How to Finally Make Curry at Home that Doesn't Suck 🍛🍛🍛

I'm guessing you clicked on this video because you really like curry but maybe you tried it in the restaurant and it was really good and then you came home and you tried to recreate it at home and it was just alright subpar and that's totally understandable that was my journey with curry for years buts because I'm a pro home cook I had to dig a little deeper and I went in I learned some techniques I learned some skills and then years later I'm making incredible curry at home that's just as good as the restaurant stuff so that's what we're gonna be covering today I have one curry paste recipe that uses two standard ingredients that anyone can get and we're gonna be able to make three incredible curries that are completely unique and delicious so buckle up it is curry time so today I'm making one master curry paste that will be able to branch out to make three different curries from different regions in Asia and of course by doing that these recipes are not going to be 100% authentic that's not the point of this video and many of you know by now that's not really the point of my channel so I can't guarantee 100% authentic recipes but I can guarantee 100% deliciousness with your curry game you're gonna be increasing your curry skills and enhancing your curry flavor and what you see right here are a bunch of aromatics and I feel like when we think of curry we go straight to Thailand the curry paste because the Thai curry is so popular now and for very good reason it's absolutely delicious but today I've tried to formulate a curry paste that really takes advantage of a broad spectrum of flavors so here you can see a bunch of different flavors and these are aromatics and really aromatics are just herbs or spices or veggies that you cook down in oil or in water that end up releasing their flavor to enhance your dish and especially if you cook these in fats or oils you end up transforming these flavors that really build the foundation of flavor for your curry so I've got some cilantro I've got some turmeric I have some ginger some shallots some garlic some lemongrass here and then two types of chilies I have some Thai chilies and then some serrano chiles both green if you want your curry paste to be ready you would just use a whole bunch of red Chili's and I'm just gonna keep it simple with this base curry paste which gives me the ability to add on flavors later but of course if you're making a more traditional style curry paste you know you might be adding some ground spices you might be adding some mommy type flavors like a fish sauce or a shrimp paste but if I added those ingredients now in my curry paste the flavors would be too distinct to a certain dish which is not what I want and when I'm making three dishes all right so everything is set to go and remember it's not about getting all of these you might not be able to find some of these ingredients it's just about using what you have to build flavor so just a few notes I deseeded these Serrano's right here and then I'll just be adding these Thai chilies last I don't know what the spice level is on those so I'll first check the spice level with these and then add these probably like one by one and here you see cilantro and where are the leaves well the leaves are over here and the reason I'm doing just these stems is because traditional curry pastes in Thailand actually uses the roots and most cilantro is installed with the roots unless you go to a farmers market or you're in Thailand so the stems will still do a good job at that but if you do find the roots you can use those so this was a present given to me by my friend Derek a traditional Thai mortar and pestle the way you would actually hand pound curry paste and if you want to learn how to do that follow me Bistro right here he's making curry paste completely from scratch the traditional way but it takes like an hour and a half and a lot of effort so I'm definitely not using this I'm calling on my friend mr. food processor which is totally fine and by using a blade in the food processor compared to pounding it out with this guy right here you definitely won't be getting the optimal texture but it will still be fine this always happens to me I forget one of the ingredients in curry paste it's just so many ingredients to keep track of in goes the shallots back at it oh my eyes are getting slammed all right this has been going for about four minutes I'm gonna give it a sample to see the spicy levels and I'm not expecting this to tastes like pleasantly good that's not the point of a curry paste you know just spooning your mouth and like oh that's a delicious bite whew so spice is pretty good right now cuz I deseeded most of those Serrano's I don't know the spicy levels of these little Thai chilies I could be making a huge mistake right here if I was tired probably add 15 or 20 of these but my spice tolerance is weak and that's why it's nice to make your own curry paste so I'm just gonna go five and go from there all right that's been going for a good seven minutes you can see it's pretty smooth I'm happy with that oh and one more note this is kind of like yellowish green curry paste and the only difference between the colors is just the ingredients you added so the combination of ingredients the amounts this turned somewhere in between yellow and green so the first curry we're gonna be making with the curry paste is a beef rendang which is probably the most popular Indonesian curry but technically if you make this the authentic way it's actually not a curry at all because you're cooking down beef in coconut oil for so long that you're actually caramelizing the beef and drying the beef out so traditionally this was a technique used to preserve beef but we're not gonna take it that far we're still gonna be cooking this beef down for a while slow cooking so it's nice and tender and delicious but we're not actually preserving it and drying out so I would definitely call this a curry and I'm sure most people would as well and it takes advantage of an aromatic curry paste so it's perfect for what we made so let's get after this beef rendang prep for this dish is pretty simple all we have to do is cut up some beef and I'm using beef chuck right here which is a tougher cut and that's what you want for this dish because we are slow cooking this beef over time so it gets nice and tender and caramelized in the coconut milk and you can definitely use other cuts of meat for this dish but make sure it's something that is a little tougher that has more connective tissue that we can break down through a slow cooking process now I've got a heavy pot here for this curry and that's important because we are slow cooking so we want to maintain a nice even heat throughout the entire process and I'm gonna add some coconut oil to the pan because we are frying off that curry paste that is the first step in this dish but you can use any type of neutral oil really so now once that moisture is removed through the steam while you can slowly start to fry off this paste and really start to develop those flavors of the aromatics all right now it's time to add in those beef chunks and they're gonna go through the exact same process as the curry paste because there's a lot of excess moisture in the beef as well so at first it's not gonna look like much it's not gonna look very impressive at all but then once that beef releases the water it steams away well boom we're gonna start frying because that beef has a lot of fat and that coconut oil is already in there as well so now we've got double trouble going on we are frying this beef and this curry paste at the exact same time all right now let me show you something else ah look at that smooth that already looks sexy and we haven't even smoked up to it like if that was not a slow cooking cut you could eat that right there and it give me and also another thing to note you know and you're done separation that's what you want the curry paste has separated ready to move on to the coconut now it's time to add our coconut milk and you definitely want to use whole coconut milk you don't want the light stuff for this dish you want some nice fatty coconut milk and I'm using about a can and a half but really you're just trying to add enough coconut milk to cover your beef and once the coconut milk is added well it's time to add in some spices so here are some whole spices they're really gonna help intensify and deepen the flavor of this curry so I've got some cardamom pods right here one of my favorite spices some cumin seeds a little bit of star anis probably just one of those and a cinnamon stick so all of the flavor that this dish needs is in the pot so all we have to do now is give it time so I'm gonna put the lid on and put it on a nice gentle simmer and slow cook that beef for around an hour and a half to two hours and we're gonna check in on this to see how it's doing and probably an hour and a half all right check this out we've been cooking for one hour you can see the coconut milk just started dark in a bit and there's oil separation so that oil separation that's a good sign but keep it cracked open like this so we can start reducing that liquid because we want to really caramelize this coconut milk and this beef and get it all silky smooth and tender update time it's been just about 30 minutes with the lid cracked and we're looking good check that out so reducing so now what I think I'm going to do is just keep the lid off and let this go and now they're 15 30 minutes the beef is starting to fall apart but I want it nice and thick another update we're getting there see how Brown it's turning because that coconut milk is analyzing and you can see Thanks it's almost all oil from the fat in the coconut milk and the fat and the beef so we're pretty much just deep-frying this beef at this point and there's one more ingredient that I want to add at this point a baggie a baggie of what these are some coconut flakes toasted coconut flakes that I made I don't know few months ago and I want to add these to the dish closer to the end you can add these early on there's different techniques but I think it will just add some really nice texture and another layer of coconut flavor all right I am completely happy with that that oil separation and the coconut in there is just I mean it's looking out of control no wonder this is considered one of the most flavorful curries in the world so like I said you could give this super liquidy more of a thinner curry you can cook it down as much as you want I like a little bit of sauce in there so it infuses into the rice so this to me is the perfect texture we're starting off very very strong out the gate come on let's just see let's just take a quick look at the tenderness real quick pull on this is perfect it's not completely fall apart you don't want pulled beef you'd want tender be just holding on let me get the ultimate bite right here because when you cook something low and slow and you put in the patience you will find the reward okay here we go Wow I needed a second with that beef this my friends it does have a reputation for being the best curry in the world I don't know who gave it that title but I get it the flavor is in same it's butter in your mouth and all it is is beef on top of rice cooked in the most incredible way I love this dish but we're moving on we've got more courage to make all right curry paste number two curry number two is an Indian curry and I make this curry so much especially in the summer when the tomatoes are popping off and it's a really simple curry it's basically just a glorified tomato sauce with a few really important techniques that you have to nail down if you want to get this dish right and I love this dish because you can throw in anything this is gonna be vegetarian throw in whatever vegetables you have I'm just using what's in season what's fresh and what I think will work well in this tomato curry so let's get after it the prep for this dish again is very simple all I'm gonna do is chop up some fresh tomatoes and like I mentioned before I make this dish all the time in the summer because it's just so much better with fresh summer tomatoes you can use canned tomatoes it's not gonna have the same flavor I try to stay away from that but if that's all you have just go for it it will still taste pretty delicious once the tomatoes are cut up I'm gonna reserve those put them aside and I'm gonna move on to my veggies and the only additional veggie I'm using for this is some asparagus because that's what I had in my fridge but this is just a base tomato curry that you can add any veggie you want and that's what I love about it so feel free to just use up what you have in your fridge veggies perhaps last ingredient that needs to be prepped which I did last night was just soaking some chickpeas overnight which I really like because it adds a bunch of protein to this dish which it doesn't have there's no meat in this dish you can use canned chickpeas but I would highly suggest getting dried chickpeas and just soaking them overnight so much better I'm using a heavy enamel pot here that I love for making curries and a lot of people ask about this it's a Laker se and I believe they call it a soup pop but I actually bought this specifically because I thought it'd be perfect for curries which it is I'm gonna add in some ghee which is just clarified butter and a little bit of regular just neutral oil and the next step is to temper off our spices this is going to be really the key difference of this curry right here is tempering whole spices that is such a classic Indian technique and the foundation of so many Indian curries gives you great texture from those seeds but also you're infusing that ghee or that oil with all of this delicious spiciness now once these are toasted which they are right now they're giving off a great aroma I'm gonna sprinkle in a little bit of mustard seeds and then these will start popping up see yep so once we've infused those spices into the ghee and the oil I'm gonna be cooking off the curry paste once again and the goal is just to cook out some of that rawness and start to caramelize those aromatics to really enhance the flavor which took about five minutes on a medium low heat and you'll really start to smell this when it's done just trust your senses on this when it starts smelling incredible and you smell an actual shift in the aroma then you know you're ready to move on to the next step which is adding our tomatoes you're gonna add those tomatoes and I also top this off with just a little bit of water because even though those tomatoes are gonna release a lot of liquid I'm still gonna be cooking this down for a little bit so extra water will help with my overall consistency then I added my soaked chickpeas and once that comes to a boil I threw a lid on the pot and let that simmer and really let those flavors meld together all right quick update currently cooking away looking great it's been about 15 minutes this is a little thin for me right now which is fine because I'm just gonna keep the lid off for now and we'll let that reduce and get a little thicker two more ingredients I want to add this is sell a powder right here so Indian curries they just used layers of flavor we have the whole spice in there we have the curry paste now we're going in with some powdered spice that's what it's all about and then we haven't added often I really just go in with the curry spoon we're gonna add our salt stir that in and we'll just let that simmer away until it reduces and then I just have some fresh ingredients to add after that so there's two things I'm looking for at this point one is that these chickpeas are cooked through which they are they're nice and tender and two is just a consistency that you want right now I'm feeling good about this thickness it's not too thick but it's not too thin it's right in that curry range in goes the bad I guess and let's go in with that cilantro as well cook this for a few minutes and we are good oh it also adds color like you can't deny that color now let's give it a try what I love about this dish is one it's vegetarian it's very light there's no coconut milk so you're not getting that extra fat so you can eat this all the time even though the other carries that I'm making today I might like more in the moment this dish I make the most and I can guarantee that in the summer I'm making this I don't know twice a week some form of this it's so healthy yet you're packing it with flavor Indian cuisine is so good at making vegetables taste amazing which is something that Americans struggle with a lot we know how to like grilled vegetables roast them that's it but this is how you take veggies up a notch alright so the last curry and you didn't think I would leave up a Thai coconut curry come on that's the first curry that turned me on to curries in the first place I was in a Thai restaurant and I think I tried a Thai green coconut curry it was super spicy but those flavors together it was a moment in my life where I just couldn't quite grasp how I'd been missing out on those flavor combinations together my whole life just the coconut and the spices and the aromatics it's just so good and that's what we're gonna be covering now the proper techniques to make a really good Thai coconut curry at home and of course I'm using the curry paste that I have it's that sort of yellowish curry paste but whatever curry paste that you have if it's green if it's red if it's store-bought if it's pounded out for three hours it's gonna be good with these techniques all right let's prep some ingredients for this coconut curry and you can keep this straight-up vegetarian just fry up some tofu if you want or just keep it straight vegetables it's totally up to you I'm using some chicken thigh which last night I did a little bit of prep by just salting both sides of the chicken and throwing that in the fridge and if your chicken still has the skin on what's gonna happen is that chicken skin is going to dry out in the fridge overnight and the chickens gonna cure a bit and you are going to get the crispiest juiciest chicken of your life trust me on this tip now I've got some veggies here use whatever you have on hand I had some of these nice broccoli tops that I got in a delivery box this week from farm two people I'll give them a quick shoutout thanks for giving me that fresh produce every week and then I've got a few sugar snap peas which I thought would be really nice in this dish and lastly some fresh basil if you can find Thai basil certainly go for that but I've got some regular basil and that will work fine as well I'm using a wider skillet for this recipe mainly to have space for all of the chicken but you might have noticed that I've used a different pot for every single recipe which was also on purpose to show you that you can cook a curry and pretty much any type of pot or pan I'm gonna sear up this chicken until it's nice and crispy and you don't have to worry about cooking it through you just want to develop a nice crust because we're gonna chop up this chicken later and throw it into the curry to simmer and really finish off and get nice and tender look at that beautiful crispy skin I love chicken thigh with this skin on it it's one of my favorite cuts of meat and I get it all of the time and also now we have this incredible chicken fat that we're gonna take full advantage of so we can just take the chicken out of the pot and then again we're gonna follow the trend of the past dishes and we're going to be cooking up that curry paste in the chicken fat and if you're not using meat and you don't have that natural fat what you can use another type of oil or fat in this dish or just use coconut milk and reduce it and this next skill is classic with Thai coconut curries which is using coconut milk where are you where are you where are you which has so much fat in it to help cook down this curry paste cuz right now it's still looking a little dry so what you can do watch this hit it with a little bit of that now as we cook this together as we reduce that coconut milk it's basically just gonna turn more fat that we can render out this paste and build that curry flavor okay there you go look at that see that oil separation the coconut milk has cooked down and now it's so much easier to fry this curry paste and it's looking fantastic it's smelling good in here we're ready to move on so you can just look at that and tell it the base is incredible we're off to a great start but now we're gonna add in more coconut milk to really create a nice broth I also added in just a little water to thin it out but that is totally up to you it's your curry it's your consistency my friends now the next tip is cooking this for just around 5 minutes to bring all the flavors together you don't have to cook it for too long it already tastes amazing and then we're gonna add in our veggies and then I'm starting with those broccoli tips or tops or whatever they're called and some sugar snap peas and then lastly I sliced up my crispy chicken into bite-size chunks and then added that to the mix and just cooked it for another 5 minutes until the chicken was nice and cooked through and those veggies were perfectly tender with just a little bit of snap to them now this right here that's something special and you see this oil separation you can see like these little oil droplets here that's from rendering out that coconut milk and that's a good sign that the technique worked properly I do need to add in my basil oh there's one more thing I can add the head of lime a little acidity goes a long way with this dish because there's so much fat in it it's so creamy just at the end and then we're pretty much done we'll serve that over some delicious rice I might be the most [Music] well there's a reason that this Thai coconut curry is so popular it's just the best I mean how can you try this then not love it if you don't like this there's probably something wrong with your taste buds because it's creamy it's sweet and it is the perfect way to incorporate more veggies more protein into your diet it just makes things exciting it makes things fun and of course that goes with all these curries but this one just came out so damn good I mean come on my friends this is what being a pro home cook is all about we've learned some skills we've learned some techniques and now we have three different curries that we can bring into our daily cooking routine we've got lunches we've got dinner options and I know that's what you're looking for because that's what we want we want variety in our life so now you can apply these techniques and skills with just whatever you have on hand in the fridge and that's really the goal of being a pro home cook use what you got and make delicious food so if you liked these recipes click this video on ramen because it's a similar idea once you master this maybe you can go on and master some ramen and have more dinner options and I'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 889,514

Rating: 4.9294696 out of 5

Keywords: homemade curry, easy curry, how to make curry, thai coconut curry recipe, beef rendang recipe, Indian curry recipe, how to make Thai curry, perfect Thai coconut curry, coconut curry recipe, homemade curry paste, how to make my own curry paste, curry paste recipe, green curry, yellow curry, curry techinques, make curry taste better, curry for beginners, pro home cooks, mike g, mike greenfield, new

Id: KwSODsgqY5k

Length: 25min 5sec (1505 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 09 2020