Recipes

Gaggan Anand’s “Curry”

Take some onions — more than you think, the less watery the better — and chop them. Put some oil in a large pot over medium-high heat and, when it’s ready, thrown in some cumin seed. The moment it starts crackling up, put in the onions and start cooking. When the onions are brown, add some chopped ginger, chopped garlic, and brown them. Add some fresh green chiles. You can have a Japanese shishito, which is sweet and tasty, or you can go to jalapeno. And then your preferred meat: chicken, quail, partridge. [!] Whatever you want. Fish. Cut it into your favorite cut, put some salt, turmeric, and a little bit of red chile powder. Not cayenne pepper — that’s the mistake. If you don’t have it, you can add crushed pepper flakes. And then you mix this all and leave it aside. You cook it like pot roasting: slowly cook it, slowly cook it, slowly cook it. And when the meat is almost done, that’s when you can add your chopped tomatoes and slowly let the juices of the tomato cook it like a ragu. And then you can just put some fresh cilantro. Again, check the seasonings: salt, pepper. And if you want to make it more fancy, add fresh cream, coconut cream, soya milk. When it’s cooked, it’s like a stew. It’s a stew which happens to be a curry, yeah? I saw that this house where we’re shooting had a curry plant outside. So if you can fetch in curry leaves easily, throw in that. Don’t do this disaster of putting a curry powder or a garam masala. This is my definition of what my mom would cook. You can throw in cardamom or a whole spice. Not cinnamon — this is not a coffee! And that’s it. That could be a good curry. It’s a ragu with some turmeric and cumin. You can eat it with rice, bread — just don’t eat it with naan bread. Even tortillas are better!