I'am trying to make base gravy what i've seen made by the chef cook, in the days i was working in an UK style Indian restaurant. It's almost 15 years ago. But my problem is that the gravy i make, doesn't have that sweet additional flavour.

-Those days when customers asked for Mala soup we add some lentils and water in this gravy, cook it for about 10 minutes and we could serve a delicious soup.

• The same for "vegetable curry". Add some pre-cooked cauliflower and patatos with some water, and we've had a delicisous vegetable curry.

the amount i make is small. I use 2 medium chopped unions with a a few ts of garlic-ginger paste. cook it with vegetable oil and a some water for about an hour on a very low fire. after cooling down add a half thin of plumped tomatous and add it in the blender. Add water and spice mix and cook it for a half an hour until the oil come to the surface. But unfornunatly the taste is bitter. It doesn't have that sweet nutty flavour it used to.

Do i have to add cane sugar or am i missing something else ?

if you soften and brown onions their own sugars carmalise and become sweet...

if you over cook/burn garlic it becomes bitter...

so maybe you need to adjust when you put the ingredients into the pan ?

Steve

I am only guessing...

Mala curry could be from Malabari Indian cuisine from Malabar or it could be Chinese influenced, made from ?Mala? paste. According to Wikipedia, Mala Paste is made of Szechuan peppercorns, chilli pepper and various spices simmered with oil. Malabar curry recipes are easily available on the web, take a look at a few to see if they look familiar. They often have coconut.

?Mala soup we add some lentils and water in this gravy, cook it for about 10 minutes and we could serve a delicious soup.? This leads me to think that you probably used Mala Szechuan Paste and it was not entirely an Indian curry. Restaurants do that sometimes. Mind you, coastal cuisine of India is often influenced by sea travellers/traders from around the world, so it is possible that Malabaries use Chinese Mala paste too.

From what you say about making curry sauce, you are using the common method of frying garlic, onion etc. in oil. Are you making it too brown or burning it causing it to be bitter?

It is possible that at the restaurant you worked at, they added a little sugar to caramelise the onions, also imparting a sweet taste to the curry. It is worth a try. Just make sure that onions/ginger/garlic do not get burnt, or they will become a little bitter.

Thank you all for the comments.

finally i added some cane sugar, more oil and the right amount of salt. The taste was still not giving satisfaction but it was closer. When i used it the next day (after one night kept in the refrigerator) for another curry, i noticed that the gravy had become a much better aroma ! Now i can say that i can make the same gravy as my former chefcook! ;) never thought that keeping it one day, could have so much effect on the taste of gravy ?? think this has something to do with chemistry :))