Curry is supposedly the new national dish of Britain. Certainly, I've learned that it occupies a very special place in the local culinary consciousness: no more the strange concoction with curry powder, bananas, sultanas and cream that some old recipe books (including Australian ones) prescribe, a British curry (one of which you might 'go for', possibly after a night out -- 'nuff said) comes in more flavours than I'd ever heard of before (dhansak? bhuna? handi?) and is quite a different style to what, living in Australia, I'd come to think of as "Indian food".
Here are some of the dishes I'd expect to find on the menu at an Australian Indian restaurant. Beef vindaloo. Lamb rogan josh. Aloo gobi. Palak paneer. Vegetable kofta (a staple of mine at the Roundabout of Death Curry Shop, who endeared themselves to me forever by being willing to deliver a $9 order to me one night at 10pm when I was working late in the lab, and then knocking another $1 off the price). And chicken makhani, that bright orange, creamy, sweet and gently spicy paragon of bowdlerised -- but still irresistibly tasty -- 'ethnic' food.
To call the entire range of diverse local cuisines that happen to have developed within an area that is classed as a single country in terms of political geography "Indian food" is, I've long since realised, is as bad a culinary over-generalisation as to lump Sichuan, Cantonese, Hunan, Teochew and many other regional styles together as "Chinese food". But, in the same way that what is known as "Chinese food" outside China began as predominantly Cantonese-influenced and has gradually expanded to include the food of other regions, our impressions of "Indian food" are based more on certain cuisines than others. A friend with more knowledge than I have (in other words, some) of the various regional cuisines of India tells me that what we think of as "Indian food" in Melbourne is mainly influenced by Punjabi-style cooking, from the north.
Despite 'going for a curry' many times since coming to the UK, in many ways I still feel I have yet to wrap my head around the bewildering array of varieties available at even the average restaurant on the Curry Mile. At some point I intend to go to a decent curry buffet restaurant and methodically sample all the flavours on offer in order to get to grips with exactly what the difference is between dopiaza and jalfrezi, korma and dhansak, makhani and tikka masala, and all the others.
In the meantime, though, I still sometimes hanker after good old chicken makhani. When looking for information on the slow-cooker lasagna I made the other week, I came across this blog and a recipe (originally from here) for slow-cooker "Indian butter chicken". I was instantly tempted -- it sounded like so little work in return for so much tomatoey-creamy deliciousness.
Of course, I couldn't just follow the directions given. That would a) have been too simple, and b) required me to go out shopping and buy ingredients, including chicken, and 'tandoori masala', an ingredient that not only do I not know where to get it, I don't even know what it is. I had several assorted root vegetables left over from the past week's cooking exploits, the makings of a basic curry paste, and tomato paste, coconut milk and spices in the fridge. Here is what I did:
Vegetable makhani curry
1 large mixing bowlful root and other vegetables (I used:
4 medium carrots
1/2 a large swede
1/2 a large butternut squash
about 100g mushrooms)
Curry paste
1-2 red onions
4 large garlic cloves
3 inch piece ginger, peeled
1-2 red chillies
1 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs ground coriander
1 tbs mild curry powder
15 cardamom pods (NB: would cut down for next time - maybe 10)
1 can (440 ml) coconut milk
1/2 jar tomato pasta sauce (because that's what I had left)
100ml tomato paste
1/2 jar water
1-2 tsp salt
2 tbs sweet chilli sauce
Chop all vegetables into rough chunks. Preheat slow cooker and place vegetables inside.
For curry paste, blend onion, garlic, ginger and chillies; add spices. Heat ~1tbs oil in a saucepan and fry curry paste until fragrant; add thick part of coconut milk if needed to keep from sticking. Add rest of coconut milk, tomato sauce and tomato paste, salt and sweet chilli sauce; heat until just boiling. Pour evenly over vegetables in slow cooker; rinse jar, can and saucepan with water and add this too.
Cook on high for... well, I meant to put it on high for an hour or two and then turn it down when I left, but forgot. After about 8 hours on high the vegetables were well and truly soft; somewhat worryingly, things were a bit black around the edges! Nothing was stuck or tasted burnt, though. Probably 4-5 hours would have done it, and stirring in the middle might not have been a bad idea either, but it was fine in the end.
The flavour was not quite as creamy as the chicken makhani I remember, but had the right amount of spice and sweetness (helped by the root vegetables) and was still quite rich. If I'd had the yoghurt on hand recommended by the recipes I (sort of) followed, that might have added to the creaminess; if I'd had any fresh coriander left, I would have chopped that and stirred it through at the end. The flavour of cardamom -- a key element in makhani as I know it -- was distinct, possibly a bit too much so; I'd probably reduce the number of cardamom pods for next time. Overall though, it was plenty tasty nonetheless!
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