Course description

If you've cooked with jars of curry sauce and want to cook from scratch instead, this course shows you how, one skill at a time. You'll learn how spices behave, how to build a masala that tastes rich rather than raw, and how to cook dals, vegetable dishes, curries, rice and breads that work together as a home meal.

Indian food isn't one cuisine. It's many regional and family traditions, and every household cooks a little differently. The recipes here are home-style dishes written for a UK kitchen, with UK measures and oven settings: one way among many, not the only way.

There are 10 sections and 50 written lessons, and each one ends with a short, practical exercise. You follow Karen, an office manager in Gravesend, through a year of cooking with help from her neighbour Satwant and friends from work: the burnt tadka, the sticky rice, the chapatis that wouldn't puff, her husband's 50th birthday lamb curry, and a final meal for six planned around a guest's tree nut allergy. Every section has a practice pack with a worksheet, example answers, a cheat sheet and recipe cards, plus tools such as a kitchen safety card, a spice tin planner, a pulse cooking guide, a rice card, a deep-frying safety card, a meal planner, a recipe scaler and a freezer log.

What you'll learn

• Getting started: many regional kitchens rather than one cuisine, a sensible kit, kitchen safety, and how the recipes, heat levels and scaling work.
• Spices: whole and ground spices, a starter spice tin, toasting and grinding your own garam masala, tempering spices in hot fat, and keeping spices fresh.
• The masala base: onions cooked to the right stage, ginger, garlic and green chilli, cooking a masala until the oil separates, three sauces, and balancing heat, salt, sour and sweet.
• Dals and pulses: split and whole pulses, tarka dal, chana dal, rajma from dried kidney beans cooked safely, and chole in a pan or a pressure cooker.
• Vegetables: dry sabzi and aloo gobi, saag, vegetable curries, okra without the slime, a cabbage thoran, and pairing a wet and a dry dish.
• Paneer, eggs, chicken and lamb: homemade paneer, matar paneer and paneer tikka, a home-style chicken curry, a slow-cooked lamb curry, egg curry, marinades and safe handling of raw meat.
• Rice: fluffy basmati, jeera and lemon rice, a one-pan pulao, a home-style chicken biryani, and the rules for cooling and reheating rice.
• Breads: atta dough, chapatis that puff, layered and stuffed parathas, naan in a home kitchen, and puris fried safely.
• Chutneys, raitas and snacks: fresh and cooked chutneys, raitas and salads, deep-frying safely, onion bhajis and pakoras, aloo tikki and chaat.
• Meals and routines: planning a balanced home meal, a weekly cooking routine, batch cooking and freezing, and a final project meal for family or friends.

Who it's for

Home cooks who can follow a recipe and want to move beyond jar sauces and takeaways. You don't need any special equipment to start: a heavy pan, a small pan for tempering and a flat pan for breads will do, and the course tells you what can wait.

What this course is, and isn't

This is a practical home cooking course. The food safety information, including rice, red kidney beans, chicken, leftovers, allergens, burns and deep-frying, is general guidance for home cooks based on advice from the Food Standards Agency, the NHS and fire and rescue services. It isn't professional food safety, medical or nutrition advice.

What will I learn?

• Choose, store and use a starter set of whole and ground spices, and grind your own garam masala
• Temper spices in hot fat without burning them, and cook a masala until the oil separates
• Cook everyday dals and pulse dishes, including red kidney beans prepared safely
• Make dry and saucy vegetable dishes and pair them into a balanced meal
• Make paneer at home and cook home-style paneer, egg, chicken and lamb curries, checking meat is cooked through
• Cook fluffy basmati, flavoured rice, pulao and a home-style biryani, and handle leftover rice safely
• Make chapatis, parathas, naan and puris in a home kitchen
• Make fresh chutneys, raitas and snacks, and deep-fry safely at home
• Plan meals, a weekly routine and a freezer of curries, and cook a meal for family or friends around their allergies

Frequently asked questions