Love Curry?? Know how to use the Ingredients??

Love Curry?? Love to cook a curry?? I do too and guess what for a long time I did not know how to make my ingredients work while making a curry. I always felt my curries never tasted the same as my mum's or my sister's. I always wondered what was I doing wrong or was I not using the spices right. To my surprise, I was using everything exactly they did but just not using them the right way. Yes that makes a lot of difference in the flavour you get in the curries. I learnt a lot this time I went back home, so I thought I will share what I learnt, and probably you will have an amazing curry too :)) Here are some standard things that go in a curry and how they are used:

1. Onions - A very basic ingredient in a curry. If you use a red onion finely chopped, its much milder compared to a white onion. Grating onion in curries gives curry a very smooth finish. Onion is generally used finely chopped always to have a nice consisted gravy. They cook evenly and give a good body to any curry.
2. Garlic - There are 3 ways garlic can be used. Depending on how strong you like your garlic, you can make this work for you. Just thinly slice garlic for a mild flavour. Finely chop garlic to have a little stronger flavour. If you really want a notch up grate the garlic finely and then mix it while cooking in hot oil, that will immediately perfume the oil with garlic.
3. Ginger - I always made this mistake. I always peeled my ginger before I used it in curries. Never do that the Ginger skin has all the flavour in and by peeling it you are taking most of the flavour out. If you think the ginger is gritty just make sure you brush and clean it nicely so that the curry doesn't get gritty. If you must just use a spoon and scrape off a thin layer of the skin, so that you don't end out cutting most of the ginger out. Again while using it, if you just want a mild flavour, coarsely chop the ginger and add it with onion and garlic. If you want a nice and strong flavour, grate the ginger finely along with its skin and then add it to the oil along with garlic to the hot oil before adding the onion. This will give an instant ginger flavour to your curry.
4. Curry leaves - Add fresh curry leave to hot oil, they splutter a lot, but provide an amazing fragrance to the dish. Some prefer just adding them while cooking to have a mild flavour too. Dried curry leaves do not have the same effect on curries or rice dishes, try and use fresh leaves where possible.
5. Spices - Always add the spices to oil heated up on a low flame. This makes the spices much more fragrant.Make sure the oil is not too hot, otherwise things like turmeric or chilli powder will burn and give a very acrid taste. Always retain some garam masala that you are using to add it at the end again. This enhances the flavour of the gravy and takes it to another level.
6. Whole spices - If you are using whole spices in the curries or rices, add the spices to medium hot oil, make sure you see it going brown or spices like pepper corns, cloves and cardamom swell up when put in hot oil, thats when you know the spices have integrated with the oil.
7. Cooking the base of the curry - If you are cooking a curry with tomato and onion base, take your time and cook the base for 15-20 min at least or until you see oil oozing out of the tomato and onion mix. 
8. Tomatoes - If you don't want the base too runny and tangy, remove the seeds from the tomatoes and then add the tomatoes to the base.
9. Tamarind - You can just add tamarind to the curry, but if you soak the tamarind in some warm water for 15-20 mins and then squeeze all the flesh out and throw away the hard bits, the mix left back integrates in the curries very well. mix the flesh of the tamarind in the warm water nicely for it to incorporate in the curry well.
10. Jaggery / Raw cane sugar - Jaggery and Tamarind go together very well. By default in most of the curries if you are using tamarind, jaggery goes hand in hand. Jaggery is like a fudge of raw unprocessed sugar, its as harmful as our regular processed sugar and adds a very nice taste and flavour to the dish.
11. Lemons - Squeeze lemons right at the end of any curry.
12. Yogurt - Cook yogurt at a very low heat otherwise it will split and make the curry grainy. It will still taste nice but the texture may not be what you want.
13. Panchaporan - This is a heavenly mix of spice seeds that lift up anything. just toss in some potatoes with a teaspoon of these seeds and they will taste just out of this world. This mix consists of equal measures of mustard seeds, onion/nigella seeds, fenugreek seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds. Some people like less of fenugreek seeds, as they have a mild bitter taste. if you are not a fan a bitter taste you may want to tone this down a little.
14. Oils - When cooking a curry try and use flavourless oils like, Sunflower oil, Groundnut oil or rapeseed oil. Unless you really want to flavour your meat or veg, then coconut oil is really nice and olive oil provides a distinct taste. Make sure Olive oil is not very hot while cooking, as it is not very healthy to eat hot olive oil.

This is no way a full list, but just some basics, if you have any other hints and tips do share and make our curry lovers happy :)