I was browsing through the great range of vegetarian curry recipes on the Curry Focus website looking for a curry to make this weekend. I eat a lot of vegetarian curries as well as non-vegetarian ones. Usually I go for a dal recipe but thought that I would give some other type of vegetarian recipe a try. And my eyes landed on the Potato and Spinach Curry recipe. Yes, this is the one. It looks very easy to make so this reinforced my selection – I like easy recipes because they make my random cooking abilities look good. And this is a cheap curry to make as well, which is a bonus. And I love potato.

And shopping for this curry recipe was really easy because all I had to do was get some spinach and curry leaves since I had everything else already.

Making this curry was a breeze. I boiled the potatoes until they were ready, fried the spice seeds, onions and curry leaves, added the previously cooked potatoes, added the spices and then added the chopped up spinach. I started up the microwave to cook the basmati not long after the onions went into the frying pan so everything came together at the same time.

The curry did get very dry near the end so I kept adding a little water as soon as it dried out – the water quickly evaporated so more was then added – I added the water a little at a time so that the curry would definitely be a dry curry when the cooking was finished.

I served up the Potato and Spinach Curry on the basmati rice.

And how was the curry? It was great. I love potato (did I say that before?) and this curry was lovely. Everything was well cooked (it really had to be seeing that there were hardly any ingredients that needed a whole lot of cooking) and the curry was nice and dry. And the curry was a surprising mixture of white, yellow and green colours – I would have expected something a bit more drab.

The curry received a great taste score of 8 out of 10 with a spice/heat level of “Medium”.
This is a really easy curry make and it is really tasty. Why not test-drive the recipe for yourself?

This weekend I was looking through the great range of curry recipes on the Curry Focus website and decided that I should eat a really healthy curry. Not that I eat many unhealthy curries. A couple of nights ago I was sitting in a great local curry house and talking about my love of curries. One of the group at my table expressed horror that I didn’t use ghee, saying that it gave curries such a great taste. Whilst I agree that ghee often does add to the taste, my body recoils at the thought of the saturated fat in ghee. I usually eat 2 or 3 curries a week so I’ll bypass the ghee before I need a bypass.

So this weekend would be a really healthy weekend. I flicked through the range of dal recipes and decided to go for the chana dal recipe. Dal is such a tasty and nutritious food that is easy to make and, as a side benefit, is a really cheap meal.

I already had the ingredients and did not need to pick up anything during the weekly Saturday shop. Or so I thought. I soaked the dal overnight and Sunday afternoon saw me getting the other ingredients ready. I don’t know what made me do it, but I pulled off the top of the asafoetida (hing) container and could hardly smell anything. Not what I expected. So I checked the “use by” date on the container and saw that the asafoetida was way out of date. I usually only buy about 1 to 2 month’s supply of spices at a time but asafoetida comes in a predetermined container in my local Indian food shop. So I quickly went and bought a new container of asafoetida. I opened the container when I got home and there was the familiar really strong smell of asafoetida.

I finished preparing the dal ingredients, drained the chana dal and gave it a final rinse. All ready to start cooking.

As I said earlier, cooking dal is very easy and, after the initial long cook of the dal, I was soon cooking the tarka and starting to microwave the rice. Cooking the tarka is really the trickiest part of making the chana dal because it becomes very dry when the coconut is added and needs to be stirred all the time to stop it from sticking.

Pretty soon I was serving up the Chana Dal on basmati rice to the hungry, eager, diners.

And it was terrific. The dal was nice and thick (I think there’s nothing worse than a runny dal). You can check out the dal image to see the consistency of the dal. Everything was well cooked and the red/orange of the dal was a great contrast to some of the bland curries that sometimes come out of the kitchen. The asafoetida had done its job as there was a reasonable onion/garlic taste (asafoetida is a substitute for garlic and onion for Jains). The chana dal received an excellent taste score of 8.5 out of 20 with a spice/heat level of “Mild”. If you want a “hotter” dal then you could chop up one or two chillies and add them to the tarka.

You really get a lot of dal with this recipe and the leftover dal is now sitting in my freezer with my supply of weekday lunches.

If you like dal, you’ll love this chana dal recipe.

It is weekend curry time again and once more Saturday morning finds me browsing through the great range of curry recipes on the Curry Focus website. This time, one of the chicken curry recipes caught my eye. It was for a chicken bhuna. I love a good chicken bhuna so the Saturday shop saw me picking up the chicken breasts whilst doing the weekly food hunt (or is it weekly food gathering?).

Anyway, there was nothing really challenging to this recipe. There were not an excessive number of ingredients, preparation time was negligible and the cooking time was only around 35 minutes. In other words, this is an easy chicken bhuna curry to make.

I prepared the ingredients before the dinner guests arrived and started the cooking about 15 minutes before they arrived.

And there was nothing at all complicated about this recipe. The only thing that I had to watch was make sure that the curry ingredients did not stick to the frying pan when I added the spice powders.

I timed the basmati rice to be ready at the same time as the bhuna curry and pretty soon I was serving the Chicken Bhuna curry on basmati rice to the eager diners.

One thing that I noticed right away was that the sauce was runny. I’m used to a bhuna curry having a thick sauce so things did not look right.

The diners only picked at the bhuna curry. It was pale orange/yellow and tasted very bland. There was lots of onion, which was about the only good thing in the curry (apart from the chicken being well cooked). Overall, this was a pretty disappointing bhuna curry and it received a low taste score of 6 out of 10 with a spice/heat level of “Mild”.

To me, this was not a bhuna curry. In my eyes, a bhuna has a thick sauce that is spicy (ranging from medium hot to hot). And a good bhuna is dark, not an insipid orange/yellow (the onions should probably have been well browned rather than just cooked to softness). So this recipe is placed in the “Disappointing” file whilst the search for a great chicken bhuna continues (I reviewed a beef bhuna recipe a while ago and it was really good so there must be some great chicken bhuna recipes out there that I can try).

A bhuna curry is usually spicy and can be very hot indeed.

The bhuna sauce is thick, not runny.

Bhuna curries are popular in Bengal (in northeast India) as well as in western Bangladesh.

Please join us on our Facebook page. Facebook.com/curryfocus. We look forward to hearing about your favourite recipes and curry experiences!

Latest Articles
Welsh Curry Awards 2012 Winner – The judges have chosen the top Welsh curry house for 2012 and the winner is….

Whole Chicken with Yoghurt Curry Recipe Review – The recipe is a bit more complicated than I usually go for but Wendy put up her hand to make the curry so that was sorted….

Tarka Dal (version 2) Recipe Review – I haven’t found any curry lovers who don’t like a good dal so this was the choice for this weekend….

Garlic Naan Bread Recipe Review – Last week I was happily eating a chicken kadai with naan bread at my favourite curry house and it occurred to me that I hadn’t tried a naan recipe in a while….

Missi Roti Recipe Review – I seem to be following a bread trail just now (not really sure where it is going but there’s probably going to be a yummy curry at the end of it)….

Scottish Curry Awards 2012 Nominations – Nominations are now open for the 5th annual Scottish Curry Awards….

Roti, Chapati, Puri, Paratha and Naan Breads – We often get asked what the difference is between all of those breads you can eat with dals or curries….

Chicken Dhansak Curry Recipe (version 2) Review – Most people who know me will tell you that I love a great dal curry. And I also live a great chicken curry….

Welsh Curry Awards 2012 Finalists – The top curry houses in the 3 Welsh regions have been chosen and now go forward to the final judging to see which restaurant gets the Welsh Curry Award for 2012…..

Top 10 recipes for last month

1 Poppadoms
2 Chicken Bhuna Curry
3 Chicken Pathia (Patia) Curry
4 Saag Bhaji
5 Madras Curry Paste
6 Chicken Dhansak Curry
7 Peshwari Naan
8 Poppadoms (version 2)
9 Chicken Sagwala Curry
10 Gujarati Potato Curry

Why not tell us the recipes that you like? You can submit a new recipe here and a restaurant here.

Browse our Categories

The winner was announced by Rt Hon Carwyn Jones AM (First Minister of Wales) on Monday 23rd April, 2012, at a gala dinner at the Red Dragon Centre in Cardiff. Special mention was made of the chef at the Purple Possadom, Anand George, who is rated as one of the best chefs in the world.

Wales has around 280 Indian restaurants and the judges must have had an arduous, but pleasant, task in choosing the overall winner.

If you are in Cardiff, you can pick up the phone and book a table at the best curry house in Wales. Why not do it?

Curry time has rolled around again and this week the curry recipe to try was chosen at the last minute. My girlfriend, Wendy, had decided to make a chicken casserole on Saturday night so I picked up, amongst other things, some chicken thighs (on their bones) during the Saturday shopping. There would be 3 of us for dinner with my flatmate being there.

Then, late on Saturday afternoon, my flatmate got invited to a party. And about 10 minutes after this invite, Wendy and I got invited out for dinner by some friends. We abandoned the plans for a chicken casserole and had a great Thai meal in the evening with our friends (trust me to go for a curry).

Sunday morning found Wendy on the Curry Focus website looking for a curry in which to use the chicken thighs. There was some yoghurt in the fridge so Wendy used the search facility to look for recipes with chicken and yoghurt. And it was decided to try the Whole Chicken with Yoghurt Curry recipe. You can see this yummy curry recipe amongst the Chicken Curry recipes on the Curry Focus website. The recipe is a bit more complicated than I usually go for but Wendy put up her hand to make the curry so that was sorted. There was a bit of a debate because the recipe was for a whole chicken whereas we were only using chicken thighs but the argument that we would be eating an equivalent amount of chicken to what was in the recipe won the day.

The chicken thighs were attacked with a sharp knife to make some incisions and the marinade was quickly made. Soon the chicken thighs were marinating. The thighs marinated for about 6 hours (the longer the better for marinating).

Cooking the onions, spices and yoghurt took about 25 minutes and then everything went into the casserole dish (see, Wendy was making a casserole all along).

The long baking of the chicken curry went without incident and the basmati rice was timed to be ready at the same time as the chicken.

The Whole Chicken with Yoghurt Curry was served up on basmati rice with some sauce and fresh coriander (cilantro) as garnish.

And how was it? It was pretty good. The chicken was well cooked and was nice and tender. Using thigh meat on the bone resulted in delicious chicken to eat. The spice/heat level was “Mild to Medium” and the happy diners gave the curry a good taste score of 7.5 out of 10 (it nearly made 8 out of 10).

This curry takes a bit of preparation and cooking but the results are well worth the effort. Try it and find out for yourself.

The weekend is here again and once more Saturday morning sees me browsing through the great range of curry recipes on the Curry Focus website. And, once again, I’m looking through the dal recipes to see if there is one for me to try out. And my eyes fix on a tarka dal recipe (it’s version 2 on the website – there is no significance to the version number which is just a number to differentiate recipes with the same name). I haven’t found any curry lovers who don’t like a good dal so this was the choice for this weekend.

I had a jar of masoor dal but needed to pick up some moong dal when I was out shopping, when I also got some dried Kashmiri chillies and fresh coriander (cilantro).

Like most dal recipes, this one is simple enough and late Sunday afternoon saw me preparing the ingredients in plenty of time before the dinner guests arrived. The dal contained lentils so there was no soaking that needed to take place, all that needed doing to the dal was washing it.

I waited for everyone to arrive before starting to cook the dal. Nothing out of the ordinary happened and I was serving up the Tarka Dal on basmati rice within 30 minutes. I actually used a serving dish for the first time in months.

And this was a great dal. It wasn’t too runny (I don’t really like runny dal) and was pretty tasty. There was a nice blend of red, yellow, white and green food on the plates. The one thing that I hadn’t encountered before was that the tarka was effectively raw. You can’t cook onions in 2 minutes. It was strange but wasn’t unpleasant. I suppose that if you like a more traditional tarka then you can cook the onions for 7/8 minutes. Anyways, everybody loved the dal and it received a great taste score of 8.5 out of 10 with a spice/heat level of “Medium to Hot”.

Like most dals, this was tasty and probably healthy (dal is a great source of protein). I can certainly recommend this dal recipe for everyone to try.

I seem to be following a bread trail just now (not really sure where it is going but there’s probably going to be a yummy curry at the end of it). A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the main types of Indian breads (roti, chapati, puri, paratha and naan). And last week I wrote a review about some great garlic naan bread that I made (despite a couple of minor disasters).

And this week sees me checking out an easy-looking missi roti recipe that is amongst the bread recipes. I must admit that I did not know anything at all about missi roti. But a friend insisted that it was a delicious type of roti that was widely eaten in India, often as a roadside snack.

So Saturday morning saw me wandering along the aisles of my local Indian shop to pick up some besan (chickpea flour), atta (wholewheat flour) and ajwain. I had never used ajwain before so another first for my list. I picked up some spring onions (scallions, green onions) in the fruit and veg shop so I was ready to roll.

I decided to try the missi roti with dal so Sunday morning saw me making a yummy dal from the dal recipe that I had followed a few times (I wanted to concentrate on making just one new thing – the missi roti – so that my miniscule cooking brain would not get too confused or overtaxed). All I would have to do later on would be to heat up the dal.

Sunday afternoon saw me preparing and mixing up the ingredients for the missi roti dough and then adding the warm water and actually making the dough. As usual, this was a messy business (well it is in my kitchen). But recently I saw a cooking video where I picked up a great tip and this was to make the dough with one hand. Doing this allows you to add extra ingredients, grab needed utensils and answer the phone – all without covering yourself and everything that you touch with uncooked dough. It was a fairly easy process to make the dough – I added a touch too much water so just added some more flour to get the right consistency. And then the bowl with the dough was covered with a damp cloth and set aside for the required 20 minutes (actually, it was set aside for about an hour but I don’t imagine that this caused any change in the final result).

The dinner guests arrived so I started to heat up the dal before reaching for the bowl with the dough in it. I made sure that I had flour available as I split the dough into 12 pieces.

I’ve previously found that the easiest way to split dough up into equal sizes is to roll the dough into a log and then cut it into halves, which then cut into halves again. Seeing that the dough needed to split into 12 pieces, I cut the final logs into thirds. Easy.

I got my roti board and rolling pin ready and then started to roll the dough balls into rounds of about 15cm (6 inches) – my rounds were not quite round but were roundish (I’ve still to master the art of rolling dough into perfect rounds). The extra flour that I had available meant that I could dust the working surface and rolling pin easily so that no dough stuck to the board or the rolling pin.

Whilst I was rolling the missi roti rounds, I started microwaving the basmati and had my large cast-iron frying pan heating over a medium to high heat. I wasn’t sure how long to leave the frying pan so left it a fair while. I heated the oven so that I could keep the cooked missi roti hot.

Time came to make the first missi roti so I carefully put the uncooked dough round into the frying pan and waited. Nothing really happened. I pressed down on the roti with a spatula but it didn’t bubble up like a normal roti does. I flipped the roti over and still nothing really happened. After flipping the roti over a few times, eventually the sides got a bit browned. So I took that missi roti out and set it aside.

Keep going forward is my motto (well, it isn’t really but it must be somebody’s motto and I’m sure that they don’t mind me borrowing it). I put the second uncooked dough round into the frying pan and within about 20 seconds it started to bubble. I carefully checked underneath and it was getting browned. After about 45 second I flipped the roti over and it started bubbling again after about 15 seconds. We have a winner!!! I pulled the cooked missi roti from the frying pan and put it into the oven to keep warm.

And I carried on cooking the rest of the missi roti without any problems.

I think that the first missi roti was not a success because the frying pan hadn’t heated up enough. It’s the only thing that I can think of that makes any sense.

Anyhow, I was soon serving up the dal on basmati with a side plate full of cooked missi roti. And they tasted great. They were very filling and did a great job of scooping up the dal. I cut one of the missi roti into two and a couple of us tried a missi roti with butter – and, once again, it tasted great. The missi roti had a very mild heat/spice level and they received a great average score of 9 out of 10.

I can see that missi roti will be served up in my house fairly regularly. I don’t see why they cannot be eaten cold (maybe smeared with butter or chutney) so they could even feature in a picnic. I’ve been told that the missi roti freeze well so I could cook up a big batch and save the results to eat later.

Last week I was happily eating a chicken kadai with naan bread at my favourite curry house and it occurred to me that I hadn’t tried a naan recipe in a while. In fact, it has been a long while. I tried out the naan bread recipe way back in May of 2008 and wrote the naan bread recipe review to describe the results (it was a big success and scored a stunning taste score of 9.5 out of 10).

So this week saw me scanning the bread recipe category on the Curry Focus website and I decided to try out the Garlic Naan Bread recipe. The recipe looked easy enough but I was unaware of just how comical my baking would be.

I bought a bag of flour when out doing my usual Saturday shop and later on I was attempting to make the garlic naan bread.

My first attempt was an abject failure. I mixed up the dry active yeast, sugar and warm water and then waited for 15 minutes. Nothing happened. There was no froth on the top of the liquid. I checked out the dry active yeast container and immediately saw my problem – the expiry date was 2009.

So I jumped into the car and zapped around to the supermarket to buy some current dry active yeast and then zoomed back home.

My second attempt was even funnier than the first. I mixed up the dry active yeast, sugar and warm water and waited for 15 minutes. And there was lots of froth. The first part had worked. Then I mixed everything with the flour and kneaded the dough. Everything was going great guns. But it wasn’t. As I was putting the dough into a warm place, I noticed that the bowl with the frothy yeast mixture was sitting to the side. I had overlooked putting it in!! I quickly poured it over the dough and tried to knead it in but it didn’t work. The dough was a sticky, wet, mess so out it went with a few old fashioned English words.

My third attempt was better than my second but was hardly a raging success. I mixed everything up OK and set aside the dough for 3 hours. Then I divided up the dough and baked the garlic naan. It didn’t rise. It wasn’t like naan – more like a pizza type of bread. Why didn’t it rise? I looked at the baking powder container and there was the reason – way out of date again. You would have thought that I’d have checked it when I found that the dry active yeast was out of date. But no. The day had gone and so I resolved to try again the next day.

Sunday saw me getting everything together before starting the recipe again. The first thing I noticed was that there were no eggs in the fridge so I wandered along to my local shop and bought some.

My fourth, and final, attempt got underway.

I made the frothy yeast liquid. And I made the dough correctly. Then I split the dough up into 4 pieces and rolled out the garlic naan bread pieces.

When the oven had reached the required temperature, I quickly slopped some oil onto 2 of the pieces and popped them into the oven. I cooked them for 15 minutes and they rose OK. But they didn’t really change colour on the top – they were brown on the bottom but really pale on the top. I popped one of them back into the oven for another 5 minutes but that didn’t make any difference. But they were cooked and tasted great. I had used large garlic cloves so the garlic taste was really strong – yum.

I then put the last 2 garlic naan bread pieces into the oven. I oiled up one of the pieces but left the other one without any oil (I wanted to see if the oil, or lack of it, changed the colour). I pulled out the cooked garlic naan bread after 5 minutes but they were both equally pale. I put some more oil onto the previously oiled one, turned them over and then put them back into the oven for another 5 minutes. This time they were a little coloured when they came out but they were equally browned.

Anyway, the lack of colour definitely did not affect the taste. It still tasted good. I would be happy to serve up this garlic naan bread at a dinner party. The naan rose from 6mm (1/4 inch) up to about 24mm (1 inch) which was great. I raced around getting everyone in the house to try out the garlic naan bread and they all loved it. It received a great average taste score of 8 out of 10. No spices went into the garlic naan bread so there was no spice/heat rating.

I suspect that I could get the garlic naan bread to have a more golden colour if I toyed around with the oven temperature and cooking time. But I’m not that good at baking and could try for weeks before I got things correct. Ovens have different temperatures, despite what the dial reads, and what works in one oven may need adjusting in another. If you have any tips on how I could get the garlic naan bread to be less pale then do let me know by posting a comment.