On Wednesday, 27 March 2013 17:17:12 UTC+10, sf wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:09:28 -0700 (PDT), Timo wrote:
>
> > If one is interested enough to cook Indian curry once, there are plenty of jars and cans of curry sauce. No need to buy spices, just fry meat + onions + other vegetables, add contents of jar/can.
>
> Exactly!
>
> > Agree that no point in stocking up on things that won't be used (but I end up using a lot of coriander, cumin and chilli in range of non-Indian/non-curry dishes, and cardamom and cinnamon (and cloves) get used in Euro-baking, so the extra needed for Indian is pretty small for me).
>
> I have all of what was mentioned above, but always seem to find
> recipes that call for what I don't have.

Modify, or find a different recipe (that is, if, hypothetically, you wanted to cook Indian curry). The above + black pepper, turmeric and sweet paprika are a sufficient set of dry spices. The biggest omissions would be fenugreek and mustard seeds, which you can do curries without.

OK, there's a catch: one needs to be familiar with cooking the cuisine to reliably know what to ignore/change/substitute in recipes. For those who want to dabble, pre-mix cans are good. Given your obvious love of Indian curry, "cook something else" looks like a good choice.

> > Before I had a working Thai lime tree, I found Thai curry pastes to be worthwhile buying and using, since Thai curries tend to use more fresh ingredients that I was less likely to have.
>
> I only use Thai curry pastes so far and although I can buy Kafir lime
> leaves, lemon grass and galangal easily, I don't want to.

Thai curry paste is easier than scratch, and consistent (for the same brand). Making Thai curries from scratch is a hobby, not a necessity.

These days, fresh kaffir lime leaves are easy to get around here; 25-15 years ago, almost impossible. Dried ones were hard to find (and they're only good for cooking rice, IMO). OTOH, mainstream supermarkets would stock some Thai curry pastes.

Very good to keep a jar of tom yum paste around for almost-instant soup. When after quick food, you don't want to stuff around.

> Fortunately, most posters here don't cook Thai curry much and aren't
> as opinionated about only using the raw components as they are with
> Indian curries. I sometimes feel like the lone voice in the darkness
> against all of that do it yourself from scratch curry BS, which
> probably comes from people who have only ordered curry from a
> restaurant... if that.

Personally, I favour curries from scratch, but I see no grounds for being a curry-authenticity nazi - nothing inauthentic about pre-made sauce-in-a-can.