The secret ingredient for a good curry

Today, I will reveal the secret ingredient for a good curry. It’s the one thing that will make your average homemade dish taste divinely delicious. Before I go on, I must specify which curry I’m referring to. It’s the one my mum makes with yoghurt – punjabi kadhi. Soured yoghurt that you really can’t eat on its own will work perfectly.

One weekend many years ago I made my version of kadhi. I was proudly telling my mum how I had made it. I began with my list of ingredients: onions, cumin, oil, turmeric, salt, garlic and ginger, all fried-up, and browned. Then I added the yoghurt.

“What about the gram flour?” mum asked.

“What gram flour?” I replied.

Mum looked at me with an expression only a mother can give.

“Did you not add gram flour?”

“Erm, no,” I said, with a cheeky grin.

“So, you’ve given me boiled yoghurt?”

“Yep, but it tasted good right?”

To this she nodded in agreement. I think I would have got away with giving her boiled yoghurt, had I not listed all the ingredients I had used. I do believe the love with which I had made the kadhi more than made up for the lack of gram flour. There it is, the lesson being that you can improvise your way through any recipe. As long as the food is piping hot and cooked through, I’m sure any hungry person will appreciate it – especially a mum.