If you want to learn how to make Indian restaurant curries at home this is the place to start. Indian restaurant curry base or base gravy is the foundation of the whole thing. Get this figured out and you are on your way to making better curries than you can buy.
Indian restaurants cook a whack of different curries to order. Ever wonder how they do it? For sure they don’t have 25 curries simmering away in the kitchen.
Nobody can run a restaurant like that. They have a secret. Indian restaurant curry base.
Curry base is how Indian restaurants can cook to order
It’s cooked to order and it’s done using curry base. Curry base is at the heart of every Indian restaurant kitchen. Giant pots of it simmering away.
Once I heard about it I started asking waiters. I met kitchen staff. Talked about it with a chef or two. I was on the inside. Now you are too…
Never heard of curry base? Not surprising. For the longest time it was a closely guarded secret. Even now, Indian restaurant curry base recipes are carefully guarded secrets.
A hint of carrot – ooohhhh. A bit of cabbage – aaahhh. A green pepper – ssshhhh. But that’s how it’s done.
It’s a bit ridiculous. In it’s simplest form it’s just a lot of boiled onions with some spices and oil. Seriously. Cook it up and it tastes like a weak curry onion soup. Nothing to it. Not particularly tasty.
The magic is in the cooking technique
But when you layer the Indian restaurant technique on top it’s magic. Something wonderful happens to that insipid onion soup. It caramelizes. The Maillard reaction kicks in. The depth of flavour is – well it’s restaurant quality.
It’s not hard. It’s just a matter of rolling up your sleeves and getting it done. Chop some onions. Add some water and some seasoning and boil. Puree. Boil some more. Done.
You can get a quick lesson on cooking Indian restaurant curry here.
You use this base in recipes like Indian restaurant madras, lamb curry, jalfrezi or chicken tikka masala. Look around – there are lots of Indian restaurant curry recipes here.
One thing to note. Indian restaurant curries are big on oil. This recipe is about as low as you can go on the oil. Don’t use less. It just won’t work. Indian restaurant curry is a lot of things but low calorie it is not.
If you want to cook Indian restaurant style curries this the first step. The real deal.
Watch the video (there’s real audio)
indian restaurant curry base
Ingredients
- 8 large onions – about 2.5 lbs peeled weight
- 6-8 cloves garlic peeled
- 1 1/2 Tbsp ginger coarsely chopped
- 1 1/2 Tbsp cumin powder
- 1 1/2 Tbsp coriander powder
- 1 1/2 tsp turmeric
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 12-15 fresh cilantro stalks with leaves – roots removed
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 12 cups boiling water
- 15 oz can diced tomatoes – one small can
Instructions
Step 1
- Bring the water to a boil (a kettle works well for this).
- Quarter the onions and then break them apart into petals (roughly – two or three petals per quarter)
- Combine all ingredients except tomatoes, bring to a gentle boil and simmer, loosely covered, for one hour. Use a big pot!
- Add tomatoes, stir and simmer an additional 20 minutes
- Let cool slightly. Blend to smooth consistency. Make sure you remove the centre cap from the blender lid and cover the hole with a cloth or you will be cleaning the ceiling. Alternately you can use an immersion blender.
Step 2
- Wipe out the pot and return pureed curry base and simmer, loosely covered, until the oil separates out – this can take an hour or more. Stir the oil back into the base. At this point you can portion out the base into 2 cup portions and freeze if desired.
Awesome sauce! This is dope. I just need to get someone to cut the onions for me because it makes me wet(my eyes). And then how do I make the actual dish with their base? It would be helpful to know.
First step is to read the primer on how to make Indian restaurant style curries. There’s a link in the text of this post. After that all the recipes that say “Indian restaurant” style on glebekitchen use this base. There are lots to choose from and more coming all the time.
Best site I’ve found. Makes a change not to be baffled by Indian cooking methods any more. Thanks for your time and effort. Making the curry base tomorrow, looking forward to trying some of your recipes. Keep up the good work. Phil.
Thank you. So glad you found it and I hope you enjoy the recipes!
Thankyou for this romain , I have a friend who watched numerous utube vids to try to make a takeaway type curry – many attempts and messy kitchens later he was successful but your version is so simple and I love that you can make it “in bulk” I I cook like that a lot anyway so when I am short of time I can just pull one out of the freezer. I will be watching out for your other recipes, Thankyou
Wendy
Thank you for saying so Wendy. It’s always great to hear that people are succeeding!
2 questions:
1. Following on from the advice you gave lyne above (about diluting her curry base before she used it as you thought she has evaporated it down too much) could you therefore intentionally make the base with half the water to make it twice as concentrated and then use 1 cup per curry instead of 2. Purely to reduce the volume of space it would take up in my freezer…
2. I know you said the 1 cup of oil is the minimum. What is the reason for that? Flavour, consistency,…? I am really trying to eat low fat (which is how I came to look for curry recipies from scratch rather than pre-made. Have you experimented with less oil? If so what were the results?
I have never tried making concentrated curry base. For sure if you do, you will need to dilute it back to the thin soupy consistency before you make the curry. When you are making restaurant style curry the high heat help is critical to the flavour (it’s maillard reaction I believe) and if you start with a concentrated base it will get way too thick.
Indian restaurant style curry is high fat. Period. It’s in the base. It’s in the pan when you are cooking the final curry. There’s really no getting around it.
There are quite a few homestyle curries on this blog. They are much lower fat but still not what I would call diet food. The lemon coriander chicken curry is pretty lean. So is the simple chicken curry. The lentil and chickpea curries aren’t bad either. Hope this helps.
Making this right now, and so excited to try making curries at home! Hubby & I LOVE curry, but we’re not anywhere near an Indian restaurant. It’s over an hour drive time, round trip. I have high hopes for this, looking through all the recipes there are to try.
THANK YOU so very much for posting all of this. We’re ready to cook it all, plus some! :-D. I’ll go and look..I’ve forgotten if I’ve seen it, but if you don’t have a recipe for Malai Kofta, I’d love one.
Awesome. There is a pretty good list of curries up on glebekitchen and I’m adding more all the time. I don’t have one for malai kofta yet but I will add it to the list!
Hi there love the recipe, i’m not too sure if i’ve done something wrong! I’ve ended up with 4 boxes for full of 2 cup portions.
Thanks
Sam – are you saying you have ended up with a total of 8 cups of base. Sounds like too much water evaporated. Add water until you get to a soup like texture. You should have at least 8 portions. You don’t want your base too concentrated because it will make your curries too thick. If you’ve already frozen them you can dilute them when you thaw them out…
Hi, I love your curry recipes, the flavours are great.
I disagree with how many portions you say it makes though. At the end you of the recipe you say we should have 10-12 portions of base, with 2 cups per portion, so 20-24 cups. Your main volume comes from 12 cups of water, 1 tin of tomatoes and 1 cup of oil, so say 15 cups after the onions are blended in before any boiling, making it impossible to end up with 16 cups, never mind 24. The 2 hours of simmering left me with 10 cups of base.
Cheers.
Steven, you had me scratching my head about this a bit.
12 cups of water, 2 cups of tomatoes, a cup of oil and a huge amount go onions gets you there. the onions shrink as they cook because water is being drive out of the onion but into the pot. If you don’t have 20 cups at the end you have boiled off water. Add some back in until you get to at least 16 cups. You want your curry base to be the consistency of milk or very light cream.
Might be worth correcting the post 🙂 I fell in the same pit.
By the way, these are amazing recipes!!!
Actually I was right originally and my guess is you boiled off a bunch of water. I have actually corrected my comment instead. Thanks for bringing this one back to the top so I could sort it out.
Thank you! You explain well and I’ve tried some recipes and it works! Beautiful food and happy each time. Much appreciated 🙂
So glad it’s working for you. It’s easy once you get the basics down.
I have worked my way through every curry over the past few months and i can honestly say me and my hubby have enjoyed every single one of them ..u are brilliant!! ..x
That is very, very kind. I’ll try to get a couple more curries up soon to keep you from getting bored!
Can you tell me what volume “12 cups” is?
Thanks
Sorry Mal – a cup is 8 ounces so 12 cups would be 96 ounces or about 2.8 litres.
I made this recently and we liked it so much now making bigger second batch to freeze. Used it for the base of South Indian garlic chilli chicken my husband said was almost as good as his favourite take away. Having the base made it easier to prepare curry in a short time. Great recipe thanks
Lyne, freezing it in curry size portions is a great idea. Do that and you are ready for a curry at a moments notice. That’s the beauty of this.
Hi, do you have the recipe for your south Indian garlic chilli? That’s my favourite curry but I don’t live anywhere near a curry house that makes it well. Thanks!
I am Indian and managed to replicate my mother’s food which for me is great but I wanted to take it to the next level. The curry base by itself tastes amazing which is funny, can’t wait to try a few recipes with it. I was wondering can I substitute fish/prawns for the meats? Thank you!
Jay – I think you will be happy! You can use fish or prawns but I would not pre-cook them. Just poach them in the curry. Add them when the recipe tells you to add the meat and simmer gently until done.
Great, thanks. I’m going to give it a go with salmon!
Yes, I cooked one of Romaine’s fantastic recipes last night and just added prawns at the very end and let them simmer in the sauce for about 10 mins. Came out delish and tender. His method is excellent. Really works.
Glad it’s working out for you! I need to get going on a prawn curry or two soon.
As far as I am concerned you deserve to be knighted. Please continue this holy task and be blessed.
Thank you. Very kind indeed. I’m so glad that I am able to share.
Can you please recommend a good Indian spice shop in London?
Mickey.
Mickey – I’m not from London but Plentiful Foods NW1 looks like a good candidate and the reviews are quite favourable.
Brilliant just what I’ve been looking for……
Glad you found it. Took me years to figure out what I was searching for. Lots of curry recipes on the blog once you get your base made.
First and foremost, thank you so much for enlightening us with this recipe!! I’m so excited to finally cook REAL Indian food at home! Those “homestyle” recipes taste nothing like what you get in a restaurant. However, when you’re boiling this curry base, is the pot covered or uncovered? Each time? I’m assuming uncovered, because you want it to concentrate, but that’s one of my little pet peeves with blog recipes, when details like this aren’t specified. Also, I’d like to put in a request for a saag curry recipe – saag’s my favorite, and I always order it at Indian restaurants, usually with lamb. 🙂 Thanks!
Thank you. I hope you try lots of recipes restaurant style. It’s fun once you figure it out. It’s uncovered but loosely covered would do as well. Concentrated isn’t so important here and it’s a simmer so you won’t reduce much in any case. I’m always careful to say covered or loosely covered when that’s what I mean. I will put a saag recipe on the list. I like it too!
Hi,
I made the curry base was very good
Can I dublie the recipes or triple it.
And do u have nice recipe for chicken korma
Looking forward to her from you
Ayman
Glad you liked it. You can certainly double or triple it. I’m sure they do that all the time in professional kitchens. Don’t have a korma yet but it is on my to-do list.
I love veggie Korma… delicious!!
Will you include some recipes with beans??
Green beans you mean? I did a vegetable sambar recently.
Wow this is really good I made some last night to add to some chicken that I had previously cooked and it really brought it back to life. Thank you so much for this recipe.
I’m glad you liked it. If you have a chance, check out the Indian restaurant curry at home post and try your hand at a curry or two.
Hi I was just wondering what size cup measurements of water
One cup is 237ml.
Hi could this be cooked in a pressure cooker?
Yes, absolutely. I do that sometimes. Cut the initial cooking time to about 45 minutes but then simmer the pureed base as in the directions.
Hi,
You use imperial units to measure ingredients. I convert them into metrical units s7ch grams/kilograms etc. However one thing that is not clear is what cups you use…there is so much difference between cups. Can you please tell me how much milliliters is the cup you use. My big saucepan could not gather 12 cups of mine. So I am adding them as the liquid evaporates with the cooking. Please also can you clarify what you mean by 2 cups are worth 1 curry. Do you mean that 1 curry is enough for 2 portions/servings/people? This is confusing as in the pathia recipe is says it is enough for 2 servings but the amount of curry hase used is 2 cups (worth 1 curry as you describe it). Can you please clarify how much base we use for 1 serving, then I can work it out depenging on how many people I cook for?
237ml per cup.
The restaurant style curries call for 15 oz of curry base. That is enough for one recipe’s worth which is two moderate servings. The curry base recipe says 2 cups of base per serving/curry. What I mean by that is if you freeze 2 cups of curry base it is enough for one recipe’s worth of any of the restaurant style curries. There’s an extra ounce – yes – but this is not baking. A little imprecision is not the end of the world.
15oz = 1 curry recipe = two portions.
Apologies for the confusion.
So simply pyt as you use cups to measure – 1 cup per person?
Also if I am cooking for 12 people how do I put 12 cups in one pot? How much curry base at a time?
Many thanks. Can’t wait ti try it but just need these clarifications…
Great post! Thank you so much for taking the time to write this! I was wondering how long can the curry base sit in the freezer before use it? And if I can cut the recipe in half, since I don’t plan to make 12 curries within a week?
You are very welcome. Thank you for reading it. I think you could halve the recipe without any problem. In a freezer, I think it would probably last for a couple months although I never seem to manage to keep it around that long.
Could the Base be used for a curry with salmon in it,I am looking at a salmon curry recipe that already has a lot of ingredients ( spices etc) ??
Tony
Without seeing the recipe it is hard to say. You can adapt any of the Indian restaurant style curries on the blog to work with fish if that helps…
I made a salmon curry! Make your curry as you want (leave salmon out) then when its almost done nestle salmon into the sauce/mix and lightly spoon sauce over salmon. I cubed mine fwiw. Let simmer until done (for me it was about 8 mins). Then carefully spoon your serving out!
I make this regularly and it takes me a month to get through the batch of twelve. I’ve not noticed any deterioration in the quality after this time. You do know that you don’t just defrost it? It has to be hot when you add it after your spice blend and tomato base as you don’t want to lose too much heat in the pan when you’re hard frying the base for the caramelisation to occur.
I L.O.V.E Indian food! I can’t wait to see more of your Indian food recipes 😀
Fantastic post. This will be going into my little recipe book. I would love to do more Indian style curries and I’m excited you have a selection for me to pick from. Do you have any suggestions on what spices to layer on top of this curry base?
Joyce – this is the first in a series of blogs on how to cook real Indian restaurant curry (well second I guess as I posted garlic ginger paste recently). In the coming weeks I will publish posts on spice mixes, techniques and some restaurant favourite curry recipes.
YAY! I can’t wait!!!! 😀
I have tried this twice I reduced the volume of water I think it was better for me more flavour
This is a really good recipe Shona
Great to hear you like it! The reason it’s so thin is you fry it when you make the actual curry. It reduces in the pan. If it’s too thick when you start your final curry will also be too thick.
Made this yesterday. Used 2.5 lb onions which were rather large. The base has a bitter overpowering onion taste and I do not know whether it is just overgrown strong onion or what. Help
I can’t think of anything other than the onions. If you simmered the onions until they were mushy they should be quite mild in flavour. The curry base should taste like a quite mild curry flavoured onion soup. Certainly it should not be bitter at all. I’m sorry I can’t be more help. I’ve never had a hint of bitter and I make this recipe often.
Add some sugar to neutralise the bitterness
Yes, a little sugar helps or even tomato sauce – other things too such as cinnamon, gara masala and even some frozen spinach and or peppers can be added.
You didn’t cook the onions for long enough. If you blend onions which are not completely cooked you will get this taste. Not much you can do to save just give it a bit longer next time and maybe smaller segments.
Make sure the onions are cooked slow enough to caramelize and get nice and soft even soggy. This makes it more sweet and less bitter. Also lower the amount of turmeric, cumin and coriander. These are bitter spices. Especially tumeric. I’d adjust these by 1/2 a teaspoon down. I find it’s always best to start at half a teaspoon personally and work my way up. You’ll know how to do it better once you notice which spice changes the flavour. It takes a lot of patience and experimentation to make curry I think. Everyone has their own. There isn’t a standard curry that tastes the same at everyone’s house. Start here and start with lower spices and experiment. You’ll find your own.
Not sure I entirely agree with this. The onions are simmered in a lot of water. There is no browning here. No caramelization. No significant Maillard reaction. And the amount of spice in this amount of curry base is extremely low. Background flavours really. This isn’t a recipe for a homestyle curry. This is a recipe for a restaurant style curry base. They are two very different things.
That said, I do agree that taking the time to simmer the onions until they are truly soft is important.
The title does say it’s a restaurant style curry base…
I understand that this is intended to be a relatively quick version of the curry base, but I’ve made it by first browning the onions and garlic for hours in a slow cooker and that has really expanded the taste. Anyway, the techniques described here have improved my cooking beyond belief, so thanks for that.
Glad to be of help. This version is in line with what you would expect to get at an Indian restaurant. What you describe is more aligned with the series of recipes labelled hotel style here on glebekitchen.
sounds good but what do you add to the base to make it different kinds if sauce?
You use it as an ingredient in any of the recipes that say “restaurant style” on glebekitchen.
Hi the curry base , can I ask is it 1 and a half of those tablespoons or I of those measurements
If it says 1 1/2 tablespoons it means 1 and 1/2 (3/2) tablespoons.
Oh no! Totally misunderstood this and thought it meant one half of a tablespoon… what to do now? Am just on stage two of this base.
You’ll be OK. It won’t be exactly right but this is really, mostly a lot of boiled onions in the end. It will just turn out a little milder than intended but it’s meant to a blank canvas on which you create the actual curries. It’s how you use it and the spices in the actual curries that will make the difference. Keep going. It will be fine!