For my latest post I have decided to write about a book that I have recently purchased called The Curry Secret. Not long ago I was browsing play.com when I stumbled across this book, at first I thought it was just like any other cook book. However while reading the description it became apparent that rather than focusing on traditional Indian cuisine like many cook books tend to, this one taught you how to make the meals that you would find in your local Indian restaurant or takeaway. The one factor that really drew me to this book was the promise that it taught you how to make the base curry sauce that is essential to most restaurant curries. As the book was less than £4 I decided to buy it, and today I finally managed to find the time to give this a go.
 |
| Some of the ingredients needed |
The curry that I decided to make was a chicken jalfrezi, the ingredient list however was quite large. I started off by preparing the chicken and then marinading it in turmeric, ginger, garam masala, salt, chilli powder and oil, then leaving that in the fridge for a few hours. A couple of hours later my next task was to start preparing the curry sauce, this meant cutting up nearly a kilogram of onions which left me in tears, when that was done the onions were left to boil then simmer with some ginger and garlic. After leaving the onions simmer for 45 minutes it was time to press the blender into action, as the onion mixture needed to blended into a smooth liquid. That was followed by blending up a tin of chopped tomatoes, then adding the tomatoes and onion mixture together with some more spices and leaving it simmer while scraping off any froth from the top, after 20 minutes of that the curry sauce was finally complete.
 |
| The curry sauce |
With the curry sauce complete it was then time to move onto making the jalfrezi itself, though it already seemed like I had been cooking forever. This involved frying peppers, onions and tomatoes, then separately frying the marinated chicken with some chillies. The curry sauce was then added to the chicken and later the vegetables were also added. My chicken jalfrezi was finally complete.
I was very pleased with the outcome of this curry, it seemed to have the same consistency as a restaurant curry. The taste was also superb, easily one of the nicest curries I have ever cooked or had cooked for me at home. However spending the whole day cooking did leave me with yellow hands after the turmeric and my kitchen still smells after making the curry, but it was definitely worth it. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys cooking and/or curry and I cant wait to try another recipe from the book.
