I first started learning to cook when I moved to the United States. After surviving on microwave dinners and fast food for a few months, the cravings for home-made Indian food kicked in. That started several long phone conversations with my mother to get cooking advice over the next few months and years. She taught me 2 basic techniques that helped me master cooking – a basic curry sauce and a standard spice mix to cook vegetables. I’ll talk about the basic spice mix to cook vegetables in another post. There are variations that are required for some dishes such as adding additional spices or leaving out some spices but for the most part this is the the base that is used to make Indian curries.
It took me many tries to get this simple recipe right mostly because I was being over cautious about how long I cooked each ingredient. I didn’t cook the onions long enough to brown them before adding the tomatoes or I added the ginger and garlic towards the end of the cooking because of which they tasted raw.
This curry base is made with with onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices.The curry base can then be used to make a number of meat, vegetarian and seafood dishes. This curry sauce can be stored in the freezer for several months and can be thawed for use as needed. It stays fresh in the refrigerator for several weeks.
Feel free to experiment with variations, that is, adjust the quantity of the individual spices or the proportion of the onions and tomatoes to suit your taste. When you use the sauce to prepare a curry you don’t need to add oil since the sauce is already cooked and ready. If your recipe calls for additional dry spices such as cloves, cardamon, etc. to flavor the sauce, then you can add some oil to fry these spices before adding this curry base.
Ingredients
3 cups pureed/grated/finely diced onions
1.5 cup crushed/finely diced tomatoes
1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
1-2 Green Chillies finely chopped (optional, adjust based on your preferred hotness level)
3 tbsp oil (1 tbsp per cup of Onions)
1/2 tsp Cumin Seeds
1.5 tsp Kashmiri Red Chili Powder
1 tsp Garam Masala
1/2 tsp Turmeric Powder
2 tsp Coriander Powder
Preparation
My preference is to puree the onions in a blender; you can also grate or finely dice the onions. The pureed/grated onions make the sauce silkier as compared to using the diced onions.
Blanche the tomatoes and crush them in a blender. Blanching is recommended since it speeds up the cooking process.
Cooking
1. Heat the oil in a pan on medium heat and the Cumin Seeds.
2. When the Cumin Seeds start to crackle add the Ginger-Garlic paste and fry it until it turns golden brown (about 1 minute)
3. Add the onions and fry until golden brown stirring frequently (about 15-20 minutes).
4. Add the tomatoes and also the rest of the spices, mix well and cook on medium heat, stirring frequently, until the oil starts to separate out (about 15 minutes).
This recipe produces about 2 cups of masala. You can use the desired quantity to use right away or freeze it after it cools.
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