Home Made Curries

My delight after a busy day is to dabble in curry cooking. I simply savour the mixing of different spices like cumin, cinnamon bark, star anise, cardamom, fenugreek, coriander seeds, cloves, galangal and more.

When stirred on a hot wok with simmering cooking oil and pounded / blended garlic and ginger, this first step to the making of home made curries gets all my senses going and exciting combinations of flavours both come to mind and transform into reality in front of my eyes.

I cannot wait to taste the curry with basmati rice (above).

Whether to have the meat fillets or on the skin (as above) is perhaps more of what you have grown up with.

Most of my Aussie mates prefer no skin, but my South-east Asian friends relish the different taste when skin is still intact. The colour of the gravy captures the eye's imagination and gets the taste buds going even before you get to eat.

My recently cooked salmon fish curry (above).

To finish up the creative cooking process, you have a choice - Thai kaffir lime leaves, Indian curry leaves or simply understated bay leaves all offer an extra garnishing and flavour to your curry. I love my tomatoes when I especially cook fish and prawn curries, but they do have an added zing even with meat, except not with lamb or beef. Believe it it or not, I also add powdery potatoes to my curries.

Above, a south Indian inspired version of prawn curry.