Dear Mamta... I found your site a few months ago and since then, I found myself making a variety of currys ( the broccoli one and the chickpea one ) are our favourites! But... I was wondering, the curries always taste lovely - even without ghee - but they never taste anything like a curry from the take away! WHY?! It can?t only be the absence of ghee... Can you help?

Thank you very much

Nicole

Ahhh.. I should maybe add that we live in Edinburgh, which apparently has pretty good indian food - its just different, and I am wondering why?!

Cheers

Hi, Nicole. The Indian restaurant foods are made using a base sauce - like most restaurant foods, many thing have to be prepared in advance for speed. The Indian restaurants make a base sauce, which basically consists of pureed onion, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, potato, carrot, green pepper, spices, water, vegetable oil and salt...obviously in varying quantities. I'm not a huge of Indian restaurant food myself, but i have experimented in the past with very good results. The restaurants even cook the meat in advance using some of the base sauce.

If you search the internet you will come across some good websites with recipes for making the base sauce you'll need to make restaurant style curries. Everyone seems to have their own base sauce, but they all work in the same way. I have my own recipe for making it somewhere on my hard drive.

I've never tried any of his recipes but Pat Chapman is seemingly often quoted for recipes 'like you get from the take away.'

Certainly take aways seem to be heavy handed on the oil and ingredients often include the contents from catering size jars of pataks!

'Indian restaurants' in the UK, (in fact nearly everywhere outside the subcontinent) are Indian in name only, usually run by non-Indians cooking anything but Indian food. Imagine a restaurant trying to serve food from all over Europe derived from one stock pot, and you get some sort of idea what the UK 'Indian restaurant' is like. All (most?) of the dishes from one restaurant taste the same, the same dish from two different restaurants taste different, its all down to that stock pot, and what goes into it (and what is left out!).

A typical dish from a UK restaurant would be like this:

fry meat of choice in plenty of oil. Add a few 'distinctive spices', say one teaspoon of chilli powder for a 'Madras', two for a vindaloo, three or more for a phall (only the vindaloo is known in India, and then not by many Indians). Add a dollop of the stock goo, and serve. Various fruit and 'special herbs and spices' add to the mystique (or magic) which try to promote the slop produced to a gourmet status, and fails miserably.

Mamta's (and others') recipes are those which reflect what is being cooked in Indian homes (whether in India or not!); add to that food typical of street vendors, special occassions and courtly dishes, and those from outside of India, and you can see how an Indian restaurant cannot possibly provide the true taste of India.

Having sampled a few 'Indian restaurants' in Scotland, I am afraid to say they are as bad as anywhere else I've had 'curries'. Mind you, compared with deep fried pizza, anything might be considered good!

Deep fried pizza? :-0 Sounds horrible... Isn't it in Scotland where you get deep fried mars bars from chop shops?

Chip shops*

deep fried 'mostly anything' in the land of the brave.

I came across the deep fried pizza whilst coming back from the Indian Embassy in Edinburgh, one day. Stop off along the borders, and went to a hitech fish and chop shop, where the temperatures of the deep fat fryers was dislayed on large red LED displays. Whilst waiting for my 'special' fish, I heard a server ask a customer if they wanted vinegar on their pizza, as I turned around assuming I had misheard, I saw the deep fried pizza!

The special fried fish turned out to be the thinnest filet of fish I've even seen fried in breadcrumbs, which was so overfried it was like eating sandpaper. IMHO, Scotland is rightly famous for a lot of excellent things, but food isn't any of them. [Love 'The Balvenie']

Now I'm a fan of a good boiled haggis, with tatties & neeps and a dram in the day, or even with baked beans at breakfast!

However in Glasgow I have seen the travesty of 'deep fried haggis and chips'. Even some Indian restaurants serve a 'haggis bhaji.' Both dishes should ideally be served with a generous dose of statin tablets.

Haggis Bhaji must be like Curried PIZZA, yuk! Though I am in favour of experimenting with flavours, it is fusion food gone too far, LOL!

Dear all... thanks so much for all the responses... In fact there are even haggis samosas, and as some of you pointed out, mostly everything does get deep fried, snickers, twix and mars bars with a dollop of ice cream is really tasty, a bit like a warm brownie type pasty!

Anyway, what I gathered is - if I follow Mamtas recipes I get the real indian food, and everything I order from the take away isn?t really indian...thanks for all the info

By the way, scottish food might not be famous, but Stovies and Haggis, Tatties and Neeps, are lovely if you like it - and you need to know where to go for the right fish supper :)

Taaaa and Cheers again

I would add that SOME dishes on some takeaway menus are nearer to the real deal than others. Those thick, gloopy, sweet, creamy things, not so much.

But the basic lamb curries, the tomato based ones, not far off in some cases.

And I often ask them to do me an egg curry, not on the menu, and it's not disimilar to mum's at all, they thicken the sauce a bit more but flavours are pretty accurate.

And some of the daals and vegetable dishes.

Though not the mutter paneer or sag paneer which for some reason most of them make too thick and gloopy and sweet, what's sweet doing in there for goodness sake!?

:)

What I find the most surprising/odd is that if I visit any Indian home all the cooking seems to be done by Wives/daughters yet all the takeaways have male chefs/cooks... maybe they should speak to their wives and ask them how its done ?

Steve

Males are getting better at cooking now in India, but it still is a traditional 'woman's job, not unlike here in UK a couple of generations ago. But you are right, most Indian men still consider it a woman?s job to cook. Most Indian MIL?s also think that it is their DIL?s job to take care of their son?s needs. They do not teach their sons to cook, like they do their daughters. These poor men have no idea what they are missing!

Many younger men in India are excellent cooks these days, I am thinking of most of the young men I know in my family/friends. Most of them work long hours during the week (most middle and senior executives do in India these days), cooking is a form of relaxation for them at the week-end. They are pretty good at it too. I have to say that my father and both my brothers were/are always interested in pottering around the kitchen. May be my nephews get it from their fathers ;-)!

The thing in India is that most of the middle class women still do not go out to work, they run the homes. So they cook. They often have help in cooking, if not full cooking then at least preparation of ingredients. Upper classes still manage to have ?cooks?. In poor families, women generally cook, but men do too.

When I first started cooking curry, I always wanted it to taste exactly like a restaurant/Takeaway thinking that's how a curry should taste. It took me years to figure it all out. Now that I realise how they are cooked and what goes into them, i've totally gone off them. They have about 5 tbsp of oil in each individual portion! After all those years of trying, I stumbled upon this website and i've never looked back. The recipes here are healthy, fresh, authentic, easy to make and very delicious. I won't say i'll never have another Takeaway curry but now I know what indian food should really taste like and I love it.

A good while back we went to an Indian Takeaway the night we returned home from a holiday (so no food in the house, shops shut at that time etc)... and the kitchen was open so you could watch... all very exciting with lots of flames and such..

but I was watching very closely...

2 different curries were ordered but more or less the same thing happened for each.

Using a serving type ladel, oil was added to the pan (from a big pan of warming ghee/oil), then a scoop of onion (fresh sat in a tub) them some extra spices (chilli, ginger, garlic etc depending on what you had ordered,would depend on how much chilli and if you needed extra cinnamon or extra cumin ...)... then the meat would go on.. by now it might need a little more oil... then a few ladels of premade and cooking in another pan "curry sauce" would go in, stir in well, maybe add spinach (or tomatoes / cream / fenugreek leaves again depending on the order)... and give if a few minutes before putting into the foil container... and then to my horror.. more ghee/oil would be poured over the top .. !

Steve

It is same as everywhere else Savs, I couldn't eat a pub or restaurant meal very often, no matter what country it was from. It is tasty, but you get fed up pretty fast :-). Another scientific reason (why you get fed up with restaurant food and not home food) for Lapis to explain!

Mamta

thats about it, Steve.

Its about time somebody told someone about the trade desciption act concerning 'Indian restaurants'. In Bradford (just outside, where Harry Ramsdens is located, the original one) I saw an 'Indian restaurant' which had a certificate in the window proclaiming it had a real tandoor oven, suggesting that many 'restaurants' offering tandoori food did not.

Even in little India in the East End of London, there are many 'restaurants' that only sell the slop we are talking about. However, my son is coming over from America (he lives in NY) and I bet he wants an authentic Indian meal in a restaurant. [he back packed around Asia , mostly India, for 14 months]. Luckily, there is a South Indian one around the corner or three, that makes masala dosa for breakfast, and as it seems to be only southern Indians that go there, it must be good?

In the main street there is a restaurant run by Indians that serve Halal Chinese food. How does that work?

So as fast as I am sucking any excess oil off a curry with a large (needleless) syringe there is an Indian Restaurateur down the road using a ladle putting it back on again for good measure!

Lapis - this is my local "Halal Chinese." Thought I'd share the video (not a recommendation as I have never eaten there) but with the sound track you'll agree is a classic East End medley of cultures!

http://www.reddragonrestaurant.co.uk/

Winton

Mamta, I'm not sure this is a scientific thing! A lot of what we like to eat is what we had when we were young, and equate the food we had then, with safey and comfort and family. I love salads and cold meats (I've often said I could live on cold meat salads (in the summer months) and BBQed food in winter). When I was growing up, my father (a headchef) would bring home loads of cooked meat, and Mum made salads and Dad made potato salad, which I love so much I eat far too much of it, made with homemade mayo, of course.

When we feel we need comfort, its the food we had as a child that we often long for. Sausage (or liver) and mash and onion gravy does it for me (and my brother). And although I came rather late (about 17 yo) to Indian food, within a year, my father said I could make a 'curry' better than he could. Of course, it was an English curry, curry powder and the rest. Imagine my astonishment when I bought my first real Indian cookery book (by Mrs Balbir Singh, I still have mine from University days, and another I bought with 'extra recipes') a whole new way at looking at food, and those flavours!

So, when we eat food, we make a mental note of it (or not!) and when we want to feel happy or safe or just comforted, it's our early years' experiences we look back to. Smells are very evocative, so must the smells be of Mum's kitchen. I remember my Grandmother's pork roast and my great Aunt's cabbage, and my Mum's coconut cakes, which put me off desiccated coconut for life!

Thank you for that Lapis. You are right, memories of food are very important. However, I think that different types of foods have different effects on brains of different people. Some people, that includes me, can not eat very rich food too often. I quickly begin to crave for simple things with less of spices and less of oil/ghee. It is not that I don't like rich food now and then, it is just that I can't have it for any length of time. I get fed up of it. It is probably to do with the fact that my parents loved simple, but quality fresh food and my memories of those tastes and smells bring me pleasure. But is it entirely that, my early experiences with food?

The other thing is that some people love and crave rich food all the time, to the detriment of their health and future wellbeing, and they are prepared to pay a heavy price for it health wise. This doesn?t necessarily have anything to do with their earlier experiences. There must be, has to be, some difference in their satiation centre and how it responds to the appearance, smells and taste of foods, to the sensations received from the tongue and a filling stomach. I don?t think that it is simply greed for food. Once we solve the puzzle of this, we will have answers to many health problems.

Lapis just for you - sausage mash and onion gravy (I made the other day)

or liver and onions (there recipe is on this site !...

Steve

Here is Steve's link;

Liver and Onions

...and that sausage and mash looks great Steve.

thanks Steve, feel hungry already! Too hot for this, so I'm going to get some Polish sausage and pickles!

Mamta, I think you, like me and many others, I suspect, are listening(?) to their bodies needs and wants. This may not be a very scientific thing to say, but it has been successful for me, and I suspect others. Its just a bit like having a drink when we are thirsty. So it is with food. OK, so we eat when we are hungry, but what do we chose to eat? If we listen to our bodies, we can get some idea of what we might be lacking, whether it be sugar, salt, vitamins, even fat! A balanced diet is all very well, but not always practical. We tend to binge (occassionally), and we need to balance this. Often, all I want is fruit, or a meat free day, or a sweet day. Or a semi fasting day. I know it seems like quackery, and I'm against anything like that, but as I get older, it seems to make more sense.

me again...with an odd question, maybe?! I hope I am not offending anybody with questions about how to make store bought foods, but at the bottom of my stair there is a small indian newsagent and... of course he does sell wee plastic bags of bombay mix , with chickpea noodles and lentils in it... its our treat for the weekend BUT how do you make that at home?! You probably will need to deep fry it ( horror!!!) but the spice selection is nice and it looks home made to me, its not in a commercial bag like the nisha mix

Ah I made paneer the other day, but it turned out rather crumbly - well I made one with skimmed 0,1 % milk and another one with skimmed 1,5 % milk...which is probably the reason? I also added chili,salt and ground coriander to the mix, it s good as a spread on toast, but I didnt dare to add it to my veggie curry , seeing that it was so crumbly...

Hello Nicole

Bombay mix has so many variations that it is difficult to give one recipe that will cover all varieties you buy in the shops. And yes, all ingredients are deep fried. Oven roasted just don?t taste the same.

I used to make it in old days when it was not so freely available in UK. It contains a lot of things;

Ganthia

A lot of Besan Sev

Fried Peanuts

It also has fried chickpeas, deep fried flattened rice, sometimes fried chana dal, which may be coloured a horrible green! It is tempered with curry leaves and mustard seeds. Turmeric is also added to hot oil, to give it a distinctive yellow colour. It has a LOT of salt, chillies, black pepper, tartaric acid powder etc. It may contain a few raisins.

It is not difficult to make but it is fiddly. Unless you eat a lot of it, buy it ready made. I can?t bring myself to make it, even to write the recipe, sorry!

As for paneer, try with 2 % fat milk next. It is true, low fat paneer is not as soft. Once hung to get rid of excess water, press it with a pan full of water, or something else heavy, and leave for a few hours. This will make it set into a firm cake which you can then slice into cubes.

some might not know what a sev maker is. Mine is like a brass cylinder, down the middle of which is a screw threaded rod and disc, with a handle connected at one end. The other end is closed by another brass disc with holes in. The tube is filled with the sev mixture, then extruded through the holes in the disc by the pressure from the screw mechanism, a bit like a syringe. The mix falls into hot oil.

I got mine a few years ago but is 'lost' at this senior moment. Mine came with SEVeral different shaped holes, making differently shaped sev.

A little ajwain in the mix can give an authentic flavour.

Mine is like this one, but made of brass.

http://www.spicesofindia.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?SS=sev+maker&PR=-1&TB=A&SHOP=

I picked a shiny one, but the man in the shop looked at me, and said the brass one was stronger. He must have been looking at my muscles!!

I'm going to have to get one of those to add to my ever increasing collection of kitchen gadgets. The other half will be pleased :-)

I guess I ll keep supporting the wee shop downstairs then...and now I ll go make your lovely chickpea curry for dinner...thanks so much for all the very inspiring recipes, greatly appreciated by my husband and my tummy !!!

I checked at the Indain shop locally today, the Sev maker was ?8.75.

I am have also made chickpea curry today, for tomorrow. Today, I am going to RFH to a Ravi Shankar Sitar Concert

uhhh.. well then have lots of fun at the concert :)

I hope I didnt sully the chickpea curry by adding a few chunks of aubergine ... and I wish biryanis didnt sound like so much effort! Maybe I ll give them a try in a while, for now I ll keep to the veggie currys

Cheers

VERY VERY JEALOUS Mamta about you going to see Ravi Shankar. I have many of his CDs and I love them.

Cheers

Steve

Well, it was his music, but his daughter played with the Royal Philamonic orchestra. This is what it was;

First it was David Murphy conducting London Philharmonic Orchestra with John Adams' Shaker Loops and then Robert McDuffie performing Philip Glass' First Violin Concerto.

Last was Shankar's Symphony?s world premi?re for his 90th birthday, featuring his daughter Anoushka, with David Murphy conducting the London Philharmonic. The sitar was played by his daughter Anushka, not himself, though he was sitting in the front seats.