Curry and Grease

[tp4tissue]

As y'all knoz,  Tp4 has been fanatical about curry lately.

Does authentic traditional recipes have so much oil ? 

All of the modern recipes have a huge amount of added fats, be it butter/ ghee/ coconut/ peanut/ etc.

It's like, a Grease stew in most cases.

Y'all know NE downhome Indian peeps to chime in on this ? Has it always been like this ?

[yqqdrasil]

It's the ~3 tablespoons of vegetable oil when making the base. I've never had curried anything that wasn't oily lol.

[tp4tissue]

Exactly, you look at all the photos, and it's just this slick slick glowing reflective stew.  And from what I can tell, that's JUST the added oil, not even counting the coconut and chicken fat or ground nuts.

[noisyturtle]

Do you make your curry from scratch? I just improve the prepackaged stuff (Golden,) add a pad or two of butter for taste and texture at the most. No added oil at all.

[tp4tissue]

Do you make your curry from scratch? I just improve the prepackaged stuff (Golden,) add a pad or two of butter for taste and texture at the most. No added oil at all.

The prepack isn't thick enough,

The first 4 ingredients on Golden, are , wheat flour (thickener), Edible Oil (palm, canola), Salt, Sugar.

Ingredients are listed in order of concentration, most to least.

Those are the 4 things that bulk up the product, the actual flavor is very light relative to mass.  If you had 240g worth of SPICES, it wouldn't even cost as much as the golden, and it'd be stronger.

The Golden brand Spice Recipe is. (in order of concentration)

Tumeric, Coriander, Qumin, Fenugreek, Mandarin orange peel, celery seeds, mustard, pepper, red pepper, garlic.

MSG, Disodium guanylate, disodium isonate < Flavor enhancers >


The Trick is, if it tastes like ancient-Chinese medicine, you've put too much.

It should taste like medicine a little bit, BEFORE you add the sugar salt and oil.   AFTER you add the sugar salt and oil,  it should cover the medicine feel and balance out.   This is Tp4's current approach to getting Peak Curry.

[noisyturtle]

arerowroot powder make sauce thicc

[tp4tissue]

arerowroot powder make sauce thicc

Tp4 uses bean puree. it's m0ar wh0lef00d

[yui]

i am wondering what you are talking about with your ancient Chinese medicine taste, either i like it or never used too much curry, i don't know. for your search of the best curry: have you ever tried panang curry? I find that although much stronger and smelling awful at the start of cooking it taste better than any powdered curry in the end, although for best results use coconut milk, not cream, cream will make it smell even worse and taste a bit worse, oh and the oil looks radioactive red instead of yellow

[tp4tissue]

i am wondering what you are talking about with your ancient Chinese medicine taste, either i like it or never used too much curry, i don't know. for your search of the best curry: have you ever tried panang curry? I find that although much stronger and smelling awful at the start of cooking it taste better than any powdered curry in the end, although for best results use coconut milk, not cream, cream will make it smell even worse and taste a bit worse, oh and the oil looks radioactive red instead of yellow

The standout ingredient on ver. Panang is  the Fish-Sauce and/or Shrimp-Paste. The fermentation is what creates the glutamate, so fish suace works exactly like MSG. 

MSG is safer though, more natural, and arguably MUCH cleaner.

Coconut tastes better for sure, They suspect it's because it's 90% saturated fats, almost Lard.

[yui]

The standout ingredient on ver. Panang is  the Fish-Sauce and/or Shrimp-Paste. The fermentation is what creates the glutamate, so fish suace works exactly like MSG. 

MSG is safer though, more natural, and arguably MUCH cleaner.

Coconut tastes better for sure, They suspect it's because it's 90% saturated fats, almost Lard.

maybe MSG is safer, but most definitely not more natural, as it is a refined chemical, while fermented fish paste, well, is fish that are mechanically turned into a paste and left to ferment, quite natural, although if something goes wrong with the fermentation, quite toxic.

[tp4tissue]

maybe MSG is safer, but most definitely not more natural, as it is a refined chemical, while fermented fish paste, well, is fish that are mechanically turned into a paste and left to ferment, quite natural, although if something goes wrong with the fermentation, quite toxic.

Let's look at how fish sauce is made.

The salt is made from concentrating sea water, Not a natural process, and often unfiltered.

Then they take anchovies, a small fish, guts, poop and all, mix it up with the salt.  Leave it in a vat unrefrigerated, open air, for 12-18 months.

Then they pump it out, unfiltered, unpasturized.    What part of any of that process is natural.

You tell me, what's more natural, clean, less toxic.  12-18 month old poop fish salt mix,  or LAB GRADE MSG.

With lab MSG, you know what you're getting, because it'd cost them more to give you anything else. So the economics favor purity of the substance.

With Fish Sauce, it's a bit different, because with all animal derivatives, you've got bio-accumulation of marine toxins, mercury, pcb, dioxins.

[yui]

definitely still the fish paste is more natural, even the salt is from a fairly natural process, and will make for a very hostile place to be for any micro-organism. although as i said previously MSG is likely safer as it is an even more hostile environment for anything to develop in. (no water vs no water and no nutriments)
in summary both are rather very safe, and one is rather natural (if you count stuff like peanut butter as natural) while the other is a refined chemical

[noisyturtle]

Yeah a lot of Thai curry has fish or shrimp in them. I steer clear of those cause I hate seafood.

[yui]

Yeah a lot of Thai curry has fish or shrimp in them. I steer clear of those cause I hate seafood.

to be honest i do hate most seafood too, but a tempura shrimp or a panang curry is always welcome. with all the spices it taste much better, and i hate boiled shrimp...

[tp4tissue]

Yeah a lot of Thai curry has fish or shrimp in them. I steer clear of those cause I hate seafood.

to be honest i do hate most seafood too, but a tempura shrimp or a panang curry is always welcome. with all the spices it taste much better, and i hate boiled shrimp...

Shrimp = ocean cockroaches.. /eeeep

[yui]

well if we feed on cockroaches we would have no problems feeding the entire population

[tp4tissue]

well if we feed on cockroaches we would have no problems feeding the entire population

Untrue, hughmahnns do eat these sea-roaches, and overfishing has depleted their population as well.