>>7009105I make curry only occasionally & would not consider whatever I concoct to be traditional indian food.
Start with a yellow onion & a small set of fresh hot peppers. Sliver the onion & dice the peppers, then add these to salt, black pepper & cooking oil in a large saucepan over high heat & get it sizzling. Throw in some cubed steak or lamb if you like.
If you're doing tofu, fry it separately & chuck it in at the end.
After the meat browns, pour in 2 cups of water & some cubed zuccini/potato.
Bring it all to a boil & add a few more diced peppers & a few pinches of salt. Add 1-1&1/2 tsp crushed Calonji(English: Nigella) & 3-4 cloves minced garlic; at this point I would also add some butter, however, it's totally non-essential.
Let it burble over medium heat for a couple minutes before throwing in a handful of diced green onion, then get your dry spices & some kind of emulsifier ready. Cow/goat milk or cream, coconut milk or even liquified cashews will do the job because the true, crusty glory of indian food is in the fat power imo.
You had asked how to make the food more savory, but spices don't really do that. Think of it like staining wood--the "meat" & "vegetables" in the wood grain are static. You can "stain" broccoli to try & make it like seafood but unless you have something derived from oysters, you'll never get close to that snotty earcheese & sandy egg-yolk-of-the-sea flavor they got going on down at the dock club.
I could be dead wrong though.
Anyway, I usually eyeball varied amounts of these ground up spices & blend them together with heavy cream. Stir it all up then add & immediately kill the heat:
>Mustard>Fenugreek>Coriander>Paprika>Cayenne>Marjoram>Ginger>Clove>Cinnamon 
