Recommend me a book about making curry for friends

March 26, 2023 11:33 PM

I decided my new arbitrary life goal is to get good at making a range of delicious curries. I have visions of serving up a multi-dish supper for friends. And maybe having a stash of frozen portions in the freezer ready for quick suppers too. However I have no idea where to start.

I am not of Indian nor Asian heritage. I just want to be able to cook a couple of curries (like maybe a meat one and a vegetarian one), some snacks and accompaniments.

Can anyone suggests a book for beginners (or a website or other resource, I prefer written and not video format if that is possible) that would guide me on what ingredients to furnish my store cupboard with, whether I need any kit, and how to practise/start learning? In case you want to suggest stores for buying supplies, I live in London.

Thanks so much in advance for your spicy insights.

posted by Erinaceus europaeus to Food & Drink (16 answers total)

Original and best: Madhur Jaffrey's An Invitation to Indian Cooking [1973] Tribute from foodie Darina Allen. My 1984 pb copy is frittering pages from over-use.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:19 AM on March 27, 2023 [12 favorites]

Meera Sodha’s books are great — clear, well-tested recipes, easy to replicate at home, with advice about ingredient substitution (and she is in the UK so understands what is readily available to you). Everything is delicious. This review of her first book captures it.

I agree about Madhur Jaffrey, too, especially for someone who wants written recipes and not videos etc. One of the great things about her recipes is how she describes what each step should look/smell/taste like before moving to the next step.
posted by robcorr at 12:45 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

They are so easy to do well. Healthy Living James has a fab easy peanut butter curry that I adore.
posted by parmanparman at 1:19 AM on March 27, 2023

Grab Kris Dhillon's The Curry Secret, which gives you a behind-the-scenes expose of UK curry shop techniques and recipes. The secret boils down to:

- a golden master gravy you can make in bulk and freeze (it's made from a lot of onions, garlic and ginger)
- pre-simmered meats you throw into said gravy at the last minute, and which you can also freeze
- knowing how to add spices and other condiments at the end to turn the same gravy into dozens of different curries.

Also has recipes for the usual sides.
posted by some little punk in a rocket at 1:49 AM on March 27, 2023 [3 favorites]

For inauthentic but easy-to-make curries, I just use the BBC’s website.

Here’s one: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-chicken-curry/amp

And I would recommend the recipe book from BBC’s Eat Well For Less. Inauthentic but easy as an intro for beginners.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eat-Well-Less-Quick-Meals/dp/1785942859/
posted by moiraine at 1:50 AM on March 27, 2023

Please add on making naan as a side dish, relatively easy, impressive looking and they make every curry dish sublime. I still daydream about the cheese garlic naans I’ve eaten. They’re too big for a single person but perfect for a group.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 2:18 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

2nding moiraine that the BBC's website has plenty of recipes that are easy to follow and get you perfectly nice results as long as you're ok with UK curries. They taste as nice as any take out I've ever had in the UK and ingredients should be available in any good supermarket (in the UK).
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:03 AM on March 27, 2023

Kris Dhillon's The Curry Secret

Seconding this, or else look up 'British Indian Curry base', as there are lots of similar resources online. Restaurant curries are not made in a single lengthy step-by-step process. It's all done in advance, and reduces something that would otherwise take hours down to 10 or 20 minutes. I would really avoid recipes that ask you to prepare everything from scratch, unless you have a day to spare every time you make a curry.

Also, deep-frying. It's not fashionable, but you can only cook proper bhajis, pakoras, samosas etc. in a deep fryer. Modern self-filtering fryers are really nice. I have the Tefal OleoClean Pro. An essential tool if you want to cook the stuff they make in restaurants. You may also find yourself making triple-cooked chips from time to time.
posted by pipeski at 3:10 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seconding two books with almost entirely opposite approaches to the question:

Meera Sodha's Fresh India is an especially excellent collection of reasonably authentic vegetarian curry recipes (and has a particularly good nan bread recipe too).

Kris Dhillon's The Curry Secret is only authentic in the sense that it's what you'll get from any high street curry house in the UK, but does not resemble anything you'd find in India. But if what you want is a curry house curry, it's absolute gold.

If you're in London, you will have precisely zero issues buying the required spices. Go to your local South Asian supermarket to buy them in bags for a tiny fraction of the price of the big chain supermarkets. Grab a sackful of rice and a bunch of coriander the size of your head while you're there.
posted by parm at 3:11 AM on March 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

Once you get a little more adventurous, Cooking with Pedatha is a lovely book, with absolutely delicious (if extremely spicy) recipes. The recipes are easy to follow, but they tend to have many ingredients and many many steps, requiring lots of pots and utensils!
posted by rockindata at 4:20 AM on March 27, 2023

More votes for Madhur Jaffrey and Meera Sodha, both are great.

I have a book by Jaffrey from 1982: Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery, which is smaller and simpler than An Invitation to Indian Cooking, and with lovely illustrations that might be useful for a beginner.

I have a couple of karahis. You don't strictly need them, and if you have a wok, you don't need them at all, but mine get a lot of use. Among other things, they are good for deep frying.

For some years, a friend and I hosted a monthly feast, it was really good to share the work with someone, because there is a lot of prep-work when you want to serve multiple curries and sides. Chatting while prepping is so nice, too. Now my kids have grown up and can be depended on to help when needed.
posted by mumimor at 4:24 AM on March 27, 2023

nthing Jeffrey and Sodha.

If you're in London, you will have precisely zero issues buying the required spices. Go to your local South Asian supermarket to buy them in bags for a tiny fraction of the price of the big chain supermarkets.

Or, in big supermarkets, you can often find big bags of spices in the "world food" aisle, far cheaper than the tiny jars in the rack of herbs and spices.
posted by fabius at 5:14 AM on March 27, 2023 [2 favorites]

Lots of good recommendations for more authentic resources upthread and this is not meant to disparage them. However, if you're tastes skew ango-indian, the Curry Guy (Dan Toombs) does a great job in his books replicating Indian-by-way-of-Britain restaurant staples.

I freeze his 'base curry sauce' recipe regularly so we always have some on hand. With a little practice, and that base sauce frozen, you can make several of the dishes in his book from frozen or tinned ingredients, with a few fresh staples (ginger, garlic, onion, chilis, etc) pretty damn quick. Chicken Tikka and Saag Paneer are both functionally weeknight meals in our house because of his book.

My wife loves a few specific restaurant style curries, and while we do make a lot of other more authentic Indian dishes, the restaurant staples are one of her comfort foods.
posted by furnace.heart at 11:33 AM on March 27, 2023 [1 favorite]

I suggested some books here previously and the rest of that Askme has some good book suggestions as well. See my answer here for suggestions on what to make.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:59 AM on March 27, 2023

As a lot of people have mentioned, a lot of restaurant serve a style called 'British Indian Restaurant' which uses a few base gravies, which are then quickly cooked with additional spices / ingredients. Once you know to search for this, you'll find a lot of recipes online, not sure you even need a book.

I have 'The Curry Guy' books on as kindle which are the ones that cued me on this style of cooking. He has a lot of videos on youtube too.

I've recently been doing a lot of recipes from Glebe Kitchen, which are all available online, and he has a youtube channel demonstrating some of the recipes. Cooking from a youtube video sucks, but just seeing how it's done can be useful.

I can attest can if you've got all the base gravy ready + some garlic/ginger paste and the spice blends ready, the other ingredients ca be prepped quickly and you'll be done with the dish while the rice is cooking.

It's not authentic 'home-style' cooking, but it's tasty & relatively convenient.

I now usually prepare big quantities of base gravy & garlic/ginger paste to freeze so I don't have to do this so often.

As for naans, I'm still working on this, I think the magic is no so much in actual recipe but in how it's cooked. I'm getting close to replicating the crusty bottom + bubbly charred top in my ooni by rubbing the bottom of the naan with water and then placing it in the oven with my hands and wacking it so that it sticks (BBQ gloves).
posted by WaterAndPixels at 1:02 PM on March 27, 2023

And I want to try both those versions of butter chicken which are not BIR style, but look damn tasty.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 1:05 PM on March 27, 2023