1

This is a constant problem I have when cooking chicken dishes with low water content. I add my spices and a bit of water so that everything mixes. The problem exists in the end result. When I taste the curry the taste is very powdery. I could go as far to say that I could possibly taste the individual grains.


Recipe:

Ginger Garlic paste into hot Pan when oil is sizzling. Chicken later. Add spices : Black pepper,salt , Cumin, corrainder power , garam masala and water to dissolve.

Notes: Chicken Breast cooked for 12 minutes

1 Answers1

3

After comments… 12 minutes is nowhere near enough time to cook in the spices, but is long enough to turn chicken breast into small pencil erasers.

'Because of laziness' all you have is some spices in water, not 'a curry'.
The basic gravy/sauce for a curry is onion, ginger & garlic, sautéed down then liquidised/blended/puréed… then simmered with your spices for several hours. For chicken breast curry, you add the chicken right at the end. Thighs you can simmer for hours, but breast is ruined if over-cooked.

The spices will never actually 'dissolve' as such; they'll remain solids, but they'll soften so there's no gritty edge left to them, and at the same time impart their flavours through the oil & water.

You can batch basic curry sauce & keep it in the freezer for months. Then all you need to make your final curry is the chicken.
You can freeze finished curries - but not chicken breast. Lamb, beef, chicken thigh will all improve for long-cooking. Chicken breast, if you ensure it's cooked in the sauce, will be over-cooked by the time the curry is cool enough to freeze, then will get another dose of over-cooking as you re-heat it.

You can even buy ready-prepped onion in the supermarket.

Tetsujin
  • 28,646
  • 4
  • 72
  • 111
  • I am a bit confused, should Ijust cook the spices and vegetables together for long? – Reine Abstraktion Nov 19 '22 at 10:03
  • and 12 minutes is too much for chicken breast?? – Reine Abstraktion Nov 19 '22 at 10:04
  • A curry is the very essence of a 'long cook', as is a chilli or a goulash or a bolognese… anything you could basically call a "stew" will improve over time, between 2 & 4 hours [some even do better if you give them 2 hours one day, refrigerate overnight, then another 2 hours the following day, rendang-style]. A whole chicken breast may take 12 - 15 mins or so, depending on size, but bite-sized pieces will be cooked in 3. – Tetsujin Nov 19 '22 at 10:08
  • What I am confused is, wouldn't the vegetables in the sauce burn if I cooked for that long? – Reine Abstraktion Nov 19 '22 at 10:14
  • Only if the heat's too high. Low simmer. Just moving. – Tetsujin Nov 19 '22 at 10:15
  • Last question, how is it possible that I can keep the curry sauce for so many months when the vegetable themself will expire in much less time? – Reine Abstraktion Nov 19 '22 at 10:16
  • 1
    That's what freezers are for. https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/21068/42066 – Tetsujin Nov 19 '22 at 10:19
  • 1
    Also see - https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/109263/making-my-chicken-madras-more-savoury?rq=1 - which contains a basic curry sauce method, top to bottom. – Tetsujin Nov 19 '22 at 10:33
  • There are some very acceptable curry-type dishes that can be cooked from scratch in half an hour or thereabouts, which will be vastly preferable to the OP's current recipe. Recipes using a base sauce (I sometimes make a batch and freeze it) often only cook the spices fairly briefly in the oil - but not the OP's few seconds, and there's some texture for the spices to hide in. Equally, many of the same spices can be used in a quickly stir-fried dish. – Chris H Nov 21 '22 at 14:00
  • @ChrisH - starting with a base sauce doesn't really end up being any different to what I've already said. That's pretty much your BIR basics - pre-made gravy & cooked meats, flashed in a pan with the extra ingredients to make the difference between a Kashmiri & a Madras. – Tetsujin Nov 21 '22 at 14:04
  • Exactly, I was comparing that to quick recipes to say that being quick is possible (rather than giving the impression that it had to take ages), and also that timing isn't really the problem with the texture of the spices – Chris H Nov 21 '22 at 14:14