM YUM

flutterbyuk25

esmf73 wrote: »

I have a lovely spinach & potato curry recipe - it's slimming world - hang on will get receipe.

Ooh that would be great. I'm doing SW too so double great

x

foxgloves

Hi, I can recommend a great cookery book which you should be able to order from the library. It's by Mridula Baljekar and it's called 'The low-fat Indian Vegetarian Cookbook'. I'm not a vegetarian actually, but I don't want to eat meat every day and we've made some great curries from this book. One of my favourites is a chickpea & spinach one. The mushroom dopiaza with the garlic rice is scrummy. Also, one of our favourite money-saving meals comes from this book. There's a recipe for a tomato & onion sauce...basically, it's a medium hot curry sauce and we make a triple or bigger quantity, freeze it in portion sizes, then when you don't have a lot of time to cook, you just stirfry whatever you want in a wok...we often do different veg with leftover meat, but onion, peas & leftover cooked potato is good too....add the sauce and heat it all through , adding another half a teaspoon of garam masala and it comes out like a freshly cooked proper curry every time. One night we had some salmon fillets needed using and my partner poached them in this sauce and it was lovely. The quorn curry recipe is also nice, very filling. Once you've decided to start making your own curries & have stocked up on the usual spices, you find you can make lots of different recipes from your storecupboard. Anyway, I hope this is useful.

ChapelGirl

Try googling for "sag aloo" or "saag aloo".
http://indian-cooking-recipe-reviews.blogspot.com/2007/05/frozen-spinach-with-potatoes-saag-aloo.html
There are also some good Indian recipes which use lentils or split peas and spinach.

It's personal choice, obviously, but I usually avoid shop-bought curry powder and use the individual spices instead. Shop blends tend to be heavy on the cheaper ingredients such as fenugreek, so they are not really good value for money, and if you only have one tub then all your curries are going to come out tasting the same!

The exceptions to my "rule" are (1) garam masala mix (which you are supposed to add at the very end of the cooking, like in English cooking you might add salt and vinegar to a bag of chips) and (2) Schwartz spicy Bombay blend, which you can mix into a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise to make a really quick and tasty dressing for cold cooked chicken breast, prawns, or hard boiled eggs.

flutterbyuk25

foxgloves wrote: »

Hi, I can recommend a great cookery book which you should be able to order from the library. It's by Mridula Baljekar and it's called 'The low-fat Indian Vegetarian Cookbook'. I'm not a vegetarian actually, but I don't want to eat meat every day and we've made some great curries from this book. One of my favourites is a chickpea & spinach one. The mushroom dopiaza with the garlic rice is scrummy. Also, one of our favourite money-saving meals comes from this book. There's a recipe for a tomato & onion sauce...basically, it's a medium hot curry sauce and we make a triple or bigger quantity, freeze it in portion sizes, then when you don't have a lot of time to cook, you just stirfry whatever you want in a wok...we often do different veg with leftover meat, but onion, peas & leftover cooked potato is good too....add the sauce and heat it all through , adding another half a teaspoon of garam masala and it comes out like a freshly cooked proper curry every time. One night we had some salmon fillets needed using and my partner poached them in this sauce and it was lovely. The quorn curry recipe is also nice, very filling. Once you've decided to start making your own curries & have stocked up on the usual spices, you find you can make lots of different recipes from your storecupboard. Anyway, I hope this is useful.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I've just ordered it from library so shall give it a go once it comes in

x

PrincessPeach_2

This is a standard curry recipe i use as a base. Most Asian households dont use a lot of the spices but i would say the two you should have are garam masala and turmeric powder

Sauce

1 large onion - finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic - chopped
1 chilli - more or less depending on how hot you like it
a 1/4 in of ginger chopped
a pinch of turmeric powder
1/4 a teaspoon of garam masala
1/4 cumin powder
2 tomatoes or half a tin
salt

You can also add the following spices -
1/4 teaspoon paprika
coriander powder about half a spoon


and then what ever you wish to make

little tip for quick chopping - if using a blender - do the onions first then ginger and chilli - no need to wash the pot in between.

fry the garlic slightly - you can use butter or oil (olive oil can be used) then add onions - fry until they go brown

Then add the ginger and chilli - fry for just a minute

add salt

add spices - fry for about 30 secs then add tomatoes - mix then allow to cook while still mixing for 30- 60 secs

then add veg or meat - mix so the sauce covers everything - cook for a few mins

then add water - about 200mls - depending on how thick you want it.

then allow to cook for 15ish mins - it varies depending on what you are cooking but check the meat or veg and you will know its cooked. also check salt again - add more if required

If you have and coriander leaves add them at the end.

As one of the other posts said that they make the sauce and freeze - i do that too - i cook upto the tomatoes then freeze into bags and take out when i need it.

Hope that helps - its just a basic recipe, once you get use to cooking indian dishes you get a feel of how and what to add when.

Stephen_Leak

Try this "general purpose" vegetable curry recipe. The magic ingredient is the little bit of fresh ginger. It just gives it that "zing"!

VEGETABLE CURRY

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

1 potato
250g (¼ of a head) of cauliflower florets
1 carrot
50g of French beans, runner beans or mange tout
2 cloves of garlic
2cm (1 inch) piece of fresh ginger
1 onion
2 tablespoons of oil
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
1 teaspoon of ground turmeric
200g (½ a 400g tin) of tinned plum tomatoes*
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
125ml of water

METHOD

Peel and chop the potatoes into 1cm (½ inch) pieces. Wash the other vegetables. Break the cauliflower into 1cm (½ inch) pieces. Peel and chop the carrot into 1cm (½ inch) pieces. Chop the other vegetables into 1cm (½ inch) pieces. Peel the garlic and chop it into tiny pieces. Peel the ginger and chop it into tiny pieces. Peel the onion and chop it into tiny pieces.

Put the oil into a frying pan on a medium heat. Put the onions, garlic and ginger into the pan and fry for 3 minutes until it is golden. Stir frequently to stop it sticking.

Add the carrot, cumin, potato and turmeric. Fry for about 5 minutes until the spices have coated the vegetables thoroughly. Stir frequently to stop it sticking.

Open the tin of tomatoes. Put the juice into a bowl. Chop the tomatoes while they are still in the can (it’s easier than chasing them around the bowl). Put the chopped tomatoes into the bowl. Use half and save the other half.

Put the chopped tomatoes into the pan. Add the cauliflower, chilli powder, the green vegetables and the water and stir. Bring to the boil, then turn down the heat until it is just boiling (simmering).

Cook for another 15 to 20 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

ADDITIONS & ALTERNATIVES

Use frozen cauliflower florets. Add a small courgette, chopped into 1cm (½ inch) pieces. In fact, this is a good recipe for using up any left-over vegetables.

The quantity of chilli powder above makes for a medium curry. For a hot one, increase this to 1½ teaspoons.

For a mild one, add 100ml (½ a 200ml pot) of yoghurt 5 to 10 minutes before the end of cooking. Add ½ a teaspoon of mint sauce to the leftover yoghurt to make some mint raita.
　
* Plum tomatoes can be used either whole or chopped. It is difficult to stick chopped tomatoes back together again if you need to use them whole.

More4me

Here one with mushrooms

Spinach Mushroom

10 button mushrooms
½ tsp chilli powder
½ tsp cumin powder
½ tsp garam masala powder
½ tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
2 dry red chillies
1 red onion (finely chopped)
1 tsp amchoor powder (You can substitute amchoor powder with 1 tomato)
2 tbsp oil
salt as needed

For spinach gravy:
1 bunch spinach
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp chopped ginger
3 green chillies - adjust to your taste buds
½ tbsp oil

Procedure:
Step 1:
Heat oil in a pan and add ginger and garlic and saute it for a min. Now add the green chillies along with the spinach and close with a lid. Allow it to cook for 2 to 3 mins till the spinach is cooked. Allow it to cool and grind it to a fine paste without adding water. It should be a thick paste.
Step 2:
In the mean time heat another pan and add 2 tbsp oil. Add mustard seeds, cumin seeds and red chillies when the oil is hot and allow it to splutter. Not add the chopped onions and saute it for 4 mins. Then add the chopped mushroom, some salt and saute it along with onion till it turns golden brown color. Now add the masala powder and saute it for a min . (If u r adding tomato, you can add at this time.) Add the spinach paste along with amchoor powder. Allow it to cook for 2 or 3 mins. Check for salt and serve with roti, chapathi, Nan. Enjoy!!!

flutterbyuk25

esmf73 wrote: »

SPICY SPINACH & POTATO CURRY - serves 4 Green Syn free

2tsp each coriander seeds, cumin seeds and black mustard seeds (I use curry powder again)
1/4 tsp cardamom seeds (never used)
fry light or oil as before
1 red onion (I use any colour)
1 red chilli (I use chilli flakes as I have these)
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp grated ginger (or powdered ginger)
1lb new potatoes
1pt chicken stock
1lb 2oz spinach
Salt & pepper
8 tbsp very low fat natural yogurt

Crush coriander, cumin, mustard and cardomom seeds, place in frying pan and stirfry for 1-2 mins. Halve and thinly slice the onion, deseed & chop the chilli, peel and crush the garlic, add onion, chilli, garlic & ginger to the spices and stirfry for 2-3 mins.

Halve potatoes, add to the pan with the stock, cover and cook gently for 25 - 30 mins stirring occasionally until potatoes are tender. Wash and pat spinach dry and add to pan. Cook for 4 - 5 mins stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and serve seasoned to taste drizzled with yogurt.

YUM YUM YUM

I made this tonight improvised slightly as had no seeds or ginger! but it smelt and tasted yummy. I didn't eat it tonight, but have frozen in in portions for a freezer meal later in month. So pleased to have used up all that spinach!

x