Indian food @ home, who's got it down?

So we live about 30 miles away from my favorite Indian place in the valley now and I’ve literally tried 10 places that don’t hold a candle to it. The Tikka Masala & other dishes always seem to be very one-dimensional with the sauces being very thin and boring. The best ones I’ve had all seem to have a very rich, thick sauce that can almost be enjoyed alone…

I cook a lot and have literally never tried to make Indian food but now really want to give it a go, thinking with some higher quality chicken & other ingredient than you would probably find in the average restaurant I could do ok. So anyone got any proven recipes or techniques?

The key to the really thick sauce is lots of cream and butter. You’ll be shocked how much. that type of Indian food is considered special occasion food for things like weddings. Tikka Masala in fact is a Scottish dish.

Anyhow, Vij’s books may appeal to you, or I can name a few more traditional books if you’d prefer, but I think you’ll be disappointed with the results.

I absolutely love this book by Madhur Jaffery.

According to my friend Raj it really originated in India in the 19th century in their attempt to create something that would appeal to the British palate - meat with gravy/sauce, but yea, not exactly “traditional” but it is amazing when done right…

And yea, I used to cook professionally and the old saying “fat = flavor” is very true. For TM thought, it is weird in that some recipes use cream while others use coconut milk. Can’t say I can ever really tell the difference due to the spice action going on but it probably makes a big difference. Oh and lots of Ghee, always Ghee…

My dad got into Indian cooking for a while and I learned this; all the spices necessary for Indian cooking tend to stink up the house, even large ones. I am not talking about the stink of cooking, but instead a nascent stinky smell of spices that seem to permeate out through their containers and intermingle into a noxious yellow cloud just from sitting in a cabinet together. Either that or my dad was storing dead cats under the floorboards a la John Wayne Gacy. When I walk into my favorite Indian restaurant, it smells great thanks to the tandoor. So though I love to cook, I think I will leave Indian to my favorite place which is also a ways from my home.

Probably already know this but toasting your own whole spices and grinding them made the biggest difference in our homemade Indian.

On the lucky nights I’ve made great Italian food (namely, pastas), I’ve found this to be true.

We make fast Indian at home all the time.

I am very fond of the Rasoi Magic line.

They are fast and quite rich and complex, made from their spice packets and using your own ingredients, otherwise. They supply the spice combo, and you do the rest.

I can get home and have dinner ready in about 30 minutes, making 2-3 different dishes, but I have done 9 at a time for big family events without too much stress. They are also easy to add to or adapt to your favored flavor profiles.

I am even more fond of their “No Onion, No Garlic” line because we typically eat most of our Indian food “Jain style.” Also, our Sikh friends know how we prepare food and are OK with it, so it makes for easy socializing with the Rasoi “No Onion, No Garlic” line.

Go over to Gaurav kapoor’s house. His mom makes some of the most insane curry I’ve eaten. Flavors were so good.

grinding and pan roasting the spices are key.
Not so surprisingly a lot of basic techniques are global: low and slow browning of onions, adding spices/aromatics at the right time in the oil, finishing with fat/ghee/butter. hahahah

Also in general, indian curries in western restaurants are way too saucy.

I’m a huge fan of southern indian cooking, since the wife is vegetarian. So I love bisibelebath, a hot lentil rice dish. Also dosas, samosas, daal, etc… More to Indian than curries!

I used to fantasize having an Indian cook; can’t find good Indian food around here without driving 40 miles or so.

One of the few culinary perks of living here. I eat Indian food (a broad church) at least five times a week.

I’ve gotten some Pakistani dishes down pretty well. I’ve enjoyed them at a local restaurant and last winter called the place to ask for some recipes and methods for one (chickpea) dish.

The owner, who wasn’t the cook, told me what they do there…and to get Shan spice mixtures, as that’s what they use there. They are available at most Indian markets, as is the ghee, ginger-garlic paste, and those little long green hot peppers they use in that cuisine.

The rest I’ve gleaned on line, but the spice aspect with the Shan stuff is pretty satisfying. There are also simple instructions with them. http://shop.khanapakana.com/brands/Shan-Foods.html

I’d have never thought I’d be making such food, but…a chicken kahrahi and chana masala dinner I made recently pleased even me…as well as others. Worth the effort.

Don’t rely on Trader Joe’s, I’ll tell you that much. Picture looks great, food tastes subpar. It reminded me of the “fast food expectations v. reality” articles.

I do a lot of Indian at home and it comes out well BUT, if you want restaurant style Indian food at home Paul Willenberg is 100% correct: load it up with ghee and cream.

I do a lot of sambars, rassams, and dals. Yes, toasting spices does make a big difference as does getting fresh spices from a reliable Indian grocer. There are a ton of great books out there, but I also use http://www.vegrecipesofindia.com. But, again, unless you load it up with fat at home, its unlikely to taste like your local Indian restaurant.

FWIW I tend to intentionally veer away from the ghee/cream - indeed my regular curry was always made without fat: toasting the spices at the same time as cooking pureed onions (which effectively became the sauce). This always seemed to work very well with spice mixes that were heavy on the cumin.

I’m also happy to eat/cook ‘dry’ dishes. A favourite in Sevenoaks when I worked down there was (IIRC) Chicken Tikka Goujons, laid out around the plate interspersed with roasted yellow peppers. An attractive dish, albeit quite odd when we’ve been accustomed to sauces.

This is fantastic! Her restaurant in NYC is really good too. Agree with pan roasting and then grinding your own spices. It makes a huge difference.

I’m a fan of Vij’s books ever since making his chicken curry recipe.

https://andreawoo.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/recipe-vijs-familys-chicken-curry/

Two winters ago, I went on an Indian cooking spree (3x a week for about 2 months). Most of my recipes were just pulled from the web. I felt like I got a good handle on some Punjabi / N. Indian staples, but when it came to dal (in any form / style), I could never nail it.

Looking at the pantry tonight, I decided to take another stab, and chose this recipe-

I ignored the lifestyle blog piece and got right to the recipe… It may be the best one I’ve made.

I tweaked a few measurements and since I was out of basmati, I served it over farro that was cooked with cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf and cloves. Though far from traditional, the farro texture was awesome w/ the al dente dal.

The recipe says you can skip the hing, but I think it is one of those missing link ingredients that ties thing together. (It is easy to order off of Amazon.)

try this recipe of red lentils with fried cabbage- indian soul food
http://capayvalleyfarmshop.com/blog/recipes/red-split-lentils-with-cabbage-masoor-dal-aur-band-gobi
/