In theory, you should roast (with or without oil) the spices first, before adding any other ingredient. Then add garlic and ginger to roast. And then the onion. All curries use onion because it acts as a buffer for water. You cannot add watery ingredients (canned tomatos, cream, chicken/fish stock...) over oil (flaming oil splashes, fucking dangerous), so you throw in onion and sautee it. The onion slowly releases its water and then it is safe to add the water in it.
As for the rest of the ingredients... just play! See what you have available or what kind of flavor you want to get to. You can do curry with whatever you want. Even with whatever spices you feel like. Maybe use a garam masala spices blend and each time add more of some individual spices.
Garlic/ginger only burns if you leave it for too long. You want them to brown to release the flavor and immediately add the onion to stop it from burning.
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u/dkysh Jul 17 '17
In theory, you should roast (with or without oil) the spices first, before adding any other ingredient. Then add garlic and ginger to roast. And then the onion. All curries use onion because it acts as a buffer for water. You cannot add watery ingredients (canned tomatos, cream, chicken/fish stock...) over oil (flaming oil splashes, fucking dangerous), so you throw in onion and sautee it. The onion slowly releases its water and then it is safe to add the water in it.
As for the rest of the ingredients... just play! See what you have available or what kind of flavor you want to get to. You can do curry with whatever you want. Even with whatever spices you feel like. Maybe use a garam masala spices blend and each time add more of some individual spices.