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'Curry kit', impressive

incorporating Recipes and Cooking
DiamondEcho
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'Curry kit', impressive

#140476

Postby DiamondEcho » May 22nd, 2018, 9:06 am

I was recently in the UK and noticed that there is a new (to me) form of curry-kit for sale in several major supermarkets. Rather than a simple 'cook-in sauce' it separates groups of ingredients. It wasn't until I was living in Asia that I learned how much difference cooking off fresh spices before adding anything else was, so the packs caught my attention.

I picked up a couple in Waitrose. This weekend we tried one from The Spice Tailor, 'Original tikka masala'. That is described as mild with a 1*chili' rating. Given the neutered, spice-wise*, offerings from the likes of M+S I wasn't expecting much but we were pleasantly surprised, it did have some oomph to it. I think cooking-off the raw spices certainly added to their distinctiveness in the end-result, and I also thought the dish was far closer to the taste of an authentic 'curry' you might find on the Sub-continent. There was something unusual in it a herb or spice that IME you don't usually find prominent in Brit curry, perhaps fenugreek. Anyway, after that pleasant surprise we've one more left from the same brand; 'Fiery Goan curry', 3*chilis. It's going to be interesting to see quite how spicy that one is - we'll see! Has anyone else tried this or other brands, and if so which do they recommend?

*Spice or spicy in the Asian sense, the Brit equivalent being chili heat/hot.

Dod101
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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140486

Postby Dod101 » May 22nd, 2018, 10:20 am

There are various suppliers of original spices available by mail order in the UK but if you live in Asia why do you not just buy them locally? When I lived in Hong Kong that is what we did, in fact it was cheaper just to go to a local restaurant.

Most of the stuff available here in the UK is hopeless as far as curry ingredients are concerned although I may try to find those that you refer to. I am very sceptical though.

Dod

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140489

Postby James » May 22nd, 2018, 10:32 am

Dod101 wrote:When I lived in Hong Kong that is what we did, in fact it was cheaper just to go to a local restaurant.


Our apartment in Hong Kong contained a pint of milk, some tea and some frozen dumplings. The cost of ingredients cf the cost of eating out made it illogical to cook at home. It is partially driven by not getting 'locals' discount at the markets [Westerners' desires for the "authentic" market experience is priced in] and partially by the hyper-competitive restaurant sector.
Can't wait to get back there later this year.

Dod101
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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140491

Postby Dod101 » May 22nd, 2018, 10:43 am

Ah well our maid did the cooking and indeed the shopping so we ate in quite a lot but the selection of restaurants in Hong Kong and Singapore is something else.I was in both spots a couple of months ago.

It is really why I seldom eat Asian food in the UK and never in a Chinese restaurant unless with a Chinese friend. They will know a good one and the owner will turn up the style!

Still I might try what DE is referring to.

Dod

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140506

Postby DiamondEcho » May 22nd, 2018, 11:54 am

Dod101 wrote:There are various suppliers of original spices available by mail order in the UK but if you live in Asia why do you not just buy them locally? When I lived in Hong Kong that is what we did, in fact it was cheaper just to go to a local restaurant.
Most of the stuff available here in the UK is hopeless as far as curry ingredients are concerned although I may try to find those that you refer to. I am very sceptical though. Dod


We don't live in Asia any more we're approximately 1/2-way home now and finding any kind of above average* Asian restaurant here is as unlikely as in 1920s Britain :lol: We even have to go to the one specialist/expat supermarket to buy simple coconut milk, and the prices are knowingly extortionate, it's that bad. That's why the product I mentioned appeals. Usually if I'm cooking curry I have to do it from scratch, the base curry-powder, plus whole spices and then the rest. But quite often I lack sufficient time for all of that. Also, since we will do our final/retirement relo back to the UK in July I'm interested in views of the product I noted, vs other perhaps similar offerings out there. It'd be nice to think that there are other ways of getting a decent home-cooked curry without doing it from scratch each time.

When we did live in Singapore I'd have lunch at a hawker centre a couple of times a week, but I expect you know what the quality is like. Chicken chopped up bones and all and skin on; you spend half the meal picking bits out your mouth which for me detracts. Also the quality of ingredients they use is generally poor, hence the prevalence of adding MSG to try and get more from them, which reads into the budget prices and unhealthy food.

I believe ingredient availability in the UK is changing, for example I was recently expressing pleased surprise that for the first time I'd seen the likes of galangal in a high street supermarket: In Norwich - wow!

See if others have views on what I mentioned, and perhaps other brands, and give one a go - you might be as surprised as I was.


* I'm not being a curry-elitist, but when you're a Brit you rather take the prominence of decent Indian/Thai/Chinese/etc etc cuisine for granted. There are not many other countries ex-Asia that are like that. You'll even struggle to find a 1/2-way decent Indian or say Thai in otherwise vibrant and global Berlin.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140512

Postby Watis » May 22nd, 2018, 12:25 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:I was recently in the UK and noticed that there is a new (to me) form of curry-kit for sale in several major supermarkets. Rather than a simple 'cook-in sauce' it separates groups of ingredients. It wasn't until I was living in Asia that I learned how much difference cooking off fresh spices before adding anything else was, so the packs caught my attention.

I picked up a couple in Waitrose. This weekend we tried one from The Spice Tailor, 'Original tikka masala'. That is described as mild with a 1*chili' rating. Given the neutered, spice-wise*, offerings from the likes of M+S I wasn't expecting much but we were pleasantly surprised, it did have some oomph to it. I think cooking-off the raw spices certainly added to their distinctiveness in the end-result, and I also thought the dish was far closer to the taste of an authentic 'curry' you might find on the Sub-continent. There was something unusual in it a herb or spice that IME you don't usually find prominent in Brit curry, perhaps fenugreek. Anyway, after that pleasant surprise we've one more left from the same brand; 'Fiery Goan curry', 3*chilis. It's going to be interesting to see quite how spicy that one is - we'll see! Has anyone else tried this or other brands, and if so which do they recommend?

*Spice or spicy in the Asian sense, the Brit equivalent being chili heat/hot.



I don't consider myself a curry expert but, If you like the 'tikka masala' curries - as do I - I can recommend the curry kits from Rafi's spicebox, especially the tikka masala and Xacutti packs.

These packs get closer to the flavours you experience in an Indian restaurant than a curry from a jar.

No connection.

Watis

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140513

Postby UncleEbenezer » May 22nd, 2018, 12:29 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:I believe ingredient availability in the UK is changing, for example I was recently expressing pleased surprise that for the first time I'd seen the likes of galangal in a high street supermarket: In Norwich - wow!

Interesting ingredients come and go in our supermarkets. My thread on turmeric was inspired by the reappearance of a goodie that had previously been around for a while, then gone. And that's not just non-native foods: there were several years when gooseberries were horribly elusive!

If you lived in an "ethnic" area, many exciting ingredients were available a full generation ago. I have fond memories of an asian corner-shop where I lived in Bristol, just near Stapleton Road station, about 1986-ish.

A distressing trend is for spices to come packaged in plastic bags, and in fixed-size portions that are far more than I, as a single person, want to use within their lifetime as fresh. I like to buy one or at most two hot chillies, but the nearest I can get now is a packet of several scotch bonnets (and they're very bland compared to the greengrocer's bonnets I once fell in love with: Sainsburys scotch bonnets seem to fall somewhere below Thai birdseyes on scoville heat).

Not sure if it's anything like what you were talking about, but I recently picked up a miso pack ("miso tasty") that came as separate ingredient packages. I have to say, I was completely underwhelmed.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140526

Postby DiamondEcho » May 22nd, 2018, 1:04 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:Not sure if it's anything like what you were talking about, but I recently picked up a miso pack ("miso tasty") that came as separate ingredient packages. I have to say, I was completely underwhelmed.


Yep, I'm sure where you live is relevant. For example 35 years ago when I was at Leeds Uni our corner shop in Headingley also sold a huge range of Sub-continental spices, the likes of which you'd be hard pressed to find perhaps even now outside major UK cities.

Re: the above-quoted I :lol: at the trade-mark good one!
IME miso soup, like most Japanese cuisine, is about subtlety and balance. The intention is usually to allow high-quality ingredients to stand out and shine. The basic version is the stock, perhaps a couple of small cubes of tofu and some shredded sea-weed in it or sprinkled on top. I don't think it could come with the two dry ingredients pre-blended together with the miso paste [/ cringe at thought]. I enjoy a bowl of the basic version myself but it is certainly that, basic. But you can also load it up with additional ingredients to make more of it if you wish.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140535

Postby DiamondEcho » May 22nd, 2018, 1:28 pm

p.s. what sparked my interest in this is some Britishised curry seems to have de-spiced over the years I've been ex-UK. For example on one trip to London last near I bought a few cans of what in previous experience had been a pretty simple and reliably good product. M+S Hot Chicken Curry https://www.marksandspencerfoodhall.co. ... 19e6784779
I used to really enjoy that, across several years, so was expecting a treat. But it wasn't to us even vaguely approaching 'hot'; I remember commenting to my wife that it seemed milder than a korma. So either M+S have de-spiced their curries, or my palette has materially changed. Anyway, the other two cans of various curry aren't branded 'hot', and are presumably even less spicy, sit unused in the cupboard...

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140559

Postby UncleEbenezer » May 22nd, 2018, 3:05 pm

DiamondEcho wrote:p.s. what sparked my interest in this is some Britishised curry seems to have de-spiced over the years I've been ex-UK.

I too find much curry seems to have lost its bite. A "hot" today seems pretty mild in most restaurants, though just occasionally you get one that means it.

I understand the tastebuds really do become desensitised with exposure to hot chillies, and I suspect you and I may be cases in point. When I was reading about the subject, horseradish/wasabi was cited as a contrast: something to which you don't get desensitised. So if you find Colmans mustard as hot as a vindaloo, that's probably because you've lost the impact of the latter.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140569

Postby DiamondEcho » May 22nd, 2018, 3:46 pm

UncleEbenezer wrote:I understand the tastebuds really do become desensitised with exposure to hot chillies, and I suspect you and I may be cases in point. When I was reading about the subject, horseradish/wasabi was cited as a contrast: something to which you don't get desensitised. So if you find Colmans mustard as hot as a vindaloo, that's probably because you've lost the impact of the latter.


Agreed re: acclimatising to spice, that's very true. If we'd eaten the M+S one in Singapore I expect I wouldn't have found it hot 'hot', but it did used to still have a decent impact. - Believe it or not I used to occasionally go to M+S in Singapore and buy their curry as it's generally totally different to what you can get locally and sometimes I craved it, that's what I mean by 'Britishised'. It's not better or worse, it's just different, in it's own niche [Same reason chicken tikka masala is a British recipe alien to India until relatively recently some ironic bright-spark started serving it there in his Anglo-centric British-Indian restaurant]. The flip-side was curry-houses in 1980s Leeds, which served dishes off-the-scale spicy compared to anything I encountered during several months back-packing around India. It was a real shock to tour India and find the local food un-challenging in the spice department; I'd expected vindaloo 3* a day :)
But the thing is you don't really get curry where we are now, and if it's offered it's just neutered rubbish. After 3 years here my taste-buds should be sensitive to spice again, but not even that 'Hot' M+S curry it seems...
Interesting what you say about wasabi, I'd never considered that, and on reflection I agree. I used to live in Japan hence ate it regularly, but it's impact never struck me as wearing off. I wonder if M+S or similar sell a neutered version of it? :lol:

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140575

Postby JMN2 » May 22nd, 2018, 4:12 pm

Just when I learned to use paste + coconut cream instead of ready-made sauce.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140709

Postby DiamondEcho » May 23rd, 2018, 10:27 am

They'll have you growing the spices next :lol:

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140784

Postby James » May 23rd, 2018, 2:25 pm

ap8889 wrote:I can second the difficulty of finding a good curry in Germany. 3 years in all corners of the nation, not a decent curry anywhere. On the plus side excellent steaks most places. And happily I like cabbage, potato and general Mittel-Europe belly-filling stodge anyway.


I find that in most countries, national dishes are best supplemented by those of countries that nation has either invaded or had alliances with. Hence in Germany, you also find good pizza and Turkish food, as well as an array of Mittel-Europa cuisine. A shame they didn't pick up very much from the French, however, and you probably don't want to look to closely at where those Argentinian steaks came from.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140786

Postby UncleEbenezer » May 23rd, 2018, 2:35 pm

ap8889 wrote:I can second the difficulty of finding a good curry in Germany.

Europe can kind-of be divided into those countries that have the legacy of great trading empires - like Blighty or the Netherlands - and those that don't. In the former, a curry and often more exotic things are widespread. In the latter, they may tend to be limited to the most cosmopolitan areas.

In my early days in Italy, I was once on a late-night bus home from central Rome, when I got chatting with a young Bangladeshi man who told me he worked in a restaurant. I perked up and asked for details: a curry once in a while would've been most welcome. He disappointed me with the explanation that he was actually employed in an Italian restaurant. Aaargh!

I think things did improve a little during my time there, but I still found it necessary to seek out a curry fix and stock up on ingredients whenever I visited Blighty.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#140787

Postby GrandOiseau » May 23rd, 2018, 2:39 pm

I've got a Spice Tailor one free from Ocado. Will report back when I finally get round to using it. We normally cook from scratch but having kids we don't do very spicy food.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#141979

Postby stewamax » May 28th, 2018, 9:36 pm

Hence in Germany, you also find good pizza and Turkish food, as well as an array of Mittel-Europa cuisine.

In North Germany at least, Indian restaurants seem non-existent and I have yet to find an authentic French one. But I have found some good Korean ones, a bit hot for my taste but clearly fresh spiced. And Italian - or Italian-influenced German - ones seem relatively common and excellent.
On the other hand, in South West Germany on the Alsace border is a Franco-German foodies paradise (just avoid the mountains of choucroute).

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#142017

Postby JamesMuenchen » May 29th, 2018, 8:36 am

The biggest culture shock I found moving to Germany wasn't the local food, it was how different the international food is. There should be an ISO Standard for this stuff.

German curries are just stew. Döner kebap bears no relation to a British donner, it's really a turkey-salad roll with optional chili flakes.

And they make any dish "Hawaiian" by simply pouring a tin of pineapple chunks on it.

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#142074

Postby DiamondEcho » May 29th, 2018, 1:40 pm

stewamax wrote:
[James]Hence in Germany, you also find good pizza and Turkish food, as well as an array of Mittel-Europa cuisine.

In North Germany at least, Indian restaurants seem non-existent and I have yet to find an authentic French one. But I have found some good Korean ones, a bit hot for my taste but clearly fresh spiced. And Italian - or Italian-influenced German - ones seem relatively common and excellent.
On the other hand, in South West Germany on the Alsace border is a Franco-German foodies paradise (just avoid the mountains of choucroute).

@James - The Turkish food in Germany is invariably better than in Turkey itself. Far better quality ingredients, and greater care taken using them.
Agreed, in general stick to German, Austrian and Italian food if you seek quality.

@Stewamax - You're right re: Korean restos in Germany, there are some of which a few a very good. Perhaps there is a historic connection between the countries? Also there were many Indo-chinese studying in East Germany before the wall came down, the latter fell and the former spread. So some of their know-how has gone into Asian grocery shops and restaurants, though the spice-levels are often toned right down. The Germans generally speaking do not seem to 'get' or desire spice - which makes their curry-wurst even more of an oddity.
There were one or two very rare exceptions in Berlin, one being Mabuhay [Indonesian] which if you asked them for authentic spicing, +/or visited with S-E Asian friends, would serve the real-deal. Considering that it's an inexpensive and pretty simple outfit, it is amazing that it's rated 13th out of 7,176 restaurants in Berlin. In part rarity value perhaps! Quite often they'd do the catering for official functions at my wife's ASEAN employer, that's how trusted they were. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_ ... erlin.html

JamesMuenchen wrote:The biggest culture shock I found moving to Germany wasn't the local food, it was how different the international food is. There should be an ISO Standard for this stuff. German curries are just stew. Döner kebap bears no relation to a British donner, it's really a turkey-salad roll with optional chili flakes. And they make any dish "Hawaiian" by simply pouring a tin of pineapple chunks on it.


It is, it struck me that it is like what the UK had up until the early 1970s. Then when cheap long-distance air travel became common, holidays in Thailand etc., the demand for such food in the UK grew. Indo-chinese came shortly afterwards as that region opened up to tourism. Which makes me wonder how the Germans also travel far and wide, yet don't seem to seek out those cuisines when they get back home... hmm

Hehe, I wonder how you'd ISO curry, what would be the benchmark? Most regions seem to produce some kind of variation of a theme vs what you'd find in the country of origin. German '''curry''' reminded me of Donatella Versace, day-glo orange, rather boring yet expensive :lol:

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Re: 'Curry kit', impressive

#150439

Postby JMN2 » July 6th, 2018, 11:42 am

I am trying a curry kit today. Should I pestle & mortar the dry spices (quite large bay leaf looking things + chilis) and toast them a bit but not burning and in which order? Cheers.

I can't believe it is Friday and I can eat food and drink beer.


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