Various Curry Spice Mixes

[Mike D]

Hi Guys,

A bit of a long story, but here goes.... This week I did Oddley's Bonza Burgers and they are the best burgers I have EVER done and this got me thinking about precision spice mixing. In addition, a couple of weeks ago we went to Bolton Food & Drink Festival (Hairy Bikers, James Martin, amongst others, were there) and in the stalls selling various produce was this..

http://www.thetinytakeaway.com/ - pre-mixed and packed curry spices

Now, me & the OH do like a good curry, and we ended up buying a couple of the pre-mixed curry blends to use at a later date. Last week I just threw some stewing steak, onions, tomatoes and the powdered curry spices into a large pot, left it in the oven on a low heat to cook throughout the day. The end result was really good. This, and Oddleys precision Burger Mix, got the OH thinking (which means work for me ) and she 'asked' why we couldn't do this type of premade thing for curries at home as we have a cupboard full of spices, and it would save time.

My initial response was that we could, the coffee/spice grinder we have can provide a very fine powder, but the problem was finding the relevant spice recipes for Bhuna, Madras, Korai, Rogan-Josh, Vindaloo et al, along with quantities required for each spice and then working out how much of the blend to put in with the other ingredients i.e. in the precise manner we do with cures etc . She responded with "Do the sausage lads not know, as they are good with their spice percentages??", so what could I say, but post the question

Any ideas gratefully received, and tried!

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[Ianinfrance]

Goodness me,

Making curries isn't rocket science, and because you're not dealing with Nitrite, precision in measuring is entirely unnecessary.

I have found that most of the recipes from Mamta's kitchen are superb. If you have a look at them, you should be able to extrapolate quantities to use as a mix, if you really wanted to. What I do and recommend, and I've been cooking Indian food for over 50 years now, is to have all the spices, both whole and home ground - usually after parching - in jars and I simply add the various spices as needed for the quantities of whichever meat/veg I'm cooking. It takes so little time to measure them all out individually, that U don't see the putative time saving as being in any way worthwhile.

In many of the recipes you quote, you would add different mixes of spices at different times, so you would perhaps need "vindaloo 12, "vindaloo 2" and so on.

Here's a link to a recipe on her site for Beef Madras. http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_dis ... p?id=10573
By the way, her first explanation of the meaning of Vindaloo ( http://www.mamtaskitchen.com/recipe_dis ... p?id=13424
is wrong, because she's confusing two languages!

In Goa, which is where the recipe comes from, aloo is derived from alho - garlic and doesn't mean potatoes, so their addition comes about because most indian curry houses, were originally owned by Muslims, so a) they wouldn't use Pork, which is correct in this dish, and b) they added potatoes, because in their language, that's what aloo means.

However the recipe isn't at all bad, and would be even better if made with fatty pork. The purpose of the vindaloo spices and marinating is to preserve pork in temperatures and humidities where it would go off in less than a day without such techniques.

[Mike D]

Thanks for that Ian. I'll have a look at Mamta's kitchen. The reason we want to pre-mix is that it is easy to throw everything together at 7am and put it in the oven before going out to work.

We currently make curries by using fresh spices (we are fortunate that in both Bury & Bolton we have several Asian supermarkets and spices can be bought in large quantities - much better than your regular Tesco's etc)

The reason I said precise, is that Oddleys burgers were superb, and the herb & spice mix for those was pretty precise. It is good to have a point of reference to replicate a dish again.

[Ianinfrance]

Hi again Mike,

Thanks for that Ian. I'll have a look at Mamta's kitchen.

Do, you won't regret it.

The reason we want to pre-mix is that it is easy to throw everything together at 7am and put it in the oven before going out to work.

Yup, I do understand that, but usually, as I said, you would start by frying some whole spices in ghee, add onions etc then add the meat and fry that, possibly adding the ground spices before or after. So it's not really a matter of throwing in the lot with a load of spices and letting it simmer in the oven all day.

We currently make curries by using fresh spices (we are fortunate that in both Bury & Bolton we have several Asian supermarkets and spices can be bought in large quantities - much better than your regular Tesco's etc)

Agreed. I live in France and although I do have access to pretty good spices they are at an idiotic price, so I wait till we come to the UK, and head off to Atif's supermarket in Woking, where - by buying in near industrial quantities - I have enough to last me the year. The only thing that I can't get here for love or money that I'd like would be fresh root turmeric and fenugreek/curry leaves. But I can always bring them back fresh and freeze them.

The reason I said precise, is that Oddleys burgers were superb, and the herb & spice mix for those was pretty precise.

Indeed, and I've got the mix here and make my own version. But 1/4 tsp of something one way or another really won't make a deal of difference to the finished burgers. The quality and fat content of the meat and how long it's been hung would have easily as much - if not more influence on the finished burgers.