Hairy Bikers Chip Shop Curry Sauce Recipe

Hairy Bikers chip shop curry sauce blends soft-fried onions, ginger and garlic with mild curry powder, turmeric and ¼ tsp of ground star anise. And their Great Curries version makes 6 portions at about 105 calories each, taking around 40 minutes by my sums.

“Exactly what was in this sauce was always a mystery,” they admit in Great Curries, where they doff their caps to the chippy classic. So their answer is a smooth sauce rather than a chunky curry, thickened with 25g of flour and blended until it pours.

Giving the onions their full 10 minutes, then a few more until golden, matters most to me, because they become the sauce’s body. Then the stock goes in gradually over the flour, so it thickens without lumps before the blender takes over.

Hairy Bikers Chip Shop Curry Sauce

Author: Alex Saidani Cooking Method:Simmering Cuisine:British Indian Courses:Sauce

Difficulty:BeginnerPrep time: 10 minutesCook time: 30 minutesRest time: minutesTotal time: 40 minutesServings:6 servingsCalories:105 kcal Best Season:Summer

Description

A mild, golden curry sauce built on slow-cooked onion, thickened with a little flour and stock, then blended until silky. So it is ready to pour over a bag of hot chips, or to cool and keep for another night.

Ingredients

For the sauce

• 3 tbsp sunflower oil
• 2 medium onions, roughly chopped
• 15g chunk of fresh root ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, sliced
• 1 heaped tbsp mild curry powder
• ½ tsp ground turmeric
• ¼ tsp ground star anise
• 25g plain flour
• 400ml chicken or vegetable stock (made with 1 stock cube)
• 2 tsp tomato purée
• freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Soften the onions: Heat the oil in a large non-stick saucepan and fry the onions gently for 10 minutes until well softened, stirring now and then. Turn the heat up a little for 2 to 3 minutes more, stirring, until golden.
2. Add the spices: Lower the heat, add the ginger and garlic and cook gently for 3 minutes, stirring often. Stir in the curry powder, turmeric, star anise and a few twists of black pepper, then cook for 2 minutes, stirring.
3. Thicken: Sprinkle over the flour and stir well. Add the stock gradually, stirring all the time until it is all incorporated, then add the tomato purée. Bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thick.
4. Blitz: Take the pan off the heat and blitz with a stick blender until very smooth. Or cool it for a few minutes, blend in a food processor, then tip it back into the pan.
5. Rest under cling film: If you are not serving straight away, press cling film onto the surface to stop a skin forming, then set it aside.
6. Reheat and serve: Warm the sauce over a low heat, stirring constantly, until it comes to a gentle simmer. Keep stirring for a couple of minutes, then serve with freshly cooked chips.

FAQs

Why does chip shop curry sauce use star anise?

My own view is that ¼ tsp of ground star anise adds a faint aniseed sweetness, nudging it away from an Indian curry sauce. If you only have whole stars, grind one finely and measure out the ¼ tsp.

Star anise also turns up in their takeaway-style dishes, where two whole stars go into the Chinese chicken curry from Asian Adventure. But that one is thickened with cornflour and simmered with soy and rice wine, while this one stays smooth and mild.

How hot is it, and which curry powder should you use?

It is mild, because the recipe asks for mild curry powder and adds no chilli of its own. So in my view it suits children, while a medium powder gives more kick if you want it.

For a homemade blend, the mild curry powder in One Pot Wonders toasts coriander, cumin, fennel and optional aniseed with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. And they say its hint of chilli makes it “a good curry powder to use when cooking for young children”.

Can you make it vegan or gluten-free?

It is vegan as written if you use vegetable stock, because everything else is plant-based and the only fat is sunflower oil. So the one thing to check is the stock cube label, since some contain milk.

Gluten is harder, because the 25g of plain flour does the thickening and the recipe offers no swap. So my own suggestion is a gluten-free plain flour blend, stirred in exactly the same way.

Can you freeze chip shop curry sauce?

Yes, it keeps for up to a month in the freezer, or for a couple of days in the fridge once cooled. And because it reheats over a low heat with constant stirring, it is a good one to make on a quiet afternoon.

My own tip is to freeze it in small tubs, because the whole batch is roughly 600ml and one portion is about 100ml. Then add a splash of water as it warms, since it firms up in the cold.

What do you serve it with?

Chips first, and their triple-cooked chips have craggy edges that hold plenty of sauce. And it works over battered fish too, so their fish and chips with real ale batter or beer-battered scampi make a full chippy tea.

For a Northern twist, pour it over Yorkshire puddings, since in Brilliant Bakes they serve gram flour Yorkshires with a curry sauce. That version is a spiced mince sauce with tamarind, though, so it eats more like a meal than a dip.