How to Interpret Recipes by bookseller

I must be led like a small child. Garlic in what form? How much? What kind of peppers? It must be so nice to just have a feel for what would work, in what form, etc.

Something really important to understand is that...it doesn't matter. Baking is a pretty exact science; if you screw up the proportions of, say, liquid to dry stuff, or eggs to sugar, you can wind up with a cake that is flat or a piecrust that falls apart, or whatever. And some mostly-dessert-oriented techniques, like making mousses or meringues, can demand a fair amount of precision. But when you're talking about savory cooking, especially something like a stew (and that's all a curry is), you've got a WHOLE lot more leeway before you wind up with something really awful. Don't have any carrots? Ok, use potatoes or parsnips. You don't want to use wine for the liquid because you've got a recovering-alcoholic dinner guest? No problem: Use apple juice or grape juice or water or chicken broth. You only have one pepper? Use that, and throw in any other veg you've got sitting in the fridge. You may invent something fabulous.

There are a handful of tricks -- for example, browning your meat/veg before adding your liquid will make for a tastier stew, and cooking your veg first (sauteing or roasting, ideally) will make for a less watery stew -- but even those aren't necessary. Lots of cuisines don't brown the meat beforehand, and their stews turn out just dandy. If your sauce isn't thick enough at the end, take the solids (meat and veg) out with a slotted spoon, bring the sauce to a hard boil (PHUT! PHUT! PHUT! PHUT! as opposed to phut .... phut .... phut ....) and stir it with a wooden spoon (to make sure it's not burning on the bottom). As it boils, it will thicken (because the water will evaporate), so just boil it down until you get a consistency that you like.

The point is, with savory cooking, it really is what YOU like. You love garlic? Try four cloves. Not so much? Use two. (Here's a good trick, by the way: The smaller your garlic is cut, the stronger the flavor will be: If you want to be cautious, just slice the garlic; if you want a bolder flavor, mince the garlic fine or put it through a garlic press.)

---