Food

Anyone have an answer to this? Please...

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I will shop them before the weekend and see if I can get something done. I know there are many differences between Thai and Indian currys, but I was also aware of some crossovers.

Many thanks for the list!

Don't worry for that, I'll get a square bowl.

Don't buy ground spices (except turmeric). Buy cumin(and black cumin, also called onion seeds I think), mustard(yellow, red, black), coridaner, fenugreek (I'd forgive you for getting ground, this is a bugger to crush up), fennel - all seeds. Put them in a hot dry pan and toast them until you can hear them start to pop and crackle. Then transfer to a big pestle and mortar and grind them up until fine. Then add the turmeric. Every time I make a curry I use more spices. Go fucking crazy; the lovely thing about Indian curries is that you can just keep adding more flavours and it really works. For a 4 person curry I use something approaching half a cup of ground spices now.

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).

Don't buy ground spices (except turmeric).

That's an option, of course. I tried it a few years ago but ended up finding it too much for everyday cooking. I suppose my palate is probably not good enough to taste the difference all the time.

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.

Part of the reason is freshness - ground spices go stale much faster than whole seeds, I think. And toasting them really wakes up the flavours.
Peckham people - you probably already know this - Khan's has an awesome selection of spices. Stock up there.

Oh and go to an indian grocer to buy the spices in plastic bags, much cheaper than the little jars from supermarket. And invest in a cast iron skillet for toasting and a heavy stone pestle & mortar for crushing.

@inchpincher, @Oliver Schick, @bashthebox and @Olly398

Thank you all for the tips, I have a five course prawn based meal lined up for Saturday, I'll see if I feel brave enough to wing in a yellow curry dish, will let you know the outcome/ask you advices!

yellow curry

hmm, thai then, appx spice mix required > http://www.templeofthai.com/cooking/curry-by-color.php

mae ploy brand or gtfo.

There's my local Hing Yip on cally road which was well stocked for the North.
China town is still great for both your Asian needs.
Don't skip the fish sauce. Umami.

I've tried a lot of coconut milk, but surprisingly the sainsburys one is coming out on top. Greene-blue label on the can.

Palm sugar is another essential ingredient.
I've still got loads of kaffir lime leaves if you want em @ N7

Palm sugar/jageree is ace. Keep meaning to make ice cream from it too.

I do appreciate fish sauce as well indeed, and I have used the green/blue can before, approved.

I also think I've been to the local store on Cally road you re talking about, the one that has calculators on the window?

I may swing by Sat morning to get some leaves, I'll let you know

Wow intense. I'll trade u some of my next batch of mango ice cream.

Sat morning

Cool! No probs.

@croft Does she do spicy? If so then this black pepper tofu is delicious: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/25/vegetarian-recipes-black-pepper-tofu

@giofox88 My mum is Pakistani and she always uses pre-ground spices which she buys in bulk and keeps in jars. I always grind mine fresh and my mum's food still tastes better. If you enjoy the theatre of cooking which I think you do, then you'll enjoy the experience of toasting the spices and grinding them yourself, but it won't necessarily make a huge difference to the flavour. It will make everyone who comes round think your food is amazing because you get this beautifully fragrant scent from the toasting and grinding.

Mother NurseHolliday's top tip number 1: Don't add the spices into the curry, fry them with your onion and garlic to get them working, you can always tell when someone's added spices after the curry has been made as you get a gritty taste. If you need to add some spices once your curry is made, fry them first then add them.

Mother NurseHolliday's top tip number 2: Go easy on the onion, too much onion makes your curry sweet.

Mother NurseHolliday's top tip number 3: Go easy on the tomatoes, too many tomatoes make your curry a bit soupy and washes out the flavour.

A tip I learned from Rick Stein(!) was to use red onions instead of white and I really like the difference in flavour, my mum has even switched to red since I told her about it.

Perhaps try making a dal or sambar first. Very basic dishes and excellent as sides. The saying is that if you can make a good sambar, you can make any dish.

Part of the reason is freshness - ground spices go stale much faster than whole seeds, I think. And toasting them really wakes up the flavours.

I'm with Mother NurseHolliday on this. :)

Don't skip the fish sauce. Umami.

You can get umami without it--fish sauce is just a lazy shortcut to that.

Out of interest, how?

I cook Indian for a vegetarian audience quite frequently.

Mother NurseHolliday's top tip number 1: Don't add the spices into the curry, fry them with your onion and garlic to get them working, you can always tell when someone's added spices after the curry has been made as you get a gritty taste. If you need to add some spices once your curry is made, fry them first then add them.

Yes, part of why Indian method is sometimes called 'scientific' is because things are added at the right time. Onion, garlic, ginger, chillies (and whatever else is cooked with them initially) effectively become part of the underlying masala this way.

Mother NurseHolliday's top tip number 3: Go easy on the tomatoes, too many tomatoes make your curry a bit soupy and washes out the flavour.

Well, that depends on what you're cooking, doesn't it? If you're doing a tomato curry, you don't want to go easy on them. :) In other recipes, if tomatoes feature the other ingredients should be appropriate for them (e.g., one of my favourites, blending them with fennel seeds and garlic, in which the tomatoes very much help enhance the flavour rather than 'washing out' the flavour). Iif you want to avoid 'soupiness' if you're improvising, there are other ways of adjusting spicing, and/or ensure that the tomatoes are reduced appropriately and not too watery. Tomato purée is your friend. Tomato quality also varies widely. (I got some dried Greek cherry tomatoes the other week which I'm slowly using up. They're lovely.) Then again, everybody tastes things slightly differently, and I just happen to really like tomatoes.

A tip I learned from Rick Stein(!) was to use red onions instead of white and I really like the difference in flavour, my mum has even switched to red since I told her about it.

Or use shallots, which have an even better flavour. They're a bit of a pain to prepare, though, which is why few people bother. I always find it's worth the effort, though.

Nah, I'll go with the prawn one..

I have been craving it the whole day, plus I'm set to go to Billingsgate on Saturday morning, 3kg of prawns for 20£ is just too worth it not to go.

Out of interest, how?

Here's an article that explains some of it and gives some examples of methods:

http://www.thecitycook.com/cooking/advice/general/000058

There's an umami element in many things and it's easily destroyed by wrong method. I find the most important thing is to cook things well, though. I've often got the same recipe to be umami or not umami just by making or not making mistakes. Of course, we've all had the dishes that didn't work and added some soy sauce at the end to 'rescue' them. :) My first taste of umami was always about tomatoes (often puréed) and garlic, as these were just about the only ingredients with those properties that I knew. It was only much later that I discovered other things.

I cook Indian for a vegetarian audience quite frequently.

I wouldn't apply this to Indian cooking. Umami as such isn't a dominant element in most Indian dishes, and if you're putting any of the ingredients (except perhaps some of the mushrooms) listed in the article into your Indian dishes, you're doing something wrong.

On the onion thing - I cut a little VT with a chaat streetfood vendor, and he was banging on about Indian red onions, which are sweeter than our normal ones. He got his in Tooting, but I've not seen them in my neck of the woods.