You made a dish too sour – Sourness comes from acidic ingredients (including tomatoes, wine and vinegar). If your dish tastes too sour try to add sweetness—think sugar, honey ( it’s healthy! ), cream or even caramelized onions. You can also dilute the dish (same as you would with a dish with too much salt). qoppi/Shutterstock
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Why does my curry taste sour?
Using too much bitter spices – There are certain Indian spices that are naturally bitter in taste like fenugreek seeds, caraway seeds and mustard seeds, These are added to any recipe in moderation and adding excess of any other these can turn the whole curry bitter. Indian Spice Fenugreek
What cancels sour flavor?
Flavour balance as a science – Understanding how flavours become balanced starts with knowing the basic rules behind preparing each element. Remember that adding salt to a dish does more than just making it salty – it enhances or counteracts other flavours within the dish. These are the simple rules dictating how each element will affect the overall flavour:
Sweetness: From sugar, honey, fruits or otherwise, sweetness will counteract bitter and sour flavours. It can also be used to cut down the heat of a particularly spicy meal. Saltiness: Salt plays two very important roles in flavouring a dish. Firstly, it balances against bitterness. Secondly, it enhances most other flavours present in the dish – particularly sweetness. Think about salted caramel – this flavour combination works so well because of the balance created by the salt and sugar. Similarly, salt is commonly used in tomato-based dishes to bring the natural flavours of the tomato forward. Bitterness: Though not the most popular flavour generally, bitterness is critical to balance. The taste of grapefruit, dark greens or beer can help to cut through the richness or sweetness of a meal. Sourness: Think of vinegar and citrus. Acidity works wonders in balancing a dish, adding liveliness and counteracting sweetness and heat. Umami: This flavour can be hard to pin down, but is the inherent savoury notes in soy sauce, mushrooms, oysters and many cheeses. Umami is best used to complement other flavours – perfect for a dish that seems balanced but is still lacking.
How do you fix sour Indian curry?
How to reduce the sour taste in gravy? The primary balancing factor for sourness is sweetness – so gradually adding sugar (plain sugar, rock sugar, honey, palm sugar.) and tasting should yield good results here. “Whereever you add tamarind, you can add jaggery”, one well known indian chef tends to say in his videos.
The combination of strong sourness (vinegar!) and strong sweetness (plenty of sugar!) is not uncommon in chinese (sweet-sour) and italian (agrodolce) cuisines. Also, western tomato sauces almost always have sugar added unless exceptionally good and sweet tomatoes are used. As strange as it sounds, giving the sourness a bit more depth with vinegar (for anything with indian or thai spices in it, yellow rice wine vinegar is great; avoid distilled or white wine vinegar!) while also sweetening the dish can help here also.
You got a sour dish, make it a great sour dish. Also, make sure your salt, fat (butter, ghee, coconut oil, oil), and bitterness (spices) are balanced. : How to reduce the sour taste in gravy?
How do you fix a sour taste in sauce?
If your food is., too sour or acidic – Ever made a salad dressing or tomato sauce that makes your mouth pucker a little bit too much? Add a pinch of sugar and some salt for a quick fix.
How do you make curry taste better?
Cooking Inspiration 02 March 2021 With a few simple tricks, you can whip up a deliciously satisfying dish—better than anything the local takeout or grocery store can offer. While some of us might be tempted to reach for the store-bought pastes and sauces, making your own perfect curry from scratch couldn’t be easier.
With a few simple tricks, you can whip up a deliciously satisfying dish—better than anything the local takeout or grocery store can offer. Sizzle your spice: Kick off your curry by heating whole spices in hot oil to unleash their flavor. Choose from cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, and seeds for the perfect base to your dish.
Fresh spices are the best choice and will keep for longer in the freezer. Wholesome choices: It’s a common misconception that curries have to be unhealthy. For a more wholesome curry, simply soak almonds in water for an hour and blend to create an almond paste or choose tomato as an alternative to coconut milk.
Spices such as chili and ginger are packed with benefits like antioxidants, which help fight viruses and can boost circulation. Take your time: A good curry doesn’t have to take hours but it’s important to allow ingredients such as onions to cook properly, to get the most flavor out of them. Another trick is to save powered spices like garam masala until last.
The cooking process reduces the flavor of dried spices, so it’s best to wait until you’re almost finished with the heat before adding to your mix. Season to taste: Tomato-based curries can benefit from a little sugar to take away the acidity and a pinch of salt can also balance the dish.
- If you accidentally go a little overboard with the seasoning, a twist of lemon juice will neutralize the excess.
- Garnish: Transform your curry with a simple topping! Toasted sesame seeds, shredded coconut, or a sprinkle of fresh pomegranate will add another layer of depth to your creation.
- Leftovers: Make curries go further by adding pulses like chickpeas and yellow split peas.
Not only will it bulk out the meal, but pulses are great sources of protein and fiber, so this will give your dish a nutritional boost. As long as the rice is cooled quickly (i.e. run under cold water after cooking) and stored in the fridge, it’s safe to reheat the next day—or you can grab a pack of our handy Steamed Basmati Rice which takes just two minutes in the microwave! For the ultimate curry recipe, why not check out our Perfect Chicken Curry?
Does Salt reduce sourness?
Asked by: Anonymous Taste is a complicated business. It used to be thought that there were separate receptor cells on different parts of your tongue for each of the five basic tastes: salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami (the taste of glutamic acid). But more recent research has shown that individual cells actually respond to several tastes each, at different levels of sensitivity.
The upshot of this is that all the tastes interact with each other – sometimes enhancing, sometimes suppressing – depending on the concentrations. So for example, at low concentrations, sour tastes will enhance bitter ones, but at moderate concentrations, they will suppress them. Which is why we put lime in a margarita.
How to Get Rid of the Sour Taste in My Stew : Preparing Stews: Tips & Tricks
Salt is used as a universal flavour improver because at low concentrations it will reduce bitterness, but increase sweet, sour and umami, which is desirable for sweet recipes. But at higher concentrations it suppresses sweetness and enhances umami, which is good for savoury things.
Why does a drop of water make whisky taste better? Why does spicy food taste hot?
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What makes Indian curry sour?
Get to Know the Sour, Twangy Ingredients that Give Indian Cooking a Kick Beyond Spice It’s a safe bet that when you think of India, you think of spices: cardamom and cloves and peppercorns, cinnamon and cumin and coriander, fennel and mustard and turmeric.
And while Indians use these aromatics with as much delicacy and finesse as anyone, they’re far from the only ones that do. Indian spices are world-shaping commodities that have lured colonists and built empires obsessed with the flavors that at one point were only found on the subcontinent and in Southeast Asia.
But it’s a different story for India’s souring agents—twangy sources of acidity that define regional Indian cooking just as much as some key spices. Where an American cook may brighten a sauce with a squeeze of lemon or dash of vinegar, and Indian might turn to powdered green mango to tart up a kebab spice rub, or add a curl of tamarind-like kokum to a seafood a curry.
Since these flavors never really traveled beyond India’s borders, they may not pack the romantic punch (or heady nose) of a north Indian, But they’re at least as central to Indian cooking—and undoubtedly more unique—than the spices that first made India rich. Here are seven worth knowing. Kokum fruit from,
A red berry related to the mangosteen, kokum is mostly associated with the cooking of western India’s tropical coast, and particularly the Konkan region, which runs from Mumbai south through Goa (another variety of the berry is common to Assam in India’s distant Northeast).
Soaked, crushed, or tossed whole into a pot, kokam lends a bright berry tang to curries, lentil, or pan-fried dishes (think not-quite-ripe currants or blackberries), but its most distinctive uses are in beverages. The brilliant pink concentrate yielded by soaking the dry berry in water can be boiled with simple syrup and diluted with water to make a clear, pink sharbat, or, my personal favorite, combined with fresh coconut milk and a mixture of garlic, cumin, coriander, and chile to make a sour, spiced drink known as solkadhi, the obligatory accompaniment for fiery Konkani seafood dishes.
You’ll most often see kokam sold in its semi-dry form, the husk torn into rubbery, purple-black teeth, curled up around the edges. Over in Kerala, south of the Konkan along the coast, cooks use a similar but more pungent dried berry called kodampalli,
- Aamchur is made by drying mangoes like these and are available on,
- Like the mangoes from which it’s derived, aamchur is quintessentially Indian.
- A plain, beige powder made from the sun-dried pulp of unripe (or, to use the Indian term, “raw”) mangoes, aamchur (also: amchur or amchoor ) turns up in dishes from virtually all corners of the subcontinent.
Amchur smells and tastes of green apples (but with more astringency) and is an essential component of chaat masala, the powdered spice blend sprinkled over India’s best loved variety of street snacks distinguished by their combination of textures, flavors, and temperatures.
- It also contains enzymes that break down proteins, which make it an important component in many kebab recipes.
- And its tartness means it plays an important role in the spice blends used to flavor Indian pickles.
- A similar powder made from a wild cucumber called the kachri turns up in the cooking of Rajasthan, where the vegetable grows, but virtually nowhere else, while similar unripe papaya powders can also be used to tenderize meat.
Anardana from, Made by sun drying flesh-on pomegranate seeds, anardana comes whole or in powdered form, like amchur, though its pink, juicy flavor more closely resembles kokam, You’ll find anardana – which can stand up to longer cooking than more delicate aamchur —as a prominent flavoring in samosas or in the spiced chickpea stew called chole, served as a snack food across north India with deep-fried, steam-filled breads called bhatura,
As one of the two primary powdered souring agents (along with aamchur ), anardana tends to turn up most often in the drier parts of northern and western India, where more common souring agents like lime are only available through part of the year, and where the culinary connections to Persia (another place that uses dried pomegranate seeds) are stronger.
Nimbu pickled into achaar from, You’d be hard-pressed to eat at any restaurant, canteen, or roadside dhaba in India without encountering a dish of these little yellow-green limes, quartered or sliced and left out to squeeze over your dal, fish fry, or spiced-up vegetables.
- Sweeter than Italian lemons, less astringent than Mexican limes, and less bitter than key limes (though similar in size), the nimbu lends a bright citric tang to anything it touches.
- Like kokam, nimbu makes for good liquid refreshment in the form of nimbu pani (lime water) or fresh lime soda, sold in restaurants and at roadside stalls throughout the country.
The diminutive fruits are squeezed, mixed with water or seltzer, and served either with sugar or sulfuric black salt and other savory spices. Sometimes people mix the sweet and salty versions together for a sweet, sour, and replenishing drink, perfect for the sweaty tropical heat.
This is far and away the best version. In the eastern state of Bengal, the gondhoraj, or* rangpur,* lime—a cross between a lime and a mandarin orange—is king. Tamarind from, Though tamarind is not technically indigenous to the subcontinent, having arrived there from Africa via human migration thousands of years ago, it’s been cultivated on the land that is now India for so long that it might as well be.
And the sweet-sour pulp extracted from the long, brown pods turns up all over the Indian kitchen. Soaked and strained, tamarind water serves as a base for some of the richest rasams and is the key souring agent in sambhar (a typical South Indian lentil dish).
- The pulp, sold semi-dry or coated in a sticky reddish nectar, can be eaten as a snack or pulverized with spices and chilis into the masala pastes used to make any number of curries (including the Mangalorean Christmas pork curry that my Catholic housekeeper taught me years ago).
- In one of my favorite iterations, tamarind pulp and dates are cooked down into a thick brown chutney that provides the sweet and sour notes in most of the street snacks known as chaats, made from a combination of fried doughs and chutneys.
Homemade yogurt can be made into sweet dishes like mishti doi, India—and especially North India—is, at its core, a dairy culture, and the ubiquity of dahi (Hindi for yogurt) reflects that. There are, sour-spicy chaas (also called buttermilk), yogurt marinades for meats, and cooling raitas made by mixing yogurt with vegetables or fried chickpea-flour dumplings called bundi.
- Yogurt also functions as a souring agent in curries.
- It lightens rich north Indian meat dishes and makes for tart southern stews.
- In the desert regions of western India, cooks combine yogurt with chickpea flour and spices to make a sour soup called kadhi,
- There are also sweet-sour varieties from the state of Gujarat, where virtually nothing escapes the kitchen without a dash of sugar.
Used principally among the Christians of western India, whose cooking still bears the traces of Portuguese colonization and conversion, vinegars are a relatively recent introduction to the national cuisine. (References to sugar-cane vinegar appear in the 6th-century BCE medical text known as the Shushrutha Samitha, but mostly for medicinal purposes.) Where Goan Hindus and cooks from the Konkan coast sour their curries with kokam, Goan Catholics create signature dishes like and sorpotel with heavy dashes of vinegar, usually made from sugar-cane, though others are made using coconut water and toddy, a fermented coconut wine.
Farther north, the Parsi community of Mumbai and Gujarat (Persian Zoroastrians who came to the region over a millennium ago) use a dark, barrel-aged cane vinegar in signature dishes like the rich mutton stew known as sali boti, while communities across the subcontinent will often include dashes of vinegar in oil-pickled vegetables ( achar ), the juices from which—called achar ka raw —can themselves be drizzled over vegetables or breads or yogurts as a spicy-sour condiment all their own.
: Get to Know the Sour, Twangy Ingredients that Give Indian Cooking a Kick Beyond Spice
How do you reduce the lemon sourness in curry?
To cut lemon flavor in a dish, you can add baking soda to neutralize the excess acidity. Add ¼ of a teaspoon per 1 cup of liquid. Stir and taste. Other ways to mask too much lemon flavor include adding sugar or honey, adding cheese, or diluting the sauce.
How do you balance vinegar in curry?
Add Baking Soda – Let’s go to chemistry class. Alkaline ingredients such as baking soda help reduce acidic taste by creating a chemical reaction. The baking soda will take the vinegar, transforming CO2 and water. As a result, the vinegar will become less acidic. In other words, the alkaline will counteract vinegar ‘s effect.
Does curry go sour?
How to Tell if Curry is Bad? – Did you know that most people love to eat curry? But if it doesn’t taste right, then they probably think something is wrong with the food. Did you also know that there are a few easy ways to tell whether or not your curry has gone bad?
- The first thing you want to do is smell the dish. If it smells like sour milk, then there might be a problem with your curry.
- Next, if the food has an off-color or consistency (sour and slimy), this could also indicate that something is wrong with the curry.
- If you notice any unexpected odors coming from the dish, look for changes in its color or texture before tasting it.
- Remember that ingredients will have different flavor profiles when they are fresh versus when they go bad over time, so make sure to use good quality spices and store them properly.
Curry is one of those dishes where people are quick to judge if it has gone bad because they think curry doesn’t have a shelf life or any known expiration date. This couldn’t be further from the truth because all foods go bad over time. Follow the steps above to avoid eating a meal that has gone bad.
Why does my curry smell sour?
Asked 6 years, 10 months ago Viewed 11k times For a family get-together, I bought 20 large containers of curry sauce from my favourite Indian restaurant – 15 Dansak and 5 Korma. I collected the sauces on Thursday evening. The containers were all hot to the touch.
- Then I un-wrapped and diced the appropriate amount of chicken thigh fillets.
- These were bought the day before, well in date and stored in the fridge.
- I browned off the chicken in batches with a little ghee and garlic.
- Then I put all the chicken in a big pan and boiled in water for around 25 minutes.
- Then I tipped all the sauces into two separate pans – one Dansak and one korma.
The sauces were still quite warm. I then added the cooked chicken to the sauces, put the lids on and stored them in a very cold greenhouse overnight. The following evening I took them to the party venue and warmed them up, simmering for a while, to be ready for the guests.
- Around 3 hours later almost all the Korma had gone, along with some of the Dansak.
- At this point I decided to try some of the Dansak.
- Putting it in a bowl with some rice I noticed a very slight sour smell.
- I took a couple of mouthfuls and then I had a good sniff of what was left in the pan.
- Again it smelled a tiny bit funny so.
To be on the safe side I removed the pan from the buffet and put it in the kitchen. Half an hour later I asked my friend to come to the kitchen to have a smell and tell me what he thought. Now it smelled pretty bad. It wasn’t on any heat but was sort of fermenting by itself, with little light coloured bubbles.
It smelled pretty bad (sour) so I put the pan outside. I was now quite worried that I might have poisoned some people. I went back and had a smell of what was left in the pot of Korma. This smelled just fine. A couple of hours later I went outside to dispose of the contents of the Dansak pot. Now smell was absolutely disgusting.
Holding our noses, my friend and I tipped it into a double plastic bag and we could see that it was actually separating and was really horrible. This was a couple of days ago. To my relief no-one has become sick. I can still ‘taste’ the horrible smell. I have done this exact same thing several times before, with no problems at all. asked Jan 10, 2016 at 11:50 John Richard John Richard 41 1 gold badge 1 silver badge 3 bronze badges 2 I think the times you did it with no troubles you used smaller portions, right? These big portions simply do not cool down quickly enough, and the temperature stays too long in the danger zone, say between thirty and sixty celsius.
- Bacteria grow very quickly around these temps, and so they spoiled your curries.
- Their waste is lactic acid or alcohol and carbondioxide, and that were the bubbles and the smell.
- You solve it by cooling down rapidly, so in smaller portions.
- The other option is that it stayed too long in the danger zone on the buffet, it was the last to go.
Probably both. buffets are dangerous in the best of circumstances.in that case you also have to serve smaller portions on the buffet next time. answered Jan 10, 2016 at 13:27 Marc Luxen Marc Luxen 1,379 1 gold badge 12 silver badges 23 bronze badges 5 When leaving curry to cool, you must allow it to cool to room temperature naturally first. Before storing in a cold greenhouse or fridge. Another thing to note is that if you reheat the sauce, you shouldnt put an airtight lid on it right away, you must allow for some of the steam to escape.
Otherwise you will have condensation on the inside. It is the condensation water that falls back into the sauce which spoils it. I have worked in an indian catering firm based in the UK, we have cooked curry for up to 400 people in 1 pot. The quantity has nothing to do with it. Its about proper storage and cooling time.
answered Jul 31, 2019 at 10:46 2
Why does my curry not taste good?
Adding too much water Water dilutes the flavors of the spices as well as other ingredients used in the curry. Make sure you add less water than needed and then check the consistency before adding more. This is wisdom I got from mum that its easier to add more later than adding excess and taking it out.