Food

Thai and Indian although having some crossover are completely different currys. Indian first. Ground Tumeric is in everything, ground cumin, ground coriander, garam masala (which is a combination), cardamom pods, star anise, cinnamon sticks, curry leaves (buy fresh and freeze), mustards seeds (brown and yellow), whole cumin seeds, cayenne pepper, ground asafoetida. Fresh ginger, chillies and garlic are a given.

Additionally for Thai you'll need lemon grass (can also be frozen), kaffir lime leaves, nam pla (fish sauce), green peppercorns. Fresh chillies, limes, coriander and galangal. Off the top of me head.

I can't recommend Madhur Jaffreys Curry Easy enough, buy it now.

Also, just buy the small jars from a supermarket, you can get massive deals if you buy big bags of spice from Indian shops but unless you're using it up it'll lose flavour due to exposure to light and air.

Oh and curries are in bowls not square plates. x

Edit: Didn't refresh the page.

I never cooked a curry dish in my entire life.

Leaving on the side the recipes for the moment, what basic set of spices do I need to gather for Thai/Indian currys? Where do I get them in North/East London? I want an authentic place..

For Indian dishes, you don't need an 'authentic' place to buy spices. Bog-standard TRS or similar bags, which you can get just about everywhere, will do. Obviously, you can go to Green Street or Southall. There are various Indian/Pakistani shops in NE London which have a larger selection, such as Lajpur Foods in Cazenove Road. Much missed is VG Foods in Stoke Newington High Street, which closed a few years ago. They had everything.

The basic needs: Fresh garlic and ginger. Turmeric/kurkuma, chilli, coriander, jeera (cumin), garam masala (spice mixture) powders. Standard curry spicing is one unit turmeric powder, half a unit chilli powder, and two units coriander powder, but you can vary that to your heart's content when you're more experienced. Coriander seeds and jeera seeds. Also dried red chillies and fresh green ones. (I like bullet chillies the best.)

Less basic: Cardamoms (green or black), cinnamon or cassia (powder and bark), curry leaves, black mustard seeds, tamarind (not technically a spice but used like one), kalonji seeds, ground nutmeg, asafoetida, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, panch phoron (spice mixture).

For Thai, it's worth going to one or several of the South Vietnamese shops on Mare Street to find lots of other leaves and ingredients that are used in SE Asian cuisine.

Basic: Galangal (root), shallots, fresh lemongrass, coconut milk, chillies, chilli powder, garlic, lime zest, coriander seeds, jeera seeds.

As I'm vegan, I obviously don't use it, but fish sauce is a common ingredient. I'd recommend avoiding it, not only because of the vegan thing, but also because as with anchovies it can lead to lazy cooking and not working on the flavour properly, which isn't what you want when you're just learning to cook in a particular style (not that I think it'll take you long to pick this up, as you're evidently an excellent cook).

I often do a lamb curry majoring on cumin and fennel, based broadly on an old Jamie Oliver recipe called Peter's Lamb curry.
I use lamb neck fillet, I don't bother browning it first, make sure it cooks long and slow, add half a cupful of whisked yoghurt slowly (to prevent splitting) at the end. Delish every time.