Spice Up Your Cooking With Curry

Curry is essential to the cooking traditions of India and Southeast Asia, with various combinations of peppers, spices and herbs adding loads of flavor to a wide array of dishes. Over the years, those spicy tastes have become popular worldwide as great chefs from many backgrounds have incorporated them into fantastic meals. If you’re taking online culinary courses, you will explore some of the different types of curry and their seemingly endless uses. For now, here are some ideas to get you started by giving your cooking a little kick.

Making your own curry powder or paste
If you’re pressed for time or just want to keep things simple, there are plenty of different kinds of curry powders and pastes available at grocery stores. However, preparing your own may be easier than you’d expect. Plus, it gives you the opportunity to perfectly adjust the tastes and heat level.

Epicurious provided an easy recipe for curry powder that calls for roasting dried chili peppers with coriander, fennel and cumin seeds. The ground spice mixture also includes turmeric, mace and white pepper.

Try making a Thai-style yellow curry paste with the directions offered by Pinch of Yum. This version begins with baking aromatics like shallots, garlic and ginger while soaking dried chili peppers. Bring the ingredients all together in a food processor or blender and pulse or puree them into a paste.

Pair spice and meat
Bring together curry, meat and vegetables for a meal that’s flavorful and satisfying, as in the lamb and chickpea curry suggested by Jamie Oliver. Start by cooking diced lamb shoulder in olive oil with curry powder, turmeric and chili powder for about 15 minutes. Add garlic, ginger and curry leaves, and cook another 10 to 15 minutes.

Then, the chickpeas go in the pan, along with a crumbled vegetable stock cube, tomatoes, hot water, salt and pepper. After an hour and a half of simmering, throw in coconut milk and baby spinach and bring it all to a boil. Finish off the dish with a sprinkling of fresh coriander, and serve it over basmati rice.

Heat up a vegetarian meal
If you’re passing on the meat, cauliflower and curry is one classic vegetarian pairing. Bon Appetit advised making a vadouvan-roasted cauliflower with harissa chickpea curry. To begin this dish, toss cauliflower florets in olive oil, salt and either the spice blend vadouvan or another curry powder. Roast the cauliflower for about half an hour while also pickling dried Fresno chili peppers and cooking shallots.

Cook onions, garlic, ginger and lemongrass before adding tomato paste and harissa – a hot chili pepper paste. After two minutes, mix in coconut milk and bring the mixture to a boil. Following five to seven minutes of cooking, the curry will thicken. Then, throw in chickpeas with a quarter cup of water and return to a boil. Complete the curry with chopped cilantro stems and little salt. Serve with the peppers and basmati rice.

Once you’ve tried making a few different kinds of curry, you can try experimenting and improvising. Use the skills you learn in culinary academy by altering the number of peppers or the mixture of spices to get the perfect curry flavor for any application.