GOOD NEWS on my protracted search for an authentic Chinese takeaway-style curry sauce. As dumped over chicken curry mix vegetable fry rice or sold in a pot with chips (which (for you Americans) are a chunkier version of "fries")...Basically I just had to find the right curry powder to start with and the nearest Chinese shop has a good one only it's far too heavy on the chili for my preference. Indian curry mix will not do. West Indian is better, though the "jerk chicken spices" I have are way too heavy on cinnamon plus a bit too coriander-y...
I fried an onion in butter (great money-saving tip for those on dole: buy cheapest unsalted butter instead of frying oil when in desperation (you can't spread frying oil on bread...))... added a mug of water plus 4 or 5 teaspoons Chinese curry powder (cannot name brand: all in Chinese) this I threw in the blender and whizzed for 2 mins on max.
But this "curry" that I'd painstakingly compared to that of the local Chinese takeaway last night by tastetesting their curry plus my curry powder (a near perfect match)... man! It was GROSS! Seemingly something of EVERYTHING was missing. I was in despair as to how to fix it.
Until I remembered my "Chinese salt" this is 50-50 Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) and ordinary table salt. A flat teaspoon into this mugful of curry sauce worked wonders I'd seen only heroin do before. (E.g. the wonder of turning me from a human block of ice in agitated despair into a peachy even-breathing human actually feeling like a "being" not a mistake... anyhow...
The curry sauce still needed thickening:~
So then I gradually added value self-raising flour by the half-tsp (again more multipurpose than cornflour, which is barely any better for thickening (so I'm told) and definitely doesn't make as good dumplings as Value Selfraising... thereby thickening curry sauce. Fished out the worst of the inevitable lumps. It was still lumpy though. So I shoved it yet again in the blender and wahey! Curry sauce of a perfect consistency! I must've added about 4 tsps.
The only problem was my specific Chinese currymix was too heavy on chili as I said though the remainder of the spicemix was bang-on correct. Do not use Indian spices or supermarket "mild/medium/whatever curry powder" this will only give a Madras-like flavour which is wrong. You must get Chinese curry mix, which is lacking ingredients, but I can tell you has a distinct whiff of star anise (which you'll never find in Indian curry powder) ... and the MSG is ESSEMTIAL. Suddenly from a less than amateurish failure of a sauce you get precisely the right warmth and heat and mysterious oniony lingering flavour (which is more down to MSG than actual onions in the mix)...
tra la la la!!
You do love your chinese don't you? I love Thai best! Mmmm...
ReplyDeleteIt's the Monosodium Glutamate makes it so tasty, did you know that?
ReplyDeleteIt enhances all flavours. whatever they are. It tricks your taste buds, basically.
When MWM wants curry and chips (usually after a few pints) I use Dinaclass curry powder it's just like the local chinese takeway, it even has sultanas in it!
ReplyDeleteCurry and chips! GAH! Its like that 3-in-1 stuff that the Irish eat, curry, chips and fried rice. Tis true my friend English Cuisine is an oxymoron! I'm with Monogram Queen - Thai rocks!
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to stick with buying my Chinese food. = )
ReplyDeleteHey - if you want authentic Chinese curry sauce, log on to www.kingasia.co.uk. You can buy on-line and they deliver internationally. You won't find anything more authentic and you don't need to add anything else to it apart from water!!
ReplyDeleteI love to try different dishes but find alot of spices bother my tummy anymore. :( Hub and I would occasionally meet at an Indian buffet but I'd always ask the waiter which dishes were mild!
ReplyDeleteHub can eat things so hot your lips would melt. He grows assorted peppers and has been into these crazy habaneros lately. Once they turn orange, they are so hot his lips go numb. That just doesn't sound fun to me. lol
I haven't visited in so long so there are a bit too many posts to catch up and comment on, but I did want to say that I'm real sorry to read of your friend Lucky's death. Hope you are okay.
Not a curry lover ... always wonder what's hiding within all the sauce and spices ;(
ReplyDeleteI can't ingest MSG...gives me awful migraines, so I generally stay away from Chinese food unless I make my own. I put Chinese Five Spice in...gives a lovely flavour. But after Italian, one of my favourite foods is Vietnamese...yummm and very healthy, too.
ReplyDeleteMSG also makes me wig out without headaches from hell. Sometimes it is worth the pain for some fantabulous Chinese food. I have to agree with puss-in-boots, Vietnamese is great food!
ReplyDeleteMQ: the spicey dishes are what I really like... Chinese is work-a-day food for me ie what I could eat every day. Indian is more delicately spicey... my all time favourite's halal Malaysian-Chinese (ie no seafood or weird bits: the best of Indian-Chinese-Thai all together...)
ReplyDeleteCrushed I mix it 50:50 with Saxa table salt and call it my "Chinese salt"... really it needs ordinary salt to really make it kick in (so I've found) the 2 flavours have a definite synergy...
Akalamalu: I did quite a good curry sauce.. goes REALLY WELL with chicken. Not quite so well with beef... which is what I had to finish it off with
Baino: I know what you mean, but couldn't do Thai everyday. Chinese I most definitely can (and do: my own (after a style...))
Lucinda: I couldn't afford that... and just end up craving craving CRAVING it even reading the takeaway menus like some kind of longing pathetic food porn thang :-<...
ReplyDeleteGail: I will: cheers!
Bimbimbie: i wish they'd give full ingredients to that curry. VERY ANNOYING ... I just know star anise is part of the makeup as I can taste it...
Crystal: I'm surviving, cheers...
%-/...
Pussinboots: I know lots of people don't like MSG (or the thought of it) ... but it's fine by me!!
ReplyDeleteEileen: never knowingly ingested Vietnamese... in fact they used to surreptitiously open CHINESE takeaways until Vietnamese became trendy after its own fashion in the 90s
Gled, give Chinese Five Spice powder a go. This might be your missing link.
ReplyDeleteGood grief, gledwood, are you still on the hunt for Chinese curry sauce?!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry, I've not been by for a while. I've come in via Robyn in Australia again. Seems to work well this way.
xx
Found an industrial version (just add water and stir continuously)... but want to know PRECISELY WHICH SPICES and to be able to make from scratch. I hate feeling in the pocket of the industrial multinational food business and am sure Chinese takeaway chefs don't use industrial premade mixes! I'm sure they would know precisely which spices to add and in what quantities and that's what I wish to do...
ReplyDelete