Customer Reviews
Cheap and cheerful, but does not give the secret, this review does ! - By: Patrick Collins, 11 Jun 2008 
If you want to get that basic Indian restaurant flavour then this book helps, but only to an extent. There is slightly more to it. You will get the basic texture correct & to some extent the character of restaurant food from the base gravy recipe in this book. But good restaurants do a little more & great restaurants do rather a lot more. In fact it takes many years of training to become a top Indian food chef.
I don't agree that this book truly gives the "curry secret". And I certainly don't think you have to boil alll the ingredients as this book suggests. I have had the pleasure of being invited "back stage" at a couple of Indian restaurants & have joined in the cooking. They laughed when I told them about this book !
The real secret is adding a lot of salt to the onions & garlic paste as they fry. Its not reallly got anything to do with the spices. You must use a lot of oil & garlic - otherwise it won't work. For a curry base for 4 people you would use 4 shredded onions, at least 8 fat cloves of squashed garlic, fresh ginger puree & at least half a tea cup of vegetable oil & then add a good level teaspoon of salt ! Yes - that is a lot of salt I know. What happens here is that the salt draws out the garlic & onion flavours & that "chemistry" is what gives you the restaurant falvour. This takes about 20 minutes on quite a high heat - stir every thirty seconds, then add blended canned tomatoes, some fresh tomatoes, turmeric, methi powder, chilli, cumin, coriander & cardamom.
Stir in half a cup of natural yoghurt & cook vigorously for another 20 minutes stirring almost alll the time adding water so the sauce does not burn. 5 minutes before serving add a teaspoon of garam masala & fresh coriander if you have some. For a creamy finish, blend the whole lot & add an inch of coconut block or coconut cream. Add half a can of tomato soup for Tikka Masala sauce - yes that is what the restaurants do ! And add single cream at the end. Trust me this little addition will work.
In summary it's the way that garlic & to a lesser extent the onions, salt & oil cook that gives that Indian restaurant aroma - not so much the spices. Obviously you would not have a curry without the spices, but they are the easy part - in my humble opinion.
One tip, pour off the excess oil or ghee you use for frying the garlic & onions & save it. Do this each time you make a curry & refrigerate the oil. It will keep fine for a few weeks. Or make your curry sauce two to three days (max) in advance & refrigerate. The aging process improves the flavour & gives more of a restaurant aroma.
A word of warning though as others have pointed out - the basic curry gravy as per this book absolutely stinks your house out & takes several days to get rid of ! Do it outside if you must, but as I say it's a red herring - you don't need to boil the onions, garlic & ginger.
This is amazing! - By: A. Klein, 14 May 2008 
After years of searching for a good curry book, to make curry like you buy in restaurants, I finallly found this one.
The curries are very easy to make, & taste SUPERB. Even gives instructions to make the rice just like you would get in a restaurant.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If you only buy one curry book, make it this one. Since I found this, I posted alll of my other curry books on freecycle, it's that good.
Best curry book out there - By: J. Cumming, 10 May 2008 the book guides you through the making of a formula curry where by you make stock of a sauce & use it with various spice blends to concoct a variety of dishes in relativly short time. i also am buying a repeat copy as my old one wore out!
John
Best indian cook book ever - By: , 17 Nov 2004 I've had this book for years, the recipes are easy to follow,and they taste superb.I would say that the book is excellent value for money. I'm having to buy a new copy because the old one has falllen apart from overuse!
