Just call me Bombay Kev !

Everyone should have their own good curry recipe that they can knock up when called upon at a moments notice. I have said it before and Ill be boring saying it again but the key to good cookery is simplicity.
Yes once you have learned the basics by all means experiment because that is one of the many wonderful things about cooking. The seemingly never ending combination of flavours and endless recipes that are on offer means you should never get bored.
Now I have a basic recipe that I would like to say I had spent months walking the dusty pathways of India in search of the ultimate curry recipe but really a chef I worked with in a golf club in my early days of cookery learning taught me and I have stuck with it pretty much since.
I did try to get an evening job once working in a Indian restaurant kitchen but all I was offered was a dish washing job and the opportunity to deliver the takeaways to their customers.
Dish washing is an art and I am not an Artist and as to delivering food to people I wondered how many lay-bys I would get past before the temptation to pull over and eat the customers food got to me !
I did get the impression while trying to persuade the various restaurant owners to give me a job that a lot of the Indian cooks do keep their recipes to themselves and are a closely guarded secret but really I think they all have pretty much the same recipes it just comes down to some cooks are better and care more than others.
So My recipe is very basic and you could not call it a balti or a Marsala its just what I call curry. A Beef curry in this case.
One of the things Chef Doug from the golf club taught me was that a good curry starts with Onions and lots of them. Slowly fry them in oil and a bit of butter for at least 30 minutes before you add anything to them. They will be a lovely golden brown colour and soft and sweet and really make a difference to the dish.

Garlic is another great component and I love to my roast garlic. The aroma it gives off while its getting a tan in the over alerts my taste buds that something good is going to end up in my tummy.
I roasted the garlic and used some in the curry and some I was going to add into my Naan bread mix.

OK the onions are golden. I add a red chili. Half a red Chili is pretty medium heat then add as many as you like depending how hot you want it. I was told the heat was in the seeds so leave them out if you want a very mild sauce.
The spices are pretty obvious really. A tablespoon of Coriander, Cumin, turmeric, and the half a tablespoon of ginger, and cinnamon powder. Also add a tablespoon of a basic supermarket curry powder if you like. Sweat all the spices off in the onion mix to release there flavours.

Onions and Spices.

In a separate pan I would saute my meat to get a nice bit of colour and caramelisation around the outside of my beef and then add them into the onion mix. Then add one and a half 400g tins of tomatoes plus a cup of water and one deep rich beef stock cube or jelly.

Add Meat and Tomatoes

Deep rich knorr beef stock jelly. A little gem but don't over use.

Ok put a lid on it and leave it to infuse all its wonderful flavours for about an hour and a half.

Now I love a good naan bread and I am waiting for a programme on the Sky channel Discovery Shed to show you how to build a tandoori oven to cook your naans in but I have not seen that programme so really all I am able to make at home is a garlic and coriander flavoured bread bun. So thats what I did.

Their are a few bread mixes available in the supermarkets which tends to have the strong flour and yeast all mixed in a handy bag for you which I would buy for ease. All you have to do is add warm water to activate the yeast process and then the roasted garlic paste and fresh coriander.

Ok if you have a bread maker pour the lot in turn it on and then walk away. If you have a mixer with a dough hook put the lot in turn it on and then walk away.

If you don't then you have to knead the bread for 10 minutes which involves stretching the dough with the palm of your hand which makes the dough smoother and softer and developes the elastically of the gluten in the flour and evenly incorporates air into the dough.

So you need to Knead like Prince partyed like it was 1999 ! Unless your watching Money never sleeps Wall Street 2 on sky anytime then 4 minutes did it for me, placed it in a bowl and left it in a cooling oven while I watched the end of the film.

You need to work this for at least 10 minutes. I didn't and the Naan bread was not as light as it could have been but it was tasty never the less.

Ok after the bread mix has rested and proved for about a hour roll it out and put it into a oven at 180 degrees celius for about 10 minutes.
Back to the cooking curry after about an hour and half check to see if the meat is tender and then add some double cream to give the curry a lighter colour and really enrich the dish even more. I would usually chop some fresh coriander and run that into the dish and sprinkle some toasted almonds on top to add a little bit of crunch.
And there you have it job done. Charm a Cobra beer out of the fridge or share the meal with Mrs Stella Artois and what more could a top bloke want ! Ha Ha !

If you don't want to buy the dry spices because you will not use them again go and buy a curry paste. Their are some good ones out there and really all they are a mix of spices that you need to make yourself a delicious curry. It will cost you more though and you will not be building yourself a good versatile little spice collection which you can use in other dishes. I would not buy a ready made sauce though as I find them expensive and lacking a lot of punch and deep flavour. Just get a paste and add some tomatoes and stock cubes and a bit of coconut milk or yoghurt it will taste better.

One final cheat is this block of curry paste called Maysan which is available from most corner shops. It taste just like the curry sauce you get when you commit the ultimate sin of ordering a special curry from a chinese takeaway. Cook some chicken and pour over the sauce which you make by putting a block of the paste into a pan of cold water which you then slowly bring to the boil while stirring like its 1999 !! ha ha.

It is lovely to dip chips into it as well though.

chinese and chip shop curry paste !