Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, I will say if you are trying to replicate good Indian restaurant fare, no premade sauce will ever come close. I should know, kids love Indian food and I try to make it a lot and had many misses over the years. Sauces I use are edible, and kids like it and eat it. One they like is Aldi's Tikka Masala. Does it taste like restaurant one? Not at all. But, it tastes ok, and they eat it. I do sauté onions and garlic first and add turmeric and some curry powder and a chicken cube, and pepper and hot spur red chilies, well, you get the point. It is pretty tasty, we call it mom's version. I do make curry with dry spices. I do wonder why cant they make a good sauce to taste like one in a restaurant?

Why can't you make good sauce and spices? The reason is that most of the spices are seed based. Once you crush the seed into a powder, the taste and smell of the oil within the seeds is what bring flavor to the dish. The fragrance, taste and freshness of the essential oil does not last for very long and so spices even in powder form will not remain fresh for long. . Also, onions, garlic and ginger are main component of most sauces and to preserve it in a bottle you have to add preservatives and chemicals. They change the taste of the sauces. Fresh onions give a sweet taste to sauce and if you are putting it in a bottle, invariably you are going to be adding sugar to make up for the loss of flavor. Fresh tomatos add acidity and tartness to the sauce. You put it in a bottle and to preserve the color and taste you will add some citric acid etc.

Never buy your Indian spices from a mainstream grocery store. Buy MDH brand from Indian stores because the turnover is very quick, the spices are inexpensive because of volume sale and you are guaranteed the freshest, most fragrant spices.

Similarly, most Indian sauces also have paste of fresh ginger and garlic. I use the bottled ginger-garlic paste and the taste is not that great. The days I have time and energy, I will use the fresh ginger and garlic and the dish is beyond amazing.


Finally - you can stick to just frying the onions (aka - browning it without burning) and freezing that. Frying onions is time consuming and messy. If you can just get the frying onion out of the way, making the sauces is not that hard. When you need to make a sauce,

1) Put some frozen fried onions (1 cup) in a saucepan with some cooking oil on medium heat.
2) Add some ginger-garlic paste (2 table spoon) in the onion and mix and cook till the paste turn into a pink color and there is a good aroma from the mixture.
3) Add chopped tomatoes (1 cup) + chopped cilantro (1/4 cup) and continue cooking till the tomatoes become soft and mushy and incorporated with the onions and garlic-ginger paste.
4) Add some salt (1/3 tsp), turmeric powder (1/4 tsp), red chilli powder (1/4 tsp), cumin powder(1/3 tsp) and coriander (cilantro) seed(1/2 tsp) powder, and simmer. This is your basic sauce.
5) Simmer your veggie or meat (1 1/2 - 2 cups) in this sauce till it is cooked through, by covering the pan, and occasionally stirring. Add small amount of water if the curry becomes too thick or start to stick to the pan. Evaporate the water by heating if the curry becomes too watery.

When you want to become more adventurous, try adding small amounts of spices in this mixture to change the flavor. Cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, bay leaves, fennel, poppy seeds, curry leaves, shredded coconut, yogurt...the variations are endless.

Anonymous wrote:Well, I will say if you are trying to replicate good Indian restaurant fare, no premade sauce will ever come close. I should know, kids love Indian food and I try to make it a lot and had many misses over the years. Sauces I use are edible, and kids like it and eat it. One they like is Aldi's Tikka Masala. Does it taste like restaurant one? Not at all. But, it tastes ok, and they eat it. I do sauté onions and garlic first and add turmeric and some curry powder and a chicken cube, and pepper and hot spur red chilies, well, you get the point. It is pretty tasty, we call it mom's version. I do make curry with dry spices. I do wonder why cant they make a good sauce to taste like one in a restaurant?

Anonymous wrote:It is a bit thicker and more sour. I don't think the difference is dramatic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op, I am an Indian. You don't need sauce.
If you have little ginger, garlic, paprika, salt, curry powder (or garam masala), it is easy.

For chicken curry of 2 lbs chicken:
1. Chop a medium -large onion, jalapeno
2. Heat spoon of oil and add cumin seeds, chopped onion and jalapeno.
2. Grate ginger and mince garlic while above is frying. Add them when onions are almost cooked.
3. Cut 2-3 tomatoes and add them to the above fried mixture and fry till the oil leaves.
4. Add cut chicken pieces and brown them.
5. Add paprika, salt and garam masala. Add little water.
6. Let it cook over medium flame. Garnish with cilantro. Adjust spices and if it is spicy add a spoon of yogurt or splash of half and half and cook them.

Serve with rice or roti.

I really appreciate this. Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:Shawoods is the only one that cuts it, however, before adding the sauce to the chicken I pan fry 3 cloves of garlic, half an onion and a small piece of ginger, all finely chopped for approx 5mins until nicely browned on medium heat. Then add the chicken and season in the pan with salt and pepper. Once the chicken is browned add the sauce and about 1/4 teaspoon of chili...leave to simmer for 3-5 mins. Result = Delicious!! Made using Sharwooda tikka masala sauce in a jar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone have a raita recipe to share?

Depends if you want a more mild North Indian cucumber raita or a spicier South Indian/Hyderabadi raita. I'm South Indian and ours is pretty simple.

Take roughly 300 mg of a rich yogurt, such as Greek yogurt. Then on a cutting board, chop up 1 green chilli, 1 tomato, 1 medium sized onion and 1 tbsp of cilantro very finely. Add to the yogurt and then add salt to taste. Mix up and serve.