Secret to takeaway curry

Question

It's become something of a quest for me to find a curry recipe that tastes like the curry you get from an Indian Takeaway. I'm getting close with the consistency, but can't get the taste right.

I won't list the various and numerous things that I've tried, but most of the variations that I've tried include:

tomatoes (I've tried fresh, tinned and purée), onion, yoghurt (although this doesn't seem to affect the flavour, so I stopped using it), cumin (tried seeds and ground), mustard seeds, coriander (fresh and ground), ginger (fresh and ground), fenugreek (fresh and ground), garam masala.

I'm pretty sure that I'm missing one or two ingredients that restaurants and takeaways use as a matter of course, but I haven't been able to find it. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

EDIT:

I didn't realise that they differ, but I'm in the UK - so that's the takeaway I'm referring to.

I appreciate curry's vary in taste, but there seems to be an underlying taste to all the tomato based ones. For the purpose of clarity, I'm trying to make a Rogan Josh.

Here's a sample of the sort of thing that I've been trying:

• 4 - 5 tomatoes, skinned and chopped
• 1 Onion chopped
• 1 lb Diced Lamb
• 2 - 3 Garlic cloves crushed and chopped
• 2 tablespoons of Garam Masalla
• 1 tablespoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon mustard seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 inch root ginger grated
• Oil

Slowly heat the mustard and cumin seeds until the pop, then add the onions and garlic and fry gently until soft. Add the meat and up the heat to cook. After about 10 mins add the other ingredients and leave for an hour or until the tomatoes have turned into sauce.

Another thing that I've tried is puréeing the garlic, spices, tomatoes and ginger and adding that after the onions are cooked. This helps with the consistency, but doesn't really affect the taste.

EDIT:

The best single answer that I had to this was cream. However, cloves did also make a difference. I still haven't managed to get the takeaway flavour, but thanks for all the suggestions.

Answer 1

If the English curry is similar to this, you are missing CREAM!

Answer 2

Use double or triple that volume of spices, and gentle dry roast them first

Use ghee (clarified butter) instead of oil

Use loads of cream to finish the gravy

Answer 3

As ever, it depends on the exact recipe. It seems to me that garlic is conspicuously missing from your list of ingredients, though.

Additionally, you could try very small amount (1/4 teaspoon for a medium put to start) of the following spices:

• Cloves
• Turmeric
• Cinnamon
• Cardamom (this really sorted out a dish I was making yesterday that was tasting a little flat)

You didn't put curry in your list, though I assume you don't need to be told that.

Answer 4

Rogan Josh was originally a Kashmiri dish. 'Rogan Josh' means 'bubbling fat'.

Nowadays 'Rogan Josh' is pretty much any lamb/goat curry with a red gravy. Most of the Rogan Josh I've had in the US & UK isn't anything like what my Kashmiri in laws make.

The red color of Rogan Josh comes from a lot of 'Kashmiri mirch', a red chili powder that is rich & flavorful as well as hot - a good substitute for Kashmiri mirch is a mix of 1/2 cayenne pepper plus 1/2 paprika.

Ratan Jot (made from red cockscomb flowers) is also used to color Rogan Josh traditionally, but doesn't add much flavor.

Tomatoes are NOT used traditionally in Kashmiri Rogan Josh.

This is my Kashmiri mom in laws recipe for Rogan Josh-

(Note-Kashmiri Pandits would use Asafoetida not onion & garlic, Kashmiri Muslims do use onion & garlic)

2lbs lamb or goat, cut into 2 inch pieces-bone in & fatty preferred

6 TBS ghee

1 tsp cumin seeds

3 inch piece of cassia bark or cinnamon stick

7 cloves, whole

5 black cardamoms, bruised in mortar & pestle

1/2 tsp coarsely ground black peppercorns

1 TBS Kashmiri mirch

1 tsp ground fennel

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 & 1/2 cups full fat yoghurt mixed with 2 tsp flour

Grind to paste-

2 onions

1 TBS garlic paste (or 6 cloves garlic)

2 tsp ginger paste (or 1 inch ginger)

1) Fry mutton pieces until brown in ghee in batches in a deep skillet. Set mutton aside.

2) In same ghee fry onion/garlic/ginger paste plus 1 teaspoon salt until most of moisture gone.

3) Add cumin, cloves, cassia, black pepper, and black cardamom to onion mixture, fry for around 2 minutes.

4) Add mutton pieces, Kashmiri mirch, fennel & ginger, stir well to coat all mutton pieces.( A tablespoon of Kashmiri mirch sounds like it would make this dish unbearably hot but the yogurt mellows the heat & gives it a rich, deep flavor)

5) Remove pan from heat, add yoghurt mixture 1 TBS at a time and stir in well.

6) Return pan to heat and simmer for 8-10 minutes or until most of liquid from yoghurt is gone.

7) Add 1 cup water to mutton mixture, stir well and simmer until mutton is tender. Salt to taste and serve.

Answer 5

Personally i think you should aspire to make one better than the curry house.

I think the trick is to use as much fresh spices as possible - make your own Garam Masalla and just use this instead of all your other spices.

we toast cumin, coriander, mustard seeds, fennel, one clove, and about 8 cardimon pods. or what ever takes my fancy at the time then grind them in a coffee grinder.

Each cook will have his own mix passed down through generations, usually a closely guarded secret. Which is why probably you'll never find that exact flavour.

Answer 6

Tamarind. Looking through the various jars of mixes I use, tamarind is in quite a few, and gives it a very bright red colour.

Other than that, garam masala, and very very very very reduced onions. An Indian taught me a generic recipe. Fry chilis, then onions, then combine with tomatoes into a base sauce. Fry meat until browned, add the sauce, garam masala, lemon, and mango powder, and simmer for 15 minutes. But, although totally authentic, this is very Indian, not very English. Tasty, but probably lacks what you (and I) are looking for. So, I do all the above, and throw in a jar of Patak's. Sometimes, I use a little cream, sometimes some other marinades before hand, but the base remains as above, and it's pretty Indian.

I know in the UK that a lot of restaurants are actually Bangladeshi, so looking for specific recipes there might help.

Answer 7

The single tip I've learned that makes curries taste like a takeaway is in the onion, garlic and ginger (chilli optional).

These three things should be whizzed to a paste with a touch of salt first. Fry this in ghee after your spices have been dry-toasted in the same pan. Then add the ground, toasted spices to the onion mix.

If your dish requires onions as the body of the dish they can be added afterwards, sliced or as required.

I can't tell you the flavour difference pureeing these things makes.

I also don't completely agree with adding cream. A rogan josh will be more often thickened (and soured) with Greek-style yoghurt.

Answer 8

You are right - there is a definite indian takeaway taste that is difficult to replicate. You can make something that tastes fresher, more authentic or healthier, but sometimes you want that takeaway style. A number of the Pat Chapman books go through making a takeaway style dish, also have a look on ebay, there are a number of people selling takeaway style curry recipe kits with prebagged and measured spices and instructions - I am sure some of those are done by enterprising takeaways themselves. They have been pretty good, and not very expensive when I have tried them. Anyway, a couple of things that I have picked up on that help get that elusive flavour

1. As you mentioned, pureeing the onions helps with the consistency, which is important
2. Use a lot of garlic - takeaways use a base curry sauce as the start of every dish, I am sure it uses a lot more garlic than you imagine.
3. Use Ghee as your cooking medium. And use a lot of it.
4. Salt. Don't forget it (I know plenty of people who forget seasoning as soon as they are cooking anything 'ethnic')
5. Add dried fenugreek leaves (Methi) towards the end of cooking. Smell them - smell familiar? Smells like the takeaway!

Answer 9

The main suggestion that I havent seen mentioned here is that Restaurant Indian uses base sauces.

An Indian restaurant will typically have two or three different base sauces - big pots of sauce cooking away all night, which forms the base of a curry. Each curry will use one or more of the base sauces, plus a variety of other ingredients which do not take very long to cook. This allows the restaurant to be able to prepare a curry very quickly, without having every curry already pre-made. It also contributes significantly to that 'restaurant curry' taste.

These base sauces are typically made up of large amount of onion, tomato and oil, maybe a couple of veges and a variety of spices for flavour. These are typically cooked so long that all the ingredients disintegrate, or a blender is used to puree the base sauce.

If you cant be bothered going down this route, my other suggestion would be to try using more oil - 3/4 tablespoons at a minimum probably

Answer 10

It it is taste that is the problem, the issue may well be spicing. What might be missing depends on the type of curry you are trying to make and my best suggestion is to find someone who really knows how to cook Indian food and ask them.

One issue that is fairly common is not roasting the spices correctly before cooking the curry so you might want to experiment with that.

Answer 11

A couple of suggestions that seem to work for me:

1. Marinade the meat in spices before cooking.. I once used up the sauce from a takeaway curry that I handn't finished by frying some chicken and putting in the sauce. It didn't taste like the curry had the night before.
2. Blend onions in a food processor until smooth(ish). Fry this until the onions are no longer bitter and add to the spice mixture you are using to make your curry sauce. It gives the curry the texture you associate with take away currys.
3. Use lemon juice to taste. Add lemon juice near the end of cooking.
4. In addition to 2, and depending on the type of curry you are making fry chopped onions for a long time, until they are golden brown. It will give the curry a lot of flavour.
5. Don't be shy with sugar.

Answer 12

Over a decade since this question was asked, let me throw in my own take on this.
Note: This is not a BIR recipe. It's a definite home version, one pot not four. They use bulk methods that you simply cannot reproduce at domestic quantities.

It is also a blend of traditional 'Indian' & 'modern BIR'.
Initially, Rogan Josh was two distinct recipes, made by two distinct populations, split by country of origin as much as by religion, Mughals descended from Persian immigrants & natives of Hindustan. The modern BIR is already a blend of these origins, further anglicised by the use of tomato purée, from a time when you couldn't just walk into a British supermarket to buy Kashmiri mirch, or indeed most of the spices we can now obtain easily, separately, whole or ground. They would use chilli powders [instant Madras heat at the end], curry powders & garam masalas, pre-blended, much more readily available on import, and more easily controllable in large, repeat quantities.

One more thing: If you're going to use supermarket spices, at least use new jars. They're already a bit weak compared to a good importer, but if you keep them in the back of the cupboard for a year or more, they'll be like cardboard.

I was going to laboriously write down the full ingredients list & method, but as there are so many recipes available online now, I've taken this one from BBC Good Food as my start-point & modified it quite a bit, so it's no longer just a verbatim copy/paste…

Ingredients

For the rogan josh paste
1 bunch fresh coriander, stalks and leaves separated
1/2 tsp cayenne powder, or to taste [you can add more of this right up to the last few minutes if you need.]
2 tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground
2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and ground
1 tsp black peppercorns, roughly ground
2 tsp paprika, or preferably Kashmiri mirch, now more readily available
1 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp tomato purée
1 tsp salt, or to taste

For the lamb
2-3 tbsp groundnut [flavourless] oil or preferably ghee [BIR uses far more oil/ghee (& salt) than you would normally feel comfortable with at home.]
5cm/2in cinnamon stick
3 dried bay leaves
5 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
4 cloves
[personally, I use powdered [home-ground] cardamom & cloves so you don't have to pick the bits out later, though I add half at the start & the rest an hour before serving, so the flavours don't vanish]
2 large onions, 1/2 roughly chopped, the rest as fine as you can get it
600g/1lb 5oz lamb neck fillet, all visible fat removed, cut into 3cm/1in chunks
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
1 thumb-sized piece fresh root ginger, peeled and finely grated
[A BIR would use frozen ginger/garlic paste in cubes, or garlic powder.
100g/3½oz fat-free natural yoghurt [optional]
2 tsp garam masala [This, like the clove/cardamom you can split half & half - half now, half an hour before serving.]
1 fresh tomato cut into wedges [optional, but very BIR these days.]

Method
To make the paste, in a mixer, blend together the coriander stalks, red chilli, ground spices and salt.
Mix in the tomato purée.
Heat the oil in a large heavy-based casserole or heavy-lidded saucepan.
Fry the cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, bay leaves, fennel and cloves for 1 minute.
Add the spice paste and fry gently for another 2 minutes or so, stirring, until the oil starts to separate.
Add the onion and lamb and fry for 5-10 minutes or more, stirring & turning up the heat as it will let a lot of water out at this point.
Add the garlic and ginger and continue cooking until you can no longer smell raw garlic.

Cover with a lid and simmer as low as possible for 2 - 4 hours, until the lamb can be easily broken down with just a fork.

For the first hour keep checking your liquid level. The sauce will at first thin as more water comes from the onion & meat, but will eventually reduce again. You don't want it to dry out & consequently burn, but you don't want it swimming. Add a little water if needed.
Your sauce at the end is going to be predominantly onion & ghee/oil, not added water.

Add garam masala an hour before serving, if you add it all at the start the aromatics will have boiled off by the end.
In the last 10 minutes, stir in the yoghurt & tomato wedges.
The fresh coriander leaves you can either gently fold in in right at the end or use as garnish.

In this, I haven't really concentrated so much on quantities as method. Starting with your dry seeds first you do risk burning, but if you do that right at the start it's not too terrible to start over. Adding the wet paste second then keeps your burn risk down a long way. Long cook with lots of onion & oil is what makes your sauce & your full flavour. Water doesn't. Your actual spice blend you can modify over time; that's actually the easy bit, once you get used to it.

Oh, one more thing… You wouldn't always get these in any given dish, but almost all BIR curry houses smell of fenugreek & asafoetida [hing], so you will know them by association.
You can add half to a teaspoon of fenugreek powder any time after your onions go in, for instant 'oooh, it's just like a curry' aroma.
Asafoetida 1/4 to 1/2 tsp ground [it comes in different 'strengths' because it's bulked to make it easier to use]. Be warned. It stinks like something rotten when you first expose your nose to it, but it cooks in a bit like onion flavour. Don't let the initial smell put you off.

If you got this far, you might also like my answer on Why does my curry taste flat which sets out some basics, ingredient types & methodology.

Answer 13

Pat Chapman has written a number of books over the years, containing restaurant curry recipes, and I recommend any one of them.

The thing is, restaurant recipes are designed for restaurant scale cooking. An Indian restaurant will typically start the day by preparing a large quantity of fresh garam masala, a big tub of onion puree, a big tub of masala sauce, and so on. Chapman's recipes work this way, each final recipe refers to a recipe for a sauce described earlier in the book, which in turn refers to a recipe for a spice mix.

These are difficult things to make well on a smaller scale, and if you try it at home you'll end up with a freezer full of spare sauce etc., which is fine if you intend to make use of it, but makes the first curry very labour intensive.

For this reason, I personally don't aspire to cooking a restaurant curry -- I can get one cheaply and easily by having a restaurant make it! I aspire to a curry such as a good Indian cook would prepare for their family on a special occasion.

One final thought: Analji Patak, founder of the company that makes jars of curry sauce, has insinuated that more restaurants use her factory-made sauces than you'd imagine. Make of that what you will.

Answer 14

While preparing for Indian curry you can season Toor Dal, which gives better taste.

It tastes better and smells good If you season with chilli, mustard seed and curry leaves

Answer 15

A handful of chopped fresh coriander (or cilantro if you're in the US) added at about 5-10 mins before the end of the cooking process is hugely important. It adds a nice pungent aroma and flavour.

However the real trick is to find a recipe for a good basic core sauce from which you can create different styles of curry from - kinda like having a good stock.

I base mine on this basic curry sauce recipe which I stumbled across a few years back.

Most UK Indian Restaurants will start cooking a dish from a simple sauce such as this. I'm also guessing that because it's probably sat around the fridge for most of the day or from the day before, the various spices and herbs will have suffused and made the sauce richer in taste.

If I can't get fresh spices then Pateks Curry pastes do a pretty good job as a substitute.

Also experiment with small amounts of lemon juice to get that tang you find in more sour dishes such as Patia or Ceylonese Curry (not Korma).

It's the taste closest approaching that UK Indian Restaurant style - i.e. 1980's Koh-i-noor Glasgow or the Shish Mahal in Gibson Street Glasgow - both of which I used to frequent many times in my youth :)

Answer 16

In general, from what I've tasted, takeaway curries seem to be, at least in Sydney (Australia):

1. Made ahead of time and heated on request.
2. Contain more sugar than usual.
3. Seem to contain tomato paste, judging by the taste.
4. Tend to be cooked for a long time.
5. Contain an unspeakable amount of coconut milk and/or cream.

I suggest cooking your curry, however you choose to make it, for about 6 hours.

Answer 17

Some interesting answers here!

I've studied this for years trying to find the answer to that simple question 'how do you replicate that 'Indian restaurant flavour' at home?

Here are the two key answers -

1/ Use a base sauce or gravy.

All Indian restaurants use one or more 'base sauces or gravies' for the vast majority of their dishes.

2/ Use a very high temperature heat burner to cook your dishes on.

Look in an Indian Restaurant and look at the burners they use to cook their dishes on. They are fiercely high temperature burners and the dishes are cooked over a very high heat, a heat I may add that few home gas burners can replicate unless you're lucky enough to have a high temperature wok burner.

Answer 18

Some good tips here and I share your quest to get that authentic taste. I find that takeaway/restaurant curry has a hell of a lot of ghee and garlic in it. Curry also tastes better reheated the next day (caution is required and common sense). Have you tried adding roasted apples (cored)? Also, whizzing up curry with food processor before adding meat or prawns, and adding chopped coriander before serving.

Answer 19

As others have mentioned, your average British Indian Restaurant (BIR) curry is a very different beast from a "standard" curry cooked on the stovetop. The techniques used, ingredients and even utensils are different from what your average home chef will encounter, so naturally the results will be very different.

First of all, all the ingredients are pre-cooked and the curry assembled for a quick turnaround, 5 minutes on average. This is facilitated through the use of a base gravy and the spices and meat etc. are then fried over a very high heat (using professional burners) in an aluminium pan. With the stirring and movement of the pan the oil ignites briefly, adding a distinctive "smokey" taste, similar to "wok hei".

Secondly, the base gravy is reduced and caramelised in the pan multiple times, something that can be done quickly in a commercial environment, but takes much longer in a domestic one.

Thirdly, due to large turnover of product, the spices used are very fresh indeed. Other ingredients are used not commonly used by the home chef (e.g. methi, food colouring etc.) and this, coupled with a large amount of cooking oil, results in a very distinctive taste.

The amount of preparation for just one curry can easily extend into 5-6 hours (much less if you have a pressure cooker). The results though, really are spectacular. You might not achieve 100% takeaway restaurant taste (this is difficult without an aluminium pan and and a very high heat), but you won't be far off.

Cooking BIR curries at home is becoming very popular, and there are lots of guides online. One of the best series is by Misty Ricardo, who covers just about every BIR dish imaginable: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmDD4ScjRi4

Answer 20

The one thing all good curry joints have in common is the tempering of the spices.

You take a bit of oil, you add a half spoon of cumin seeds, then some mustard seeds, then kashmeri chilli powder, then tumeric and a bit of mother-in-law spice.

Your oil should have a thick paste consistency to it. You give it a bit of time for the spice to activate. When the smell hits you will know.

You then chop three onions as fine as you can and add it. Give it a few minutes of sweating. While it sweats you roughly chop 3 tomatos and add them.

The tomatos reduce to a paste and the onions become soft and infused with the spices.

This is the base. From there you can add whatever protein you like. There are some variations. Korma is a cream sauce flavoured with cashews. Vindaloo is a hot tomato sauce. Rog is lamb with a cream sauce.

Answer 21

I wonder that one important technique has not yet been mentioned: thickening it with boiled and pulverized light nuts/seeds (cashews, peanuts, melon seeds...) .. Sanjay Thumma's videos on korma and salan gravies explain quite a bit about it :)