Last night I made my first curry dish from scratch, chicken curry Bengali. Overall it went very well and the flavour was amazing. I will definitely be trying my hand at more dishes in the future.

Something happened in the cooking process that I need some help with. All went well until I added the marinated chicken to the onions, garlic and ginger. The yogurt seemed to curdle and although it didn't seem to affect the flavour the final sauce was not as smooth as I was expecting. What did I do wrong? I had left the ingredients out so they were at room temperature to reduce the risk of curdling but that didn't seem to help.

Do you have any tips that would prevent this from happening in the future?

Was it skimmed milk or low fat yoghurt? That seems to curdle more easily.

Mamta

It was low fat organic yogurt. What would you suggest as an alternative ingredient?

Hello Debbie

Here are a few things you can do:

.Use full fat yoghurt, if possible. Skimmed milk yoghurt can sometimes curdle during cooking. If you wish to use low fat yoghurt, add 1 heaped teaspoon plain flour or corn flour per cup of yoghurt. This will stop it from curdling.

.Make sure that the dish you are cooking is at room temperature. If yoghurt is cooked straight from the fridge, it may curdle.

.When adding yoghurt during cooking, take out a few tablespoons of the hot food in a bowl, mix yoghurt, warming it a bit and then stir it back into the hot dish.

.Substitute sour cream for yoghurt, using only half the amount.

.Do not add vinegar or lemon to yogurt dish that needs cooking. However, I do this regularly when I am making a tandoori marinade, using yoghurt as well as lemon juice. It has never curdles on me, yet! I do however cook it after it has come up to room temperature.

I will try to add these tips to dishes using yoghurt.

Mamta

i made this curry today and i must say a big YUM, very nice indeed : ) i did have to add a little flour to thicken things up a little though, but it still tasted damn fine. Thank you for a great recipe!

Hello Debbie,

Madhur Jaffrey says add yoghurt one tablespoon at a time, stirring in each spoonful until it is properly incorporated before adding the next. I find this usually does the trick.

Hope this helps.

Phil