Re: Can it be Curry?

On 6/21/12 12:07 PM, Jette Goldie wrote:
> On 21/06/2012 17:50, Sibyl Smirl wrote:
>> On 6/21/12 7:50 AM, Grey Malkin wrote:
>>>>> Something else I need to learn to cook, then?
>>>>
>>>> You could do at that. But don't worry -- they don't have to be
>>>> complicated.
>>>
>>> Oh, good. I don't like complicated....
>>
>> It's easy enough to make an amateur American curry, I used to do it
>> all the time when I was the cooking half of a young couple and broke.
>> Authentic cooks mix their own curry powder seasoning, and every one is
>> a little bit different, but you can buy just "curry powder" on the
>> spice rack at the store. The brands vary enormously in hotness, so
>> it's best for a beginner to start with just a little, like a teaspoon,
>> and then judge if you want more and hotter for the next time (it needs
>> to be cooked at the beginning, so you can't really "add more to taste"
>> at the end).
>>
>> The way I do it is to chop an onion, maybe with garlic, and fry it in
>> a little oil with the curry powder, then make a "white" sauce or gravy
>> beginning with that oil. For super-simple, add a can of condensed
>> mushroom or cream of chicken soup, with a little liquid, probably
>> water. Then add whatever meat you're using-- chopped leftover
>> chicken, canned tuna, whatever. When it's about the right thickness,
>> serve over cooked rice, like spaghetti sauce on spaghetti. There
>> should be a "sambal", served separately (fancy banquets may have a
>> dozen sambals, all in separate dishes so one can have one's choice) to
>> sprinkle on the top by the eater at serving. They might be such as
>> raisins, sliced bananas, chopped onions, peanuts, crumbled crisp
>> bacon, snipped chives or green onions, on and on.
>>
>> You can get very elaborate from there, but that's the basic idea.
>>
>>
>>
>
> Huh?
>
> Start by heating the oil, fry your onions (some curries call for a lot
> of onions, others just a little) and adding the spices, then brown the
> meat - not pre-cooked left over meat - raw meat. Beef, chicken, lamb -
> I favour lamb, myself. Curry is a stew and the meat should be cooked
> with the spices, simmered gently for a while - sometimes even left
> overnight to cool and then re-heated next day so that the spices infuse
> the meat. I cannot imagine a curry made with canned condensed soup.
> <shudder>

Every one is different, really. I'd rather make a gravy or white sauce
from the beginning, myself, but a lot of Americans _do_ use canned soup
for gravy or white sauce to make it easier, and Laurie wanted "simple".
Your way is nice if you're using fresh meat for the meat, but again, I
described "simplest" and said you could go on from there as you liked,
if you like the curry flavor and want to get more authentic, either
British authentic, Scottish authentic, or India authentic. Mine was
American "get a cheap supper in a hurry, that tastes good" authentic.

But it's not a casserole, it's not all mixed and cooked together, any
more than canned spaghetti that's already saturated with its sauce is
"spaghetti". The canned spaghetti is the "spaghetti casserole". You
could better call it "stew on top of rice" (which is also possible for a
supper, but if the rice is cooked _in_ the stew, that's all stew.)


--

Sibyl Smirl
mailto:polycarpa3@ckt.net
Asperges me, Domine!