hello Tildes! (again hahahahah). As I explained on my first post here, I had already started blogging my curry cookings elsewhere before finally deciding to post them here. I was asked by user @cfabbro to post the others on this website, so here I am, making a big post for the first 7 of 9 curries I have made so far ! hope you enjoy :P (sorry for the low quality on some of these pictures hahahah, I try my best !)

Curry #1: Rendang daging / Beef Rendang

The first dish I decided to cook up was this dish from Malasya, it was beef rendang. A dish consisting of weird unknown ingredients to me, like galangal, a nice cut of braised beef and a metric fuckton of coconut. Like, it mostly tasted like coconut with a bit of galangal and lemongrass. And I am definitely not complaining. Ive never really tasted anything like it, and it really felt like a great experience to make it. Hadn't had this much fun in a while ahahahah. This definitely left a good mark on me, starting this whole stupid ass idea pretty well.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/4QfLDyS
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/Fdbll1E

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Curry #2: Kerala Lamb

This was a dish consisting of, yet again, a fuckton of coconut. This had also a lot of mustard seeds and whatnot. Ended up tasting interesting too, although it was very similar to the rendang I made the week before. Which is surprising because theyre from two completely different parts of the world (first one is from South East Asia, this one was from India.) A good, well rounded dish that I would've probably enjoyed more if I didn't make it a week after the rendang.

Also, something that ended up being a mistake was making this with bone in storebought lamb cut into cubes, it ended up being too boney and didn't have enough meat. Kind of a letdown, but that's my own incompetence shining through.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/LnoRoEN
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/AxVBkKm

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Curry #3: Murgh makhani / Old Delhi Style Chicken Curry

For the third week I decided to make a more classic dish, butter chicken! Which had less butter than I thought it did, but that's besides the point. This was the first dish where the meat wasn't entirely braised, which made it have a different texture to the last two ones. We used chicken breast, which might've not been the best idea, it came out a bit dry. This recipe calls for garam masala, which is a pretty classic spice mix used for a lot of different recipes. I can tell ya, it's pretty amazing. The whole recipe was a joy to make, and ended up being the best recipe I had eaten so far honestly. I'd highly recommend doing this !

Also, shoutout to my homemade naan bread that ended up being p sucky. Will have to keep experimenting until I perfect the recipe.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/QrxP9T0
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/6Kcbpc9

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Curry #4: Kozhy kuruma / South Indian Chicken Korma

A month into this curry business, and also the third time I try to make naan and the only time it has come out well, very happy with the bread ! The recipe calls for mostly a water and spice based "broth", no sort of milk product like the other ones I made. Also called for some cachews which was surprising. It's genuinely surprising how much you can do with water and some spices, I'm genuinely really surprised. By far the easiest recipe I've made so far and honestly well worth it. Can see this as a recipe you could make as a weeknight dish. With the naan bread coming out so well, I think this was my favourite experience making one of these !

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/4Hp8Yxk
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/2PKt7II

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Curry #5: Jamaican Goat Curry

So I had been eyeing this recipe for maybe a month or so now, and I'm very happy to finally make it. Funnily enough, I didn't get the opportunity to use goat for this recipe. My dad and I went through the entire city, butcher by butcher, trying to find some god damn goat, but to no avail. That's alright, though, we just used lamb instead. The recipe called for "Caribbean curry powder" which was very vague in in of itself, so we found this real nice spice mix from the spice market near our house that kind of made this dish what it ended up being. I don't think this ended up tasting anything like what it was supposed to taste like, but who's to say that's a bad thing ? I loved this as a curry, even though the experience making it ended up being a bit tedious (going around the city trying to find something you ultimately don't find really gets you a bit cranky hahah) but well worth it after all. I think my mom is starting to get tired of this silly tradition I've cooked up, but I don't really think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

The curry ended up being very coconut-y like every other coconut milk based recipes I've made so far, but so far I think it's been the best of it's kind. Definitely does not taste like anything from India, which makes sense since, it's, y'know, carribean. This being pretty different but similar to things I've eaten before made it a fun and enjoyable experience in the end. Definitely recommend you make something like this someday, maybe with some real goat instead of lamb.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/2K6Yw5H
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/Bh72GGt

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Curry #6: Gang keo goung / Green shrimp curry with fresh dill

Sixth curry in, this one was surprisingly incredibly simple. It had like three steps to it. Really cost efficient, too. This recipe called for some lime leaves, which give a sort of orange peel flavour to the whole dish. I'm not the biggest fan of this, like I think it's good but it's not something I seek. I do think it worked well with this specific recipe, though. Other than that, the potatoes were really nice and tender inside and the curry paste we used had nice flavours. We also added some peanuts alongside the dill for garnish, which wasn't part of the recipe but it really brought the thing up to a new level. Overall, I am very satisfied with it, but it might still be something that I need to indulge a little bit more in to find its truest colours.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/Vq7Wxlv
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/8OpcWRd

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Curry #7: Geng Massaman / Muslim-style curry of duck with potatoes and onions

Genuinely one of the strangest cooking experienced I've lived through, I learned what people meant by "don't touch your Weiner after cooking with jalapeños" maybe in too much of a hard way... Sheesh... And just, in general,

What the fuck is this dish?

It calls for tamarind water, pineapple juice, cumin, lemongrass, sugar !!!!, coconut milk and cream, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, shallots, and so much more. I didn't even cut the lemongrass well so the paste I ended up making was really fiberous and it wasn't that great of a paste but God damn those flavour combos are off the charts ! I've never eaten anything like this before, it tastes like a sweet soup that also managed to be spicy and taste like god damn onions !!! You had to DEEP FRY the god damn duck, potatoes, and even peanuts!!!! DEEP FRIED PEANUTS !!!! that means some idiot like me who picked up this book and decided to make this recipe had possibly deep fried peanuts in God damn peanut oil !!! (Which is honestly pretty hilarious to think of)

I genuinely don't know what to say other than I had a blast making it. My dick basically caught on fire and we made a huge mess. One of the best cooking experiences I've ever had and the result doesn't even look like the recipe we tried to make !!!!

The flavours were so complex it just blew my fucking mind, I love this so much. If you're looking to expand your palette and wanna try something real different from any other Western culture I fucking recommend this. Solid solid dish, and would be better if the execution wasn't so disoriented and disorganized.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/GzT7sjF
Recipe: https://imgur.com/a/UbAAJ8n

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Today's question: what makes you personally enjoy home cooking? What makes it something you desire to do?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

Hello my dear Tildees! Today seemed to be quite a turbulent day for us all as we settle in a lot of different prevention methods for this so called COVID-19 outbreak, which is truly shocking for me and probably a lot of other people. But alas, the planet's is still spinning, time is still going, and we still have our own personal things to do and to enjoy. I hope that whoever is feeling anxious and discomforted by this entire COVID-19 outbreak can feel relieved by posts such as these and I hope it can make you realize that things are gonna be alright after all :)

Today we decided to make Chicken Tikka Masala! A curry staple, it is probably THE english curry dish to top them all. I've heard a lot of people say it is best left to the restaurants to make, and that it isn't very suited for the home cook, so I decided to try it out because I have no self control ! The finished result ended up being very good, but with a lot of flaws (probably mostly because of me though hahahaha). It ended up tasting very lemony and, comparatively to something like the butter chicken that I made (which, I know doesn't really have much to do with Tikka Masala but I was expecting them to be very similar), had a bigger emphasis on bringing out the sauce ingredients, like the tomatoes and peppers, over bringing out the spices, which I don't find as interesting. I think this might just be because it's not really an 'Indian' dish, and more of a British dish. I am fine with it, but, honestly, I do prefer me a spicy and aromatic dish compared to one that just tastes of tomato hahahah. I also put wayyyy too much lime in this, so it just tasted very limey....

I am talking badly of this a lot but I do think it was a real nice meal in the end. I just do believe, comparing it to something like the butter chicken I made a few weeks back, it could've came out a lot more interesting and unique comparatively. Still would recommend giving it a shot if you personally love Tikka Masala, though!

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/csvu2uQ
recipe: https://imgur.com/5pynwkb

Today's question: What makes you like Indian cuisine? And if you do not personally enjoy it, what makes you dislike it?

Have a great day <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~