BEST Indian Curry Masterclass, One Base for 100 Recipes | Curry Paste

this curry paste that I'm going to make is the simplest of any curry paste from northern part of India and with this paste you can make curry for vegetables beans and any other recipes that you have been following where Curry is the base hello everyone my name is shrikanth and Welcome to our Channel happy belly fish today I'll be showing you how to make a simple curry paste there are a ton of recipes which are based on different curries on our Channel we have made curries with lentils we have made it with beans and some other vegetables and people quite often ask me can I freeze this can I freeze that and here's the problem with freezing that I have that when you freeze something for too long and then you reheat it again you lose a certain texture of it and it doesn't taste the same again which is why this curry paste that we are going to make this is something that you can freeze you can reheat along with the other vegetables or any other thing that you want to add let's say even meat and it will taste great it will not taste like somebody made it like in the previous Ice Age but before you learn to make something let's unlearn a couple of things and to do that you need to understand the common mistakes that people do when they are trying to make an Indian curry first mistake that people do is that they chop the onion and the Tomato in large chunks so it never actually dissolves to become a homogeneous paste the second mistake that people do is that they often add too much water and then it becomes like a soup or they add too much oil when they see that everything is sticking to the pan the third mistake that they do is that they don't cook the curry base long enough so there is a lot of rawness and it's pretty unpleasant the fourth mistake is that they end up adding too much of this store-bought curry powder and that happens because they think that the only thing that's going to flavor their food is this curry powder which is completely wrong and that is exactly what we're going to learn today how to make a simple curry extremely flavorful and tasty and who knows by the end of this video and if you're going to try making this at home home so you will be throwing away that curry powder that you never liked in the first place but first before we move further please don't forget to like share and subscribe so that we feel supported in bringing more such content so that you can cook better and live healthier now to make this curry paste you will need just eight ingredients in total and most of which you probably already know so what are the ingredients that you will need you will need one medium sized onion or roughly 100 grams of it 2 medium sized Tomatoes or 200 grams each will be roughly the same size of an onion a teaspoon of ginger and garlic paste and I'm going to show you how you can make it at home to make it you just need roughly equal proportion of ginger and garlic peel the skin of the garlic and the ginger and then blend it together with a little bit of water this water that you're adding will help you grind it into a fine smooth paste and if you want it only for one time use then just use your mortar and pestle and crush them very finely and to get the color flavor and Aroma you will need the four basic spices in Indian cooking turmeric red chilli powder coriander powder and cumin powder and now the other ingredient which is the onion and tomato you can either chop them really fine or you can even puree them so if you are going to use a lot less oil than in most of the recipes that you will see then it's better and more advisable to actually puree the onion otherwise just chop them fine when blending make sure you do not add a lot of water otherwise you will end up with a slurry and that's not really easy to cook it will take forever and the flavor will not really come out fresh green chili is an optional ingredient for those who would like to have the food extra hot alright so I hope the ingredients so far are it wasn't really hard to prepare right now preparing the curry paste or actually making it with the spices is even easier you will just have to stand in front of the stub for some time so you can bring some nice music and just follow the instructions place a pan or a wok or any utensil that you have it has a thick bottom and that's important because if the pan is really thin everything that you're gonna put into it is going to burn very fast now keep it on medium heat and add any oil any oil of your choice but if you were to ask me what oils do I use then the best oils to use here are ghee sesame oil mustard oil or peanut oil when the oil is hot enough then add the onion paste along with the ginger and garlic paste you will hear the spluttering sound and the smell of Ginger and onion and garlic will actually start to overwhelm me mix and stir well and if it is sticking to the pan then either the heat is too high or it might need some more oil this should take about three to four minutes on medium heat to cook the Raw smell of onion garlic and ginger will fade away and it will Brown a little bit it really depends on the type of onion you're using when we actually make curry we go for the red onions but if you don't have it you just get white onions in your place or if Red Onion is very expensive which I have seen then just use your white onion and cook it a little longer so is your Curry ready of course not you need to add the spices these are the spices that you will add in these proportions one tablespoon of coriander powder half a tablespoon of cumin powder this ratio is very important coriander is more than cumin otherwise your gravy will turn dark and also bitter half a teaspoon of turmeric powder and one teaspoon of red chili powder you can increase the amount of red chili powder here if you want your food to be really hot but if you end up adding too much chili powder just because you like your food hot then the only thing that you're going to taste here is chili and other flavors will kind of get lost if you ask me which chili powder should you use use then my suggestion would be kashmiri red chili powder and you will find this in most of the Indian spice stores and the nice thing about this chili powder is that it will give a nice rich red color to the gravy without making it too hot but if paprika is all that you have in your kitchen then you can absolutely use it but make sure you understand this paprika that it's not too hot or if it's very sweet or if it's just going to give you color then the balance will be missing so you need some amount of heat there and let's say you have sweet paprika at home then you can take a green chili a fresh green chili just slice it take the seeds out and then add it so you kind of get your heat that you want in your Curry that's it these are the four spices that you will need but let's say you bought this curry powder or garam masala then pay attention to the list of ingredients it will have more things in it like clove pepper cardamom and all those things you can add just a teaspoon of that powder in the curry now like in the curry paste that you have made to get some more flavor some more Aroma but it is not necessary and this is one of the mistakes that people often do they make this space they fry the onion tomato and then they take this whole lot of garam masala or the curry powder and they put it and they say like it was overwhelming that they cannot eat it every day this curry paste that I'm making you can actually eat it every day because it has the most basic spices that is not going to bring you any harm curry powder and garam masala they have a lot of strong spices in them and this kills the flavor of the vegetables so if you are going to add it remember you need to add just a little bit of it now cook it for just about a minute and add water if needed so that you can mix it more uniformly add the tomato puree now and once again mix everything nicely and one very important thing that I would like to say here is that if you're going to use tomato puree that you bought it at the store then it will be thicker so reduce the quantity by half and if you're going to use tomato paste or passata then just use two tablespoons of it and not more so the mix is ready but you need to cook it for five more minutes and the paste in the pan needs to start thickening and drying out a little bit so that the raw Aroma of tomato onion garlic and ginger kind of mellow stuff you will notice that at the edges some amount of oil is separating out it's ready now so we'll take it off the flame and let it cool for some time before we store it in a bottle if you notice I have not added any salt here I think it is better to add it when you're actually using it in a recipe now that the curry paste is ready what do you do with it the use depends on what you're cooking to help you with some ideas you can add some cauliflower florets green peas potato and some water and cook it together of course like don't serve it raw just like that cook it together until all the vegetables are cooked and you have a nice thick and very rich and flavorful gravy and some other Inspirations can be that you can add paneer or tofu or you know even just peas if you have the frozen ones or frozen vegetables or steamed vegetables and make it something really flavorful interesting and tasty that you can actually take it with you in your lunchbox every day and make your colleagues feel really jealous I often use it when I cook red kidney beans or chickpea and chicken or lamb one basic recipe and this can be starting point for everything else and now let me show you how I'm going to make a classic chickpea curry with this curry paste you need cooked chickpeas for this we are not going to cook the raw Chickpea in this curry paste that doesn't work like that you need to soak the chickpea then boil it or cook it and then it's ready and if you cannot do that you don't have time for that you can even buy good canned chickpeas and while I'm using it I'm also going to show you how I'm going to make a small variation in this curry paste and believe me it will taste just amazing and you will also learn something new here now this part is completely optional you don't have to do this you can just cook the cooked chickpeas in this curry paste and you are done that will taste just as great but remember I told you you also need to learn some variations so that you can make interesting things every day so I'm going to add some extra spices bay leaf the Indian bay leaf not the Laurel bay leaf then an inch of cinnamon four to five green cardamom and five cloves I'm going to heat some oil in a pan and add these spices into it the heat has to be on medium remember not too low and not too hot and in roughly a minute or two you will start noticing a nice rich Aroma which is filling the air and that's when you will add the curry paste that you just made I'm adding roughly four to five tablespoons of it the curry paste is already cooked so you don't have to cook for too much you will not waste a lot of time now add the cooked chickpea add more water if you like your Curry to be thinner or more like a soup but I would not actually recommend that you will lose all the flavor in it cook it for a further five minutes and when you hear this boiling sound your chickpea Curry is ready simple isn't it now let me show you how you can do the variation when you are done cooking the chickpea and towards the end how you can vary the taste so here are some dried fenugreek leaves it has this nice Umami flavor some bitterness to it so I'm going to add it to the chickpea you can also add some other fresh herbs like you have parsley you have coriander leaves you can even add that and you will get a completely different flavor and on any other day when you're cooking something else you can add some cashew cream or you can add yogurt and alter the taste of this gravy for those who would like to cook chicken in this curry paste then don't add a lot of water and then boil the meat or chicken with it so when you make chicken you need to heat the oil and you will need a lot more oil then you add the curry paste this curry paste is already cooked and then add the chicken the chicken can be marinated or not if you don't have much time for it and then you need to keep cooking without adding a lot of water in fact add no water at all you need to keep cooking until it is cooked and in between you need to keep covering the pot with the lid this is a very important thing when you cook your chicken this way your chicken believe me will turn out to be more flavorful like I said before this paste is a lifesaver for busy people people who want to eat home-cooked food healthy food every day but lack the time and inspiration to get into the kitchen take the cooked lentil or beans or frozen vegetables if you are short on time and then just add it to your paste cook it together if you have a microwave you can even do it there and you're done if you want more such simple recipes and a lot of inspiration then please make sure you visit our website happybillyfish.com you will find the link to our website in the description of this video below and not just that they there is also a free spice guide that you can download from there let me know in the comments if you're going to make this and do not forget to hit the right buttons below and show us your appreciation and I will see you soon in the next video

Channel: Happy Bellyfish

Views: 130,140

Keywords: indian food, indian food recipe, indian curry, indian curry recipe, curry recipe, curry paste recipe, curry powder recipe, how to make curry

Id: psrRIBkjHB0

Length: 12min 44sec (764 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 27 2022