Indian curry gravy, hotel style. This is something new. But something old. Probably really old. And the start of something new. And wonderful. For me. And hopefully for you.
If you like big, bold curries. If you want curries with a lush sauce that makes your mouth dance. Then this might just be the thing you didn’t know you were looking for.
I didn’t know I was looking for it. Until I found out about it. Then I knew I had to have it. And I can’t believe how good it is.
Not your everyday restaurant style curry gravy
This is not how they make curries in restaurants outside India. This is how they do it in India. And it’s incredible.
Want to make curries like you get at your local takeaway? Like they do at every day Indian restaurants around the world.? Then there are many, many recipes on glebekitchen. I call those restaurant style.
This is something different. My guess is this is how they do it at posh restaurants. The best of the best.
I’m just getting started with this. And I’m truly excited. Inspired even. On a mission. This needs to be a thing. My thing. Your thing.
What’s old is new
I have a theory. It’s just a theory. So if you’re going to shoot me down be nice. Or don’t. I can take it. But do try to be constructive at least.
I think this is how it’s been done in India for a million years. Well, maybe not a million. But a very, very long time. It’s closer to traditional technique. But adapted for restaurant style cooking.
Indian restaurant style cooking has it’s roots in the UK. At least the style I write about. Indians came to the UK working on ships back in the day.
Apparently they weren’t fans of life on the open sea. Because once they got to the UK they decided to stay rather than face the voyage home.
They needed work. And a lot of them wound up working in restaurants. Those sailors turned cooks became the architects of what is now mainstream Indian restaurant cooking in the UK.
Mainstream has it’s roots in hotel style
The sailors started with what they knew. That’s only natural. And I’m guessing what they knew was curry gravy – hotel style.
As with all things, it evolved. The thick curry gravy became a thinner version. What’s now called base gravy. They dropped the deep browning of the onions. Because it was easier. Simpler. Less work. And it worked well. Everybody loved it.
It became mainstream. Global. People worked in Indian restaurants in the UK. They migrated around the world. And they took the technique with them. Everywhere.
Except for the mothership. They stuck to their roots. Kept the faith. And somehow nobody is blogging about it. Nothing on YouTube. In English anyway.
Until now. I’m picking up the torch. Because I believe. And like any zealot, I’m hoping I can convince you.
This is curry gravy for bold curries
The nice thing about UK style Indian restaurant cooking is there’s only one curry base. It’s bland by design. One size fits all.
I’m a huge proponent of that. I like to let my curries speak for themselves. One base. Many curries. Easy. Simple. Just like those cooks in the UK figured out..
And I love what you can do with those techniques. Don’t get me wrong. It’s amazing. Seriously amazing. This intro to Indian restaurant curries is a great place to start.
But if you want to take it to the next level? Want to follow me down the rabbit hole? This is how. Curry gravy built for specific curries. Genius.
Not quite bespoke. But not off the rack either. The right tool for the job. How can that not make things better?
This is the bold version. It’s for madras. Garlic chilli chicken. Jalfrezi. Ceylon. For the curries where flavours are applied with a sledge hammer.
It is not for chicken tikka masala. Or korma. Or butter chicken. It is not delicate. That’s a different curry gravy. I’ll get to that. I’m just starting with the version that goes with my favourite curries.
This is a game changer
This is a whole different approach. And right now I’m think I’m probably the only one talking about it. So you are probably thinking this is crazy.
And it is crazy. Crazy good. If you want to push it. If you want to take it to the next level. Then think about trying this. It’s a whole new way of making restaurant style curries.
Except that it’s about as old as the hills. Doesn’t matter though. What matters is this curry gravy makes amazing curries. I’m not saying this way is better. But I am thinking it…
Indian curry gravy – hotel style
Ingredients
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 3 lbs onions chopped – use a food processor
- 2 lbs fresh tomatoes chopped (or substitute plain canned tomatoes)
- 5 green cardamom pods
- 10 black peppercorns
- 3 cloves
- 1 tej patta Indian bay leaf (optional)
- 2 inch cinnamon stick or cassia bark
- 1/4 cup garlic ginger paste
- 2 tsp turmeric
- 1 tbsp kashmiri chili powder
- 1 tbsp cumin powder
- 2 tbsp coriander powder
- 1 tbsp kosher salt
- 4 green chilies seeded
- handful of cilantro
- 1 cup water
Instructions
- You need a lot of chopped onions for this. Do yourself a favour and use a food processor if you have one. Peel and half the onions. Cut each half into six pieces. Fill your food processor about 2/3 full and pulse around 5-8 times. You should have diced onions. Repeat until you have chopped all the onions.
- As long as your food processor is out use it to chop the tomatoes (if using fresh). Easy.
- Heat the oil in a pot large enough to hold all the ingredients.
- Add the oil and heat over medium heat.
- Once the oil starts to shimmer add the cardamom, black peppercorns, cloves, cinnamon and optional Indian bay leaf.
- Let the spices bubble for about 20 seconds and then add the onions.
- This takes some time and attention. Cook the onions over medium heat. Stir every minute of so. You want them brown. Nice and brown. Not tan. Brown. Think French onion soup. This is going to take you around 30-40 minutes and maybe more. But you are doing it once. For 8 restaurant portions of curry. So it's under 5 minutes a curry. Totally worth it.
- While the onions cook do the rest of your prep. Make sure the tomatoes are chopped. Cut your green chilies in half and seed them (use a spoon).
- Add the turmeric, cumin, coriander and kashmiri chili powder in a bowl. Add about a 1/2 cup of water and stir to make a slurry. You may need to add a bit more water. Doesn't matter.
- Once the onions are this nice creamy brown mess add the garlic ginger paste. Stir to combine and continue to cook for about two minutes.
- Add the powdered spice slurry and the salt. Cook another 3 minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, green chilies and cilantro. Simmer until the tomatoes are broken down. This takes about 10 minutes. The oil may have separated at this point. If it did, do NOT remove it. It's pure flavour.
- Add a cup of water. Puree the hotel style curry gravy, whole spices and all. Yes. Whole spices get pureed. Use a blender. If it's too thick to puree add a bit more water.
- You should now have about 8 cups of magic curry gravy to use in all sorts of curries.
Thanks for this – I just made a batch this morning. Photos in the Secret Curry Club on FB. It tastes amazing.
I would say, as others have done that it took quite a bit longer to caremalise the onions. For me it was about 1hr 25m. I do wonder if your idea of “medium” heat is not that same as others? On my induction hob which goes from 1-9 (plus a special boost option), I would normally think 5-6 would be medium. I started on 6 but after about 45 minutes I turned it up to 7 and that seemed to get things moving a bit faster.
Anyway – am now looking forward to deciding what curry to make with it 🙂
I am hearing that people are taking a long time to brown the onions. There are a few possible reasons that I can think of.
The level the stove is at. I do have a pretty high power cooktop so maybe my medium is your medium high but I think that’s the least likely reason.
The size of onion chop. I checked your pictures (thank’s for posting them) and your chop is coarser than mine.
The diameter of the pot. I am using a 6.3l Le Creuset dutch oven which is about 30 cm across. Bigger pot, more contact surface area and therefore less time.
And in your case, having seen the pictures, I think you took your onions to a deeper brown than I do. That will be an even more intense tasting hotel gravy.
Still, onions are what they are and this is one of those things that takes as long as it takes.
All good points 🙂
Hi Romain,
In The UK here and been using your curry base for a number of months. Today I made up my first hotel style batch. Can’t wait to try them out tonight, with the rest in the freezer!
Karl
Awesome. I’m pretty sure you are going to love the results. Just make sure to use hotel style base gravy for the hotel recipes and the regular base for restaurant curries. They are not interchangeable.
I am recovering from major heart surgery and other health issues including diabetes. I need to review my diet, I have told the health professionals that I will try my best to follow their programme as long as it included Asian food. Do you have a programme that would suit a more healthy lifestyle? I have said to them if curry has to be ruled out I might as well not bother and just take what comes along, I can’t contemplate living without my favourite comfort food
I’m sorry to hear that. I’m afraid I am not a health professional so I can’t really offer any advice. Indian tends to be fairly high in calories and my recipes are no exception. The dal and chana recipes tend to be a little better but low calorie/low sodium isn’t really a focus at glebekitchen.
Romain your recipes are excellent but these hotel base curries are my favourite so far. They are amazing thank you
Richard – thank you for saying! Tell all your friends:-)
Have you tried cooking the onions with a small amount of bicarbonate of soda? The onions will undergo a Maillard reaction, brown much quicker and be more flavourful. They are a bit sweeter as well so if you use sugar you will need to cut back on that. A little less salt as the bicarbonate will make up for that as well.
I haven’t tried it yet but it is on my to do list. I’ve read that this trick is both “the greatest thing ever” and conversely “imparts unpleasant flavours” so I will try it with a few onions rather than risk a whole batch of gravy.
It’s only a matter of time when Indians find you here or on Youtube, just like I did. Brace yourself for the overwhelming response you’re about to get, especially on your restaurant style technique and base curry/gravy recipes. It feels like a revolution in my kitchen. Way to go Romain.
Glad you like it!
So this one is a little hard to rate on it’s own, since it’s not really a dish in it’s own right. But the ceylon chicken that it helped produce was just great.
It took me SIGNIFICANTLY longer to fry the onions than the recipe stated, though. I was at it for over an hour before they were properly browned, despite going hard on the heat. I will try some of Kenji Lopez Alt’s techniques for faster onion browning next time.
I bumped the time up a bit on the browning step but it really depends on your setup and where you have the heat set. I have experienced significant differences from batch to batch myself.
So, chopped tinned tomatoes. To strain or not to strain? Do I include the juice? I ask because the fresh tomatoes that we get here in uk are not the greatest so tinned might be better. Or should I stick with fresh anyway. So many questions! Any thoughts? By the way, I think this is the best blog that I have ever come across. Bang goes the diet…!
Just toss them in juice and all!
Thank you for such a nice compliment and I’m sorry for the diet (but only a little:-).
Brill thanks! Just made a couple of ‘nearly restaurant style curries’ and they were amazing so can’t imagine how good hotel style will be. Just one last question (promise!) Do you even blend the cardamom pods, cinnamon bark and Tej Patta? I presume so but not sure if my blender can handle it!
I do blend them into the hotel gravy. Hopefully your blender is up to the task!
I buy boxes of tomatoes from our local Asian supermarket they are delicious and are perfect for making this fabulous curry gravy. I usually end up eating as many as I put in the gravy. Ps I’m on my 7th batch of gravy. Who wants a diet now this gravy exists?
7th batch. Very impressive. Glad you are enjoying it!
The recipe states that it produced 8 cups of gravy. The actual dish recipes (Ceylon chicken, for example), says to use 1 cup gravy for 2 servings. That would mean 16 portions per batch of gravy, right?
But this text says one batch of gravy serves 6-8 persons. It doesn’t add up to me. Am I reading it wrong?
Sorry for the barrage of questions the last few days!
No problem re: barrage of questions. Delighted to help.
I can’t find anywhere that says 6-8 people. I see 8 cups in the recipe, and 6-8 curries in the notes. In any case, 1 cup is right for one recipe of the hotel style curries that each serve 2 people so you could feed up to 16 people with one batch of hotel gravy.
Ah, I see, I interpreted one portion of curry as being one portion for one person. That’s probably it!
Also, do you think the same high amount of oil is really required in this as in the restaurant style base? I mean, as long as the onions get browned in the beginning shouldn’t that be taken care of?
It’s not trivial to brown so many onions. The amount of oil really helps avoid getting in trouble. And the mouthfeel is part of the experience as well. This style cooking is just not diet food.
I see, will try this out!
If time is not an issue, wouldn’t it be beneficial to let the gravy simmer for as long as possible (or a least a couple of hours) in step 13?
I don’t think it would make much of a difference. It’s already well cooked and the flavours are well integrated at the point you puree.
Hi Romain thanks for this superb gravy recipe. I bought a new stock pot yesterday specially for it then made an occasion of the process chopping everything by hand. Then stirring, stirring, stirring to get that deep brown onion stage just right, the result is alchemy! Now will it be Lamb Madras or your Ceylon recipe tonight….decisions!
Thank you for transforming the way I approach my Indian cooking, the compliments I receive are really down to you!
You are very welcome. We can share the credit. You’re the one in the kitchen doing it!
I’m new to Indian cooking but your recipes are so much better than any Indian food I’ve had in restaurants. My question is our grocery stores don’t carry some of your ingredients but I’ve driven to Austin to find almost everything but I can’t find Jwala peppers anywhere. Is there a substitute chile? I can easily get Hatch green chile, jalapeno, poblano, serrano, and shishito. The recipe for Hotel Style Indian Curry Gravy lists 4 green chilis seeded. What chile do I use for this recipe? Thank you so much for taking the time to post recipes. Your photography entices me to try so many new recipes.
Haha. I’ve never looked for Indian in Austin. When I’m there I’m chasing Mexican ingredients to bring home and stuffing my face with brisket. You could seed out two jalapeños to replace the 4 jwala called for in the recipe.
And for the record, I am super jealous that you can get hatch chilies.
Hi.
I absolutely love making your curries, there are some wonderful tasty recipes that actually work unlike a lot available out there.
Question: in this curry gravy you say to seed the chillies, is this really necessary or does it just reduce the heat?
Also can I leave out the cardamom as I don’t like the taste, maybe it’s from biting into whole ones, or can I substitute something?
Keep the excellent recipes coming, you’ve been our saviour during lockdown.
Chili seeds can be bitter and this is exacerbated by pureeing them. That’s why I leave them out.
Leaving the cardamom out will change the flavour of the gravy but if you don’t like cardamom then I don’t see any harm. Different but tasty to you is better than accurate and not tasty to you I would think.
A game changer! For the purposes of all your recipes you please remind me what constitutes a Cup? How many millilitres?
Adore Glebe Kitchen ?
Thank you for saying! A cup is 237 ml.
For years I have been searching for some authentic indian style recipes and like they say ” all good things come to those that wait “. I have tried several of your recipes and there isn’t one that’s disappointed me even to the stage where my husbands now saying we will never have to go to an indian restaurant again !
Tomorrow I am making your new hotel sauce base along with a couple of the recipes. I wondered if you were able to help me out with a recipe for methi lamb?
I’m delighted to hear its working out for you!
I can put methi lamb on the list for sure. It won’t be immediate as I have a few on the go but it will come.
Hi Romain
We are great fans of your recipes and have made many of them repeatedly (I particularly like your the Pathia and the Saag dishes). I have been cooking Indian food for many years, always trying for that elusive ‘restaurant taste’ I used to use Pat Chapman’s books which were pretty good to be fair, but you have hit the nail right on the head with your ‘system’.
I used to be friends with an indian chef, Jaz, and on his night off some of the lads and I would go around the town with him, ending up back at his restaurant after hours, where he would try to teach us how to cook. That is where I learned a lot of tips, like how to pre cook meat and even that raw king prawns are ‘butterflied’ and deep fried for a couple of minutes. As I recall, his method was much the same as yours although in addition I do remember him adding a spoonful what looked like bread dough. He said it was made by cooking down pureed onions on a very low heat for a long time. It tasted soapy.
Anyway I digress. Your new ‘hotel style’ curry gravy is an absolute triumph. I have already tried the Ceylon Chicken and am doing the green chilli one tonight.
Finally, I think the presentation of your recipes on this site is exceptional.
Have you ever considered a book?
Regards Andy
Hi Andy,
I’m very happy to hear that you are enjoying the recipes on glebekitchen and especially glad you are trying the hotel style approach. I’m really excited about this approach myself.
Jazzer’s likely added some bunjarra (a fried onion paste) that would have added additional depth of flavour. His must have been a pretty good restaurant indeed.
Thank you for suggesting that I would be good enough to author a cookbook as well. Glebekitchen is actually my hobby. I have a job in the real world so while the idea of a cookbook is fun I really don’t have the time it takes to commit to a project like that.
Hi Romain,
Tried your above recipes and they came out great first time.
Been cooking Indian curry’s for fifty years.
And all the family want more of this upbeat style.
My wife says it is the curry we would look forward to after a night out, that old flavour is so hard to find in restaurants now days.
Well done, I was so near but so far away from that flavour.
Bernie k.
Absolutely awesome to hear!
Hi Been using your Recipes for the last few weeks, absolutely amazing, won’t be ordering Indian takeout again. Making the curry gravy today, looking forward to tomorrow for the garlic chilli chicken
Keep these amazing recipes coming
Thanks from me a my family for re- inventing curry night.
You are very welcome. I am happy to hear that curry night is alive and well! I will certainly keep the recipes coming.
This is delicious gravy. Going to try it with the green Chili and chicken. Used 2 cans of drained , diced tomatoes and worked well. Only ended up with 5 cups but no big deal. Only slow boat to China is browning the onions. Took a good hour and a bit. I have tried using a pressure cooker and baking sofa as per some of the Modern Cuisine techniques, but while caramelized the texture is wet and unappetizing. So, will keep on stirring! Thanks for the great posts.
You are very welcome. I’m really surprised you only got 5 cups. That math just doesn’t add up…
Having just made up my second batch of this already, I think you may have just had the ultimate compliment from my wife! Despite feeding her endless curries recently and the house now permanently smelling an Indian restaurant she has just come out to the kitchen spooning out the remains of the pot after I had decanted it into portions – like a child licking the remains of a cake mix out the bowl! The new sauce has definitely been approved!
That is just absolutely awesome. I may be coming up with the ideas but you are the one making them for her so I think we can share the credit here!
My house smells like an Indian restaurant as well at the moment – FWIW. But I’m really having fun with this so I’m not worried about it:-)