Currying Favor

April 17, 2007 12:43 PM

I'm hankering for some curry fries after having had some on my trip to Ireland recently...do any of you UK/Ireland types have a recipe you like for a curry sauce suitable to serve with french fries (you know, chips)? I can find plenty of curry sauce recipes easily enough online, but I'm interested in some personal favorites.
posted by briank to food & drink (22 comments total)

Nevin's pub in Evanston, IL serves such a sauce. Maybe you could call them and ask?
posted by rbs at 12:53 PM on April 17, 2007

If it's Supermac's curry chips (in fairness, we don't call them fries here) this is a pretty good approximation.
posted by doozer_ex_machina at 1:01 PM on April 17, 2007

Most British chip shops use Chinese curry sauce.
I don't have a recipe as such but i think this might be what you're after.
posted by tnai at 1:02 PM on April 17, 2007

You could get Bisto Curry Chip sauce mix at pretty much any British or speciality food shop in the US (example).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:13 PM on April 17, 2007

briank it looks like you're north of me, but I know that my local Stop and Shop has Bisto Curry Chip sauce mix as mentioned above.
There's also British Delights a UK import shop in Billerica which I haven't visited yet.

If you feel like going south, Greenhills Bakery in Adams Village, Dorchester probably sells curry sauce and if not, next door in the convenience store you can buy loads of Irish imports.

Another thing is once the weather gets good and the GAA starts up again, you can eat chips and curry (from Mannion's in Quincy) and watch Gaelic football, hurling and camogie in Canton.

Ironically, I don't even like chips and curry, but do like most things Ireland-related.
posted by jdl at 1:34 PM on April 17, 2007

The sauce mix suggestions are good and I will have a look for them but I was hoping for a homemade recipe.
posted by briank at 1:44 PM on April 17, 2007

I live in the UK and I don't think I know anyone who makes curry sauce from scratch. I know that sounds horribly unsophisticated but every time I have had curry at someone's house they use store-bought (in a jar) curry and modify it themselves with spices. To make a curry from scratch requires about a thousand ingredients and some of them are not things that a person might just happen to have in their cupboard. But there are some store bought sauces that are quite good. Anyway, I too would be interested in learning a good recipe so hopefully someone else can offer more help than I have.
posted by triggerfinger at 1:50 PM on April 17, 2007

Real authentic Chinese/Chip shop (bright yellowish) curry sauce is almost impossible to replicate.
posted by fire&wings at 2:00 PM on April 17, 2007

The trick for commercial-grade chip-shop curry is to work in milk powder/cream.

There's a brand in the UK my parents used to buy, back in the 1980s, but I've forgotten what it was.
posted by humblepigeon at 2:09 PM on April 17, 2007

I never lived in the UK but I've lived in Japan where you can find popular curry dishes. You can buy Japanese curry (S&B Foods brand) in any US supermarket that has an oriental foods section. Use the kind that comes in solid blocks (not the powdered kind).
posted by plokent at 2:18 PM on April 17, 2007

Real authentic Chinese/Chip shop (bright yellowish) curry sauce is almost impossible to replicate.

This is true. The stuff they use is in the chippies here is low-grade powdered gunk, like this stuff from Knorr that they use in my local chipper. Lotta nasty chemicals in there. Don't know if you'd actually WANT to replicate that in your own kitchen.
posted by ReiToei at 2:52 PM on April 17, 2007

You could get Bisto Curry Chip sauce mix at pretty much any British or speciality food shop in the US

Or you could put battery acid mixed with wallpaper paste and curry powder on your chips for a superior taste experience. I tried the Bisto curry sauce in a fit of hankerin' for proper chip shop curry sauce and...managed exactly one and a half chips covered in it..."hmm...doesn't really taste like chip shop curry sauce...in fact it's kinda...weird...guh..."
posted by biscotti at 3:18 PM on April 17, 2007

Hmm - the real problem you face is that the correct curry sauce for chips, as served in proper fish and chip shops/kebab vans, is essentially a non-food item. Certainly, in attempting to make your own you will have difficulty getting access to the industrial-grade utterly, artificial colourants, preservatives and so forth that are crucial to the true connoisseur. Essentially curry sauce in this context is to curry as hot dog is to meat - it is a rather tricky challenge for the non-factory cook! This isn't entirely helpful I admit - but if you are successful a post on Meta with the recipe would win you legions of admiring fans...
posted by prentiz at 4:32 PM on April 17, 2007

Sounds like a serious buck could be made by buying a drum of the stuff and repackaging it for sale.
posted by Mitheral at 4:50 PM on April 17, 2007

This was the first hit returned to me by Google.
posted by gimonca at 5:35 PM on April 17, 2007

If you add curry sauce to ketchup, you'll get a reasonable facsimile. Seriously. Lived in Germany for seven years. Ate a lot of curry fries.
posted by laskagirl at 8:03 PM on April 17, 2007

This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but is pretty similar to what they have in Belgium. From Food Network:

Curry Ketchup:
1 teaspoon curry powder
5 ounces ketchup
5 ounces mayonnaise
1/4 finely chopped onion
posted by timelord at 8:52 PM on April 17, 2007

Info if you can't find a recipe from scratch: I worked in foodservice in the UK (seriously). I can assure you that no one makes the sauce from scratch. Not that this should deter you, but the stuff you had on your trip was probably Chef curry sauce or the Bisto powder (Roche Brothers in Concord had Bisto mix in a cardboard tube. I go there for Branston Pickle because it's the cheapest by far for some reason.)

Side note: The Green Briar in Brighton has the BEST curry fries in the area (except for the place that has a booth at th Irish Festival and I can't remember their name). I'm a huge fan of the curry fries, I had them yesterday (at the Green Briar) and they were complete heaven after a Patriots Day spent drinking beer.
posted by Mayor Curley at 9:33 PM on April 17, 2007

This isn't exactly what you're looking for, but is pretty similar to what they have in Belgium.

Are you talking about sauce andalouse? (Sorry if I'm off base, but I've never seen "curry sauce" offered with fries in Belgium, but seen sauce andalouse lots of times, and I can see how it could be interpreted as "curry ketchup").

Belgium chipshop sauce andalouse is to real sauce andalouse as chipshop curry sauce is to real curry. The real key to the flavour of the chipshop version is smoked paprika. You can get a great approximation of it with a mix of mayonnaise and ketchup, with a healthy dose of smoked paprika, a little garlic salt and plenty of black pepper added.
posted by bifter at 1:45 AM on April 18, 2007

Info if you can't find a recipe from scratch: I worked in foodservice in the UK (seriously). I can assure you that no one makes the sauce from scratch.

I have no doubt about this, and I appreciate everyone's effort to convince me of it. Sounds like opinions differ on Bisto, so I'll check the international aisles carefully.

I'm not trying to replicate the chip shop experience specifically; I was hoping someone might have their own good recipe. The one gimonca links to looks promising.

Thanks to all for the input.
posted by briank at 6:03 AM on April 18, 2007

Are you talking about sauce andalouse?

curry ketchup. It's not quite the same thing you get in a chip shop...but there's some simliarity there.
posted by timelord at 2:39 PM on April 18, 2007

Crazy - never heard of that. I'll watch out for it next time I'm in Brussels.
posted by bifter at 3:18 AM on April 19, 2007