Best Indian food in Turku

[Karhunkoski]

OK, the coast looks clear of our critique and I just can't resist your enthusiasm

Also, I've been using (LOTS OF) chilli powder for my Madras, but I am going to use fresh chillies in my next one, do you use fresh chillies? Do you recommend de-seeding or leaving a few seeds?

Yes I use fresh green finger chillis, from Tesco (a good friend posts them over). However yesterday I noticed our local asian shop had some in the fridge, so I will give those a try at some point. You probably know that the hottest part if the fibre that holds the seeds in. I don't usually de-seed, just slice into small rings, use some for cooking with and also like to garnish with a few too. Avoid pre-packed dutch chillis in Finnish supermarkets, they are far too variable heat-wise, making it impossible to cook with unless you pre-taste each chilli.

With regards to naans, alot of people use baking powder but I find this ruins them slightly, I much prefer yeast (either the yeast squares out of the fridge or dried yeast - infact I prefer the dried yeast), but you can't rush it (which I found to my detriment) you have to leave the dough for a good hour (so it more than doubles in size) for the perfect light fluffy perfect Naan

I get good results with baking powder, but if you want to freeze dough portions then yeast is the better option. I find that by far the single most important factor in "naan success" is temperature and maintaining it:

1. heat your oven to it's absolute maximum, pre-heating the baking tray on the top shelf. If your oven only goes to 250°C, then you'll struggle to make decent naan
2. when it is time to put your naan in, open oven, remove tray, close oven, slap naan on tray, return tray to top shelf of oven. This process should be completed in about 7 seconds.
3. don't open the door until you take it out.

This is just my experience, after eating hundreds of not-so-good naans.

When rolling out the dough, I usually make it double sized, then sprinkle some dried coconut on one half, moisten the rim ( ), fold oven and roll into shape. Once the naan comes out of the oven, I drizzle a little light syrup on the top. I call it "Peshwari", but it's probably technically not as there are no nuts in it.

If you find the pdf, you'll notice there are a couple of mistakes in it (it's copied from the first edition of the book I think). Keep an eye open for these.

[Karhunkoski]

But when I looked up garam masala (which I was able to find in one of my usual U.S. stores, though not a vanilla grocery), it seemed to be a (highly variable) mixture of the usual suspects. Is there something in it that would keep you from making your own?

The best is home made. Just buy the whole spices separately and grind in a coffee mill. If you can't find the spices locally, you should find them online. There is a recipe for garam in the book.

[Karhunkoski]

If you click through to Youtube, you see that this particular dish requires 1 chef's spoon of "vag oil" So that's the secret...

[Karhunkoski]

I just watched your man's vid. A few critical points. In my experience, garam masala and fresh corainder are best added towards the end of cooking. Adding them in before a 60 minute simmer won't give the best results IMO.

[Evertony]

Agreed, on both counts, especially the naan!

My curry has improved slightly but I'm still missing something, its better than a mircrowavable curry but still not as good as a takeaway curry, which is what I'm striving for.

I'll try fresh chillies next time and fresh coriander, so far I have been using coriander seeds crushed (I know..) but it's before I found my fresh coriander shop so I'll have the fresh stuff next time. ALso means I can do Garlic and coriander naans Nam!

I'll just slice the chilli and throw it all in, the seeds are probably the most important bit in a hot madras (probably where I'm going wrong, chilli powder seems a poor substitute).

[Evertony]

Oh yeah, I've got the consistency perfect, it's just the flavours, seems a bit bland. I am using 1 teaspoon of each spice in my final curry is this enough do you think?

[sinikala]

Only just rediscovered this thread.

My 101 on UK style curry prep.

If you want a restaurant taste, use ghee, not vegetable oil, if you can't get hold of tinned ghee, add a bit of butter to the oil when you start to cook the onions & garlic.

A long time ago, my ex- told me that garam masala - is hindi for curry powder.
Garam means hot, Masala means mixture, Hot mixture. Ta-da!

This is the stuff I buy from the UK,
http://www.rajahspices.co.uk/spices5.htm
widely available in UK supermarkets, never seen it here. A big bag costs a 3 or 4 quid and will last a year.

Generally dried spices are going to be inferior to fresh, cooking them in oil helps you get the useful flavours out - this is first year organic chemistry extraction. Cooking them up, making a sauce and freezing is likely to lead to further degradation of the flavour.

The curry paste I recommend in a jar comes from the same people who make the garam masala, but because it's stored in oil it keeps the flavour infinitely better than dried spices.
http://www.rajahspices.co.uk/pastes.htm
You can buy the mild and hot in most supermarkets in Finland, it's about €4,50 a jar and will do 2 to 3 curries. So it's far more expensive than using garam masala / dried spices, but will still add only €2 to the cost of a curry.

Garam masala or the curry paste goes in early.
Fresh corriander leaves don't tolerate heat, it'll just turn black and you'll get zero flavour out of it. Add corriander leaves immediately before serving.

Nice to serve it with raita, takes about 2 minutes to prepare - half a cucumber, grated roughly, squeeze out as much water as possible. Add about 300 ml natural yoghurt, 1 punnet of fresh mint (chopped), 1 teaspoon of mint sauce if you have it, a dash of ground black pepper (1/4 teaspoon), mix.

[Karhunkoski]

Cooking them up, making a sauce and freezing is likely to lead to further degradation of the flavour.

With respect, you may be missing the point of making the base sauce.

The base sauce doesn't really contain much flavour apart from garlic and ginger, the main thing is creating the texture, which doesn't degrade from a freeze-thaw cycle. The spices and flavours are added during the process when you make a curry using the thawed base.

Seriously Sini, either buy the book quoted, or scam a pdf copy from the net, and try it. I have spent 20 years trying to re-create a BIR style curry, and the only decent success I've had is with the recipe from this book. Farting around with curry paste is simply not in the same league.

Read the reviews if you're not convinced.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Curry-Secret-In ... 137&sr=8-1

[Karhunkoski]

Oh yeah, I've got the consistency perfect, it's just the flavours, seems a bit bland. I am using 1 teaspoon of each spice in my final curry is this enough do you think?

Buy the book, follow the recipes, produce wonderful results.

[Evertony]

Just got the e-book I like the no-nonsense simplicity of it. My curries are bound to improve following it. I didn't know they use green chillies in curries I was going to buy red, so this book has already come in useful!

Thanks for the recommendation!

[AldenG]

The base sauce doesn't really contain much flavour apart from garlic and ginger, the main thing is creating the texture, which doesn't degrade from a freeze-thaw cycle.

Although the right oil can add a bit of tang...

[Karhunkoski]

Just got the e-book

I can see you're a passionate BIR curryholic, so I feel properly happy for you. Keep in touch on progress!

[Karhunkoski]

The base sauce doesn't really contain much flavour apart from garlic and ginger, the main thing is creating the texture, which doesn't degrade from a freeze-thaw cycle.

Although the right oil can add a bit of tang...

Could you expand on that a bit? Do you mean chili oil? Or the fact that the flavour seems to develop better when oil is used liberally during cooking?

[Karhunkoski]

Just got the e-book

I can see you're a passionate BIR curryholic, so I feel properly happy for you. Keep in touch on progress!

Evertony



How is the curry making going? Success?