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A curry using fresh turmeric, with pilau rice.

 
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kenhutton



Joined: 14 Oct 2005
Posts: 4
Location: Manchester, England

PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 10:41 am    Post subject: A curry using fresh turmeric, with pilau rice. Reply with quote

Fairly recently, a "World Food Store" opened on oxford road in Manchester. Visiting this store the other day, I was impressed by the amount of different fruit and veg available. The labelling of all this is quite poor, and so I immediately decided that each time i visit this store, I will buy something I can't identify and try to cook a meal with it.
On this occasion, I bought something that looked like a reddish-orange ginger root.
From the smell, and bright yellow stains produced when I peeled and sliced the root I quickly identified it as turmeric. I usually use ground turmeric in a curry, and often add fresh ginger too, so it wasn't hard to decide how to use it. I made a chicken curry accompanied by pilau rice.
The curry recipie also includes tamarind. This can be bought in compressed blocks either with, or without seeds. It is quite readily available in England, but I don't know how easy it would be to find in other countries. If you can't get turneric, you can add the juice of a lime for a similar flavour, or just leave it out.
The golden rule of making curries is that anything goes. If you change the ingredients you will get a different flavour, but almost always a good one, as long as you use good ingredients and cook them properly. You can fine tune the flavour at the end of cooking with ingredients like: pepper, chilli powder, lemon juice, sugar (any kind, though brown works very well), honey, salt, coconut milk, cream, yoghurt, and pretty much anything else that doesn't need cooking. In indonesia, soy sauce is often added to curries, which can create some interesting flavours.

The curry:
- Heat a large pan, over a high flame and add 2-3 tablespoons of oil.

- Add some corriander seeds, a couple of dried chillies and a few cardamom pods (split the pods open before adding them to the oil, I still have a scar on my arm from the first time i tried this, and a cardamom pod burst from the pan and landed on my arm covered in hot oil).
The flavour from these spices will diffuse through the oil and after about a minute you should remove them from the pan. (But see fwendy's reply.)

- Reduce the heat to medium-low and fry a large, sliced onion with sliced turmeric and ginger. Save a few slices of turmeric for the rice. You can also add sliced fresh chilli at this point, although you needn't if you prefer a mild curry. The amount of chillies you add is purely a matter of taste. For a very hot curry, add both the flesh, and the seeds of the fruit.

- As the onions are frying, put about 2 cubic inches of tamarind in a bowl, add a couple of tablespoons of water, and rub the tamarind between your fingers until it is thoroughly mixed with the water. You should remove any seeds and also the 'stringy bits'. Ideally this will produce a fairly thick mixture (it doesn't actually matter for this recipie, but if you have a thick mixture you can add a little brown sugar to make a very simple chutney).

- When the onions have softened to the point that you can 'cut' them with a wooden spoon, add diced sweet potato, sliced chicken and fairly thickly sliced courgette.

- Stir this until the chicken is seared all over, then add the tamarind with about half a pint of chicken stock. (As alternatives to chicken stock, try a tin of tomatoes, or a tin of coconut milk for very different results.)
Turn the heat down to a low simmer, and proceed with cooking the rice.

The Pilau Rice
- Pour the required quantity of rice into a pan. Pour cold water over it, swish it about rapidly with your fingers, then drain the water off. Now rub the wet rice thouroughly between your fingers before washing it a second time. Drain it thoroughly through a sieve.

- With the washed rice back in the pan, add cold water to a level about 1/3 of an inch over the top of the rice (about 2/3 of an inch for brown rice).

- Bring the rice to the boil over a high flame and then reduce the heat to a firm simmer (ie not just bubbling a bit).

- Add a few slices of fresh turmeric, or about a teaspoon of powdered turmeric. This is mostly for colour, so add some other spices too. I usually use some ground corriander and a couple of cumin pods (these should be removed before serving). You can also add some sultanas at this point.
Stir the spices in (this is the only point during cooking that you should stir the rice).

- When the level of the water has dropped to the level of the rice (there should be small 'craters' in the top of the rice), turn to a low heat, and put a lid on the pan. Now leave it for 8-10 minutes.

- It should now be done. There should be no water in the bottom of the pan, and the rice should not be burned.
If there is still some water there, just give it a little longer. If the rice is a little burnt, eat it anyway. Some people prefer their rice burnt. The only real reason to try to avoid it is that it can make the washing up a little harder.

If you cook the rice while the curry simmers slowly, then they should both be finished at the same time. Don't feel you need to use the same meat or veg as i did, or the same spices for that matter. You can curry anything, and it will usually taste good.
I found that using fresh turmeric gave alot more flavour than the ground stuff i usually use. Even so, turmeric is a subtle flavour, and it is the other spices that add character to this dish, whilst the turmeric adds some depth to the flavour, and dramatically changes the colour.

One note of warning though: turmeric doesn't just add colour to the food. It stains everything it comes into contact with. It can be very difficult to remove from clothes and even my chopping board has yet to recover. From this perspective, ground turmeric certainly has advantages over the fresh stuff.


Last edited by kenhutton on Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:41 pm; edited 1 time in total
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fwendy



Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 19
Location: UK

PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 1:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting post - I live in a rural area of England and haven't seen fresh turmeric.

When you say split cumin pods, do you mean cardamom? Cumin seeds are small long seeds shaped like caraway seeds and don't need removing from pods.

There are so many points in your recipe descriptions that I disagree with that I don't know where to start. These are the most important differences when I cook a curry

a) I wouldn't remove the whole spices after the first frying - I would leave them in for the whole cooking time.

b) I would cook a finely chopped mixture of onion, garlic and fresh ginger instead of sliced onions and ginger - this helps thicken the sauce.

c) I add a bigger variety of spices, including a sprinkle of garam masala at the end of the cooking time. Using just chilli for heat and removing the cumin and cardamom will not give enough flavour IMO. You are effectively only using ginger for flavour.

d) When cooking pilau rice, any spices to be used are heated first in a little oil, before stirring in the rice, then adding water. This releases the flavour of the spices and coats each grain of rice with oil, making it more likely to keep separate.

e) If you measure the water added to the rice - 1 1/2 times the volume for Basmati rice, and cook with the lid on for ten minutes, then stand for another ten - there is no problem about boiling off excess water or occasionally burning it.

Try looking here for authentic curry recipes

http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/

if you enjoy what you are cooking, you will enjoy an authentic curry even more. Smile
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kenhutton



Joined: 14 Oct 2005
Posts: 4
Location: Manchester, England

PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

fwendy wrote:
When you say split cumin pods, do you mean cardamom? Cumin seeds are small long seeds shaped like caraway seeds and don't need removing from pods.

Yes i did mean cardamom, thanks for pointing out this mistake, and I'll correct the posting.

fwendy wrote:
a) I wouldn't remove the whole spices after the first frying - I would leave them in for the whole cooking time.

Do you remove the spices before eating, or do you leave them in?

fwendy wrote:
b) I would cook a finely chopped mixture of onion, garlic and fresh ginger instead of sliced onions and ginger - this helps thicken the sauce.

I sometimes do it this way too, but I like variety and just chopping the ingredients differently can greatly change the texture and appearance of the dish. I don't really think either way is better than the other.

fwendy wrote:
c) I add a bigger variety of spices, including a sprinkle of garam masala at the end of the cooking time. Using just chilli for heat and removing the cumin and cardamom will not give enough flavour IMO. You are effectively only using ginger for flavour.

i think I mentioned that other spices could be used, perhaps I should also mention that I deliberately kept the spices in this recipie quite simple so that I could easily tell the difference that the fresh turmeric made.

fwendy wrote:
d) When cooking pilau rice, any spices to be used are heated first in a little oil, before stirring in the rice, then adding water. This releases the flavour of the spices and coats each grain of rice with oil, making it more likely to keep separate.

Thanks for the tip. The recipie I used is really for steamed rice, but with added curry spices. I think I got the basic method from a chinese cookbook. It is much easier to use chopsticks if the rice grains stick together.
I will try doing it this way some time and see how it compares.

fwendy wrote:
e) If you measure the water added to the rice - 1 1/2 times the volume for Basmati rice, and cook with the lid on for ten minutes, then stand for another ten - there is no problem about boiling off excess water or occasionally burning it.

I only had these problems the first couple of times I cooked rice this way. But again, I'll try your method and see which I prefer.


Thanks for replying to my post, and thanks for the tips. I have never really been concerned with making authentic recipies. I often mix techniques and ingredients from different parts of the world if I think they will work together.
Which reminds me, perhaps I should post my "Dorset Mango Cake" recipie.
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fwendy



Joined: 12 Aug 2005
Posts: 19
Location: UK

PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 2:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would leave whole spices in the curry, unless they were really large, like whole cardamom pods, cinnamon sticks, whole dry chillies or curry leaves.

Other whole spices, besides cumin, that can be fried at the beginning stage of a curry are black mustard seeds and nigella (kalonji) seeds. Most of the others, including cardamoms, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon and fennel, I prefer to use as ground spices. The homemade garam masala I use at the moment contains black pepper, cloves, cinnamon and bay leaves ground together.

As you say - sticky rice is necessary for chopsticks, but natives of the Indian sub-continent don't use chopsticks.


I'm all for mixing and matching - I too have a Dorset Apple Cake that rarely has apples in it! I haven't tried mango, but peaches are nice! Smile
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