Courses & dish types
Curries recipes
A word that hides a hundred distinct dishes.
Curry is a word the English language uses for several unrelated traditions, and this section keeps them apart: an Indian curry, a Thai one and a Japanese one share almost no technique and no ingredients. What most of them do share is the sequence — fat, whole spices, aromatics, ground spices, then liquid — and the fact that the ground spices need a minute in the fat before anything wet arrives, or they will taste raw and dusty for the rest of the cook. The recipes here name the tradition, explain what is happening at each stage, and give the visual cue that matters most, which is oil separating out at the edges.
10 recipes
Lamb Rogan Josh
Lamb shoulder browned hard then cooked for two hours in yogurt and Kashmiri chilli, until the sauce is red, glossy and clinging rather than soupy.
Green Curry with Chicken and Thai Basil
Cracking the coconut cream before the paste goes in is the step most recipes skip, and the one that decides whether this tastes fried or boiled.
Goan Fish Curry
White fish poached in a coconut and tamarind sauce ground from whole spices, sour and hot in equal measure and cooked in under half an hour.
Curry Goat
Goat shoulder burned into curry powder and then cooked for two hours, until the meat gives and the sauce is thick enough to coat rice.
Chicken Tikka Masala
Yogurt-marinated chicken charred hard under a grill, then finished in a spiced tomato and cream sauce that only works if the char goes in with it.
Saag Paneer
Spinach cooked down to a dark, silky base with ginger and green chilli, with cubes of fried paneer folded through at the end.
Pork Vindaloo
Pork marinated in vinegar, garlic and dried chillies, then cooked slowly until sharp, dark and much more sour than hot.
Malai Kofta
Potato and paneer dumplings fried until crisp, sitting in a mild cashew and tomato sauce enriched with cream.
Egg Curry
Hard-boiled eggs, scored and browned in spice, simmered in an onion and tomato masala.
Chana Masala
Chickpeas simmered in a dark, sour tomato and onion masala, finished with amchur so the sourness sits behind the spice rather than on top of it.