Rather than spend £££ on a takeaway Indian curry (or any other curry as a matter of fact) I have been refining my curry cooking technique over the past few years. Made a really scrummy one last night, and I realise this is very much our own personal taste, but you know sometimes when you cook something all from scratch, and start to get to the end of it, and think “man I wish this plate was full” – that was me last night.

Before launching into the “what you need” and “how to do it” I thought I would just ramble on a bit about what I try to make sure I have in my “spice cupboard”. This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but if you are looking to start doing some curry cooking, you definitely need some ingredient staples :-

Garam Masala – a definite for any Indian cuisine. You can make your own, but it’s just as good buying this pre-made

Fennel Seeds – a lovely aniseed flavoured spice, best after being smashed in a pestle and mortar, to allow the oils to release. Also nice to dry-fry before mashing.

Garlic – used in so many dishes. Best to smash using the flat of the knife, then finely chop. Also good (and handy) to use the “Lazy Garlic” that is sold

Ginger – another staple used in Indian and Thai cuisine. Can’t beat fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced. I have also used ginger pre-blitzed, which is nice too.

Curry Powder – depending on how “hot” you like your curry, I think it’s worth having a few different ones in. Also always have a few different curry pastes in the fridge too

Star Anise – works well in the curry and also in the rice

Turmeric - a subtle spice, don’t use too heavy handed though else I find it can leave a bitter taste. Can also be to colour the rice

Cardamom pods - need to be slightly split to allow the seeds to flavour, great for putting into rice

Cumin - another versatile herb. Heavy, smoky taste.

Coriander - both in the seed, powder and fresh varities

Cinnamon - used sparingly, but adds another level of taste

Black Onion Seeds – relatively new to my cupboard, slight aniseed taste like the fennel

Chili powder - adds the heat!

Tomatoes – fresh and tinned

So onto the actual dish itself. I am going to own up here and admit that I rarely measure things, like a teaspoon of this, or 1oz of that. My main type of cooking isn’t like the science of baking, and I find that over time you get to know what levels to use with what herb etc. For this recipe I will attempt some form of measurement, but its more guesswork than anything!

What you need

1 large onion, peeled and sliced (not diced or cut so small, I top and tail the onion, halve it, then slice top-to-bottom, about 5mm -1cm thick, so you can actually see the slices)

2 good sized Chicken Breasts, cut into mouth size chunks

1 apple, peeled, cored and diced into roughly 1cm cubes

1 handful of apricots, something like this cut into about 6 pieces per apricot

3 garlic cloves, peeled, smashed and cut to form a paste, or 1 tablespoon of “Lazy Garlic”

1 “thumb sized” piece of Ginger, again peeled and thinly sliced

1 handful of raisins

4 medium tomatoes, quartered

1 tin of chopped tomatoes

Garam Masala

Curry powder (your choice)

1 tablespoon curry paste

Fennel seeds

5 cardamom pods

Black onion seeds

Cumin

10 medium-size mushrooms, quartered

Water (1 cup should be enough)

What to do

First off, get all your ingredients ready, as in chopped, diced, cubed etc, and waiting in their own little bowls so you can just pick them up and use them.

Get your wok onto a good high heat and drop the fennel and onion seeds into the wok. Allow to dry-fry for a couple of minutes, you should hear them start to “pop” a little. At this point, take them off the heat, then into your pestle and mortar, and just slightly grind.

Pour some oil into the wok, prob a couple of tablespoons (in this instance I used a mix of sesame seed and olive, but veg oil if totally fine) and once this gets to a slight smoking stage, pop your onions in and give them a good stir (or toss if you are flash!). Once your onions have got a good coating of oil, add the ground seeds and mix these in.

Then add your garlic and ginger and incorporate these into your onions. You will probably want to reduce the heat a bit as you want these onions to cook down, to a darkish colour.

Once your onions are looking “golden”, add your mushrooms and stir round. Add a tablespoon or 2 of water, to allow some moisture into the dish, this also allows the mushrooms to soak the flavours up. When the mushrooms look like they are starting to shrink, pop in the apple and apricots. As with most cooking like this, stir the ingredients, but try not to over-stir them – it’s not a “stirfry” dish. After about 5 minutes or so your ingredients should have dropped in size a bit, you can now pop all these into a bowl for use later.

Split the fresh tomatoes into quarters, and fry these in the wok (make sure you don’t clean it!). Once the tomatoes start to break down, add some of the cumin and garam masala, just a teaspoon or 2. Let the tomatoes absorb the spices. At this point add the tin of tomatoes – you will see it start to bubble quite ferociously, just stir it all in. After a few minutes, pop this mixture on top of the onions.

Add a little more oil to the wok, about 1 tablespoon, to fry the chicken in. Once it’s started to heat, add the chicken, a few chunks at a time making sure there is space around each part so they initially brown off. Once all the chicken is added keep stirring and tossing, getting each part seared and browned. After they start getting just past white add some more spices (the curry powder, paste etc), so you coat each bit of chicken with the spices. Your kitchen will start to smell heavenly at this point as the spices are cooking and filling the air with their pungent odour.  They will start to go a lovely deep colour as they cook. Once the chicken is fully seared turn the heat down and add the onions and tomato mix.

At this point you can gague if you need a bit of water – don’t pour too much in as you don’t really want a runny sauce. I think you should have enough liquid in there with the tomato juice and maybe 1/2 cup of water. Once you have stirred everything around, add the raisins and put onto the lowest heat level you can get. Cover the wok to seal in the flavours, and also the moisture. Set your cooking alarm for 60 minutes. Every 20 mins take the lid off, stir the curry and check for sauce consistency and flavour.

For the last 10 minutes take the lid off, to allow the sauce to slightly thicken – you want the sauce to be able to coat the back of a spoon, and not just wash about all over the place.

To accompany this I did some plain boiled rice, I always use Uncle Bens ( I know Basmati is the usual one, but I find it sometimes tricky and not consistent depending where you buy it). When I cook rice I use 1 tumber glass as my measuring tool. I will measure half of this glass filled with rice, and then the full glass filled with water. Pop the rice into a smallish pan, so the rice is about 1-2cm deep, add the water and a little splodge of oil, mix the rice round with a wooden spoon. Gently split the cardamom pods and pop these in. If you want some colour then add about 1 teaspoon of turmeric. Bring the rice to the boil and leave it there for about 1 minute. Then, turn the heat down to the lowest level and allow the water to cook off. You want to see a flat level of rice, with small holes where the water has popped out – DO NOT FIDDLE WITH THE RICE! You can check to see if the water has gone by using a teaspoon handle, and just make a small well to see if there is any water at the bottom of the pan. Once you can’t see hardly any, turn the heat off and give the rice a little stirring. Get the lid of the pan you are using, and 2 sheets of kitchen towel. Place the towel over the pan, then seal with the lid. Leave for about 10 minutes or so and you should end up with fluffy rice.

You can serve the rice and curry with a garnish of freshly chopped coriander, a small pot of yoghurt (so people can add it themselves) and some naan bread. There are lots of side dishes that you can serve too, and again most of these are easy to make. If you get the curry sauce sorted, you can use this to make bombay potato (just add some cubes of potato with the sauce). Spinach and potato again easy – not so much of the sauce, but more of the dry spices with the potatoes, and spinach just cooked as you would normally (wok, spinach, knob of butter, in – lid on, let the spinach reduce, black pepper).

Hope you enjoy this, and if you do try the recipe, please let me know how you got on and if you liked it