How do you get that rich gravy like texture in Indian dishes?

December 21, 2006 8:06 PM

How do you get that rich gravy like texture in Indian dishes? Whenever I make Indian food at home like a Dal or Masala dish I can never get that rich creamy gravy-like quality I get in restaurants. I suspect its because I dont use dairy in my cooking but I dont think they do in Indian food either (aside from the obvious like paneer). I know they use Ghee which is clarified butter but could that be what it is? I thought ghee was more like clear and not very thick.
posted by postergeist to Food & Drink (27 answers total)

Some of the curries are egg based. I know a friend of mine uses yogurt in his best curry, and knowing him I'm sure it's an authentic recipe.

You could ask at your favorite curry restaurant. :) I'm sure if you don't ask for specific recipes they'll be happy to clue you in.
posted by Meep! Eek! at 8:26 PM on December 21, 2006

Milk is actually quite common in Indian cooking. Some recipes call for cream, and I suspect the dishes you're thinking of (e.g. navrattan korma) use it. Coconut milk is also common in Southern Indian cooking, and in the curries from Thailand, Malaysia, etc.
posted by 1adam12 at 8:30 PM on December 21, 2006

Like Adam said, I'd try heavy cream. Recipes like masala use it, and I suspect this is what you're craving.
posted by ad_hominem at 8:33 PM on December 21, 2006

my mother-in-law is indian and the things she cooks are pretty much nothing like what you get in indian restaraunts.

in restaraunts they use a *lot* of heavy cream. at home, pretty much never. as 1adam12 says, this is probably what you are looking for.
posted by joeblough at 8:41 PM on December 21, 2006

I also cook without dairy, and have thought about Indian food a lot, since I love it. I did manage to make a credible (soy) chicken tikka masala (and I know that's not the most authentic dish ever, but I love it); it's got a sauce base that's largely ginger root, onion, and garlic. It called for cream at the end, and I improvised by making a thick soy milk (out of powdered soy milk I found at the store). Pretty good.

So now I'm interested in making thick "creamy" sauces out of powdered soy milk.

I've also worked with soy yogurt in baking, and I think it could work with some sauces.

Because there is a definite soy flavor, I think that heavily-spiced sauces, as in Indian cooking, might be the best place to start.

Probably coconut oil / cream / milk would be good to experiment with, too.

I'd be interested in knowing of anything you discover... I think this is a worthwhile cuisine to explore in vegan cooking, and I'm not sure why there aren't more resources out there yet.
posted by amtho at 8:59 PM on December 21, 2006

You can also use ground almonds to thicken a sauce - it's a common vegetarian method and a feature of certain curries (althoug my memory fails on exactly which). Google for some great recipes.
posted by ninazer0 at 9:04 PM on December 21, 2006

I'll second the almond meal. It tastes fantastic.

I rarely use dairy or any soy-type milk substitutes in my Indian cooking. Usually once everything's in the pot I turn down the heat and let it reduce. That usually gives me something like a gravy, and it really intensifies the flavour, too.
posted by Jilder at 9:09 PM on December 21, 2006

I cook curries that have thick heavy sauces, without using dairy. All this stuff goes into them in *much* larger quantities than might at first seem reasonable:

Finely chopped onions that will get cooked sufficiently long they pretty much dissolve. I may also add fried sliced onions later that will retain their shape, but finely chopped onion is the most important thing.

Ginger and garlic, grated or pulped (sometimes I cheat and get them pre-mixed in a jar from an Indian store).

Spices. I am bold, verging on reckless when adding the spices. I also use various spices that are bought ground, and so presumably cut with flour of some kind.

Oil. I use way too much oil, but when the sauce is cooked to the consistency I like the oil forms puddles on top and can be drained off. I don't think using ghee instead of oil affects the texture all that much. I think that to get a rich sauce without yoghurt or cream, it is necessary to use horrifying amounts of oil, but most can be drained off at the end.

Being extremely bold with the above ingredients is key and used in every curry I make. Optional extras which contribute to thick sauces are veggies like tomatoes which can cook down to a slurry. I am very fond of okra, which might contribute to thick sauces. Finally, a dairy alternative that is used in Southern Indian style cooking is coconut milk/cream, which adds wonderful richness and flavour.

I read a very helpful book on the subject once, it may or may not have been this, but Pat Chapman's books are generally informative and I'm sure this one would be perfect for you.
posted by nowonmai at 9:10 PM on December 21, 2006

Using a roux or something like Wondra will thicken a liquid without changing the taste much if at all. I think Arrowroot might be used natively in India as a thickener, but it may be a little harder to come by.
posted by stavrogin at 9:17 PM on December 21, 2006

i'm not an indian cook at all, but could you simmer longer, uncovered,
in order to evaporate off some water?
or, it's cheating, i guess, but cornstarch?
or a wee bit of flour?
or a roux?
those tricks work to thicken things up in other cuisines;
i doubt it's authentically indian, but it may be worth a try...
posted by twistofrhyme at 9:21 PM on December 21, 2006

The ones I do generally have a lot of yoghurt or coconut cream. You can get a wonderfully thick, rich and smooth sauce from a couple cans of 70%-coconut cream. When you buy it, make sure you look at the percentage on the side; many are down around the 40% mark or less.
posted by polyglot at 9:30 PM on December 21, 2006

Coconut cream also imparts a kind of mouth feel to most dishes that ought to be illegal. Yum!
posted by mce at 9:47 PM on December 21, 2006

Thirding ground almonds, and campbells cream of tomato soup or TJ's Tomato and Red Pepper soup as base for the curry...mmmmmmm let simmer on low heat for and extra 15-20 minutes
posted by Papa Mango at 9:58 PM on December 21, 2006

Most home recipes don't involve ghee either, which may help make things thicker. I've found when doing tomato and onion based dishes, eg rogan josh, you have the best chance of making the sauce very thick (particularly if you use a slow cooker and simmer extremely gently for a ong time - I use a Le Creuset dish to cook mine in and it works a charm).
posted by greycap at 9:58 PM on December 21, 2006

Nthing coconut milk or cream. It gives a thicker, creamier consistency without the dairy, and the subtle taste works well with lots of dishes. I have a lovely red lentil curry recipe somewhere that is mostly coconut milk with a little butter, if you want to remove the butter you could probably manage with oil if you experiment a bit.

Have a look around for south indian recipes, that tends towards vegetarian more than northern. Something like this indian vegetarian recipe book might do the trick.
posted by Joh at 10:39 PM on December 21, 2006

Brown some onion, garlic, ginger together, then mush them into a paste with a blender. Lots of my Indian recipes that have a thick sauce begin with that concoction.

Also, Yogurt. Yogurt is often used as thickening agent. Delicious!
posted by gmarceau at 11:26 PM on December 21, 2006

Most curries do call for some sort of cream/milk/coconut milk, and this mostly varies solely based on taste. Add the milk about 5 minutes before the curry finishes cooking. It instantly thickens it.

Be wary about letting the curry simmer for too long because it can lead to a dry curry, which is not nearly as tasty.
posted by cholly at 12:40 AM on December 22, 2006

Yeah - onion paste cooked in ghee with garlic and ginger (called bhuna), is the basis of many thick sauced curries. It's worth making a huge batch and freezing it in yoghurt pots or something like that actually. DON'T brown it though (it makes a bitter taste that is amplified in the finished dish) - it should be cooked on a very low heat until it goes first translucent, then dissolves.

As others have said, other indian thickening agents:
- ground almonds
- yoghurt
- very occasionally, cream

If I understand you right, I think you're talking about the almost total homogenisation you get in curries (and other long, slow cooked sauce-based dishes like ragu). This comes from cooking for a very, very long time. 2 - 4 hours at least. Check out some authentic cookbooks and work to some actual recipes, then you can tweak things as you like.
posted by bifter at 3:24 AM on December 22, 2006

You'll quite often find finely ground nuts in Indian food - particuarly cashews , and in addition to their flavour they are used precisely for that purpose.
posted by Neiltupper at 3:50 AM on December 22, 2006

Response by poster: All very good stuff thanks everyone. I think the slow cooking makes a lot of sense. I am surprised though to imagine a heavy helping of cream in the restaurant dishes. My wife and I are pretty lactose intolerant (hence the attempts at vegan cooking which Indian food is well suited for). Ghee never bothered us though, I think because it doesn't contain the lactose of full cream butter. Heavily buttered dishes ususaly leave us feeling completely drained afterwards.
posted by postergeist at 4:45 AM on December 22, 2006

Don't forget that cultured soy can be used in place of yogurt. I've tried Stonyfield Farms and Silk, and the Silk version is way better (delicious, even!).
posted by acridrabbit at 6:21 AM on December 22, 2006

For what it's worth, many lactose-intolerant people can also handle yoghurt, since L. Acidophilus, a.k.a. "active yoghurt culture," has already digested most of the lactose. If you don't know how it affects you, I'd have a shot at one of the yoghurt-based recipes before you reject it outright.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:24 AM on December 22, 2006

My personal method involves coconut milk + low slow heat.
posted by jmevius at 7:30 AM on December 22, 2006

I makesomething I just call "Indian Vegetables" a lot, which is like an aloo gobi plus carrots, cabbage, onions and okra. It usually winds up with a very gravy like coating of the curry and masala spices bound by the following: The ghee, the okra, and the cooking method called "Bhuna" which I understand from the extras on Bend it Like Beckham, basically means adding a little water to something on a high heat, stirring it in, cooking it up until it's dry again and adding a little more. Cooking the potatoes in this way makes them tender, not too mushy, but also seems to borrow some of their thickening power for the gravy.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 8:49 AM on December 22, 2006

Third/fourth the onion+ginger+garlic.
posted by Arthur Dent at 10:52 AM on December 22, 2006

Texture-wise, dal is creamier if you mash the cooked lentils...Not all dal recipes call for it, but some prefer it...
posted by frosty_hut at 11:28 AM on December 22, 2006

I find half a block of creamed coconut stirred in at the end of cooking instantly thickens the dish, and adds the wonderful creamy coconut flavour so praised in this thread. It doesn't require the boiling-off that cans of coconut cream would to thicken them.

MMMMM! I'm cooking curry tomorrow night for a friend. Madhur Jaffrey is in the house!
posted by algreer at 1:51 PM on December 22, 2006 [1 favorite]