"The Curry Secret: Indian Restaurant Cookery at Home" by Kris Dhillon
Thanks to Amazon I am now the proud owner of four new curry books! Very exciting stuff for me. I've gone for quite a diverse selection, so it should be an interesting mix of old & new.
The first to arrive is a very dated looking book called,
It was a best seller at some point, but can now be picked up for the princely sum of 1p. Yes 1p. I'm not sure there can be a better way to spend a penny. Well, you know what i mean. First published in 1989, it was updated & re-published in 2008. Back by popular demand, so it must be good eh?
It's written by an Indian restaurant owner & chef who spills the beans on restaurant 'tricks of the trade'. I'm yet to put it to the test but am already learning some top tips. Loving it!
For instance...I love the mint sauce that comes with onion bhaji & popadoms. I have tried making it at home with fresh mint, chilli etc. It tasted good, but entirely different. Until now...
The first cheat is to use mint sauce (the same sauce that would accompany roast lamb!). That was a revelation to me, not sure why... Other additions are fresh garam masala, chilli powder & amchoor.
Amchoor is dried mango powder, which I had no idea about until today, but have probably eaten a thousand times in curries. It has gone straight to the top of my ever-growing obscure ingredients shopping list! A quick look online has shown it's a doddle to get. All the big manufacturers of spice etc do it (ie Natco) , so it's probably been staring me in the face at the supermarket for years.
So..
Mint Sauce (the 1980's Indian restaurant way)
150ml plain yoghurt
2tsp mint sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp amchoor
1/2 level tsp caster sugar
2 drops of green food colouring (I might give this a miss!)
I'll update this once it's been tested!..
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