Guyanese Chicken/Goat Curry

[JerkPork]

I'm looking to make a Guyanese style curry (chicken, goat, etc…). The end product should be a nice deep dark rich stew (trying to replicate a neigbourhood resto) not like the other West Indian ones that have that "yellow" shade. I can't seem to find much on the web, I tried a recipe from Serious Eats (http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/20...) and it was horrible (way too much clove and all spice). I should have known better as a couple of cloves go a long way and this called for 1/2 tsp of cloves.

I'm gathering the difference between Guyanese and other West Indian curries is the Garam Masala powder which of course includes clove, cinnamon, etc..but not to the degree of the Serious Eats recipe. I guess it's a matter of finding the right curry powder blend or making your own which is what the SE recipe was trying to accomplish. Any recipes from you guys out there?

[JerkPork]

Both the Inner Gourmet recipe and the one I had found from Serious Eats used water instead of chicken stock. Any reason for this? I used water this time but always use stock when I make other curries. It lacked taste with the water even though there were a lot of spices mixed in.

[chefj]

may be it did not have enough Clove?

[hankstramm]

My sister was married to the biggest lowlife I ever encountered, and his really nice parents were from Guyana. Anyway, their curries were lighter than East Indians (as they referred to them). No coco milk, less butter etc.

That's all I remember, except what a scumbag the guy was and how delicious his mom's food was.

[Shrinkrap]

Not familiar with Guyanese, (other than my daughters bff's mother who use to say "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" with the BEST patois ), but in the Caribbean, "stew" sometimes means fried in sugar. Maybe not a curry, but a great deep brown color.

latinfood.about.com/od/latincaribbeancuisine101/r/burnt-sugar.htm

[JerkPork]

Thanks for the feedback, the inner gourmet photos look amazing. Yah, I don't mind a touch of clove but the recipe that I used and the one above by chefj seems like a lot of clove and cinnamon.

By stew I mean curry.

[chefj]

You can adjust the Clove, Cinnamon or any of the spices to your preference or leave it out entirely. Or go buy some at the store.
There are hundreds if not thousands of Garam Masala recipes.

[Bacardi1]

Yup - that's exactly what I do. Simply can't abide by an abundance of what I consider "sweet" spices in savory food, regardless of how much it throws askew the "authenticity".

[goodhealthgourmet]

You might want to give this one from a Guyanese family a try - it includes their garam masala recipe:

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2006...

[Bacardi1]

I've never been a fan of what I call "baking spices" in savory dishes. Thus I ALWAYS cut such ingredients by at least a half if not more.

[chefj]

This one tasted great to me.
http://www.inner-gourmet.com/2013/03/...
It uses both Madras Curry and Garam Masala.
Here is my basic Garam Masala Recipe
1" Cinnamon Bark broken into pieces
2 T Green Cardamom Seeds
.5 tsp Black Cardamom Pods Seeds
2 tsp Cloves
2 T Black Peppercorns
1 T mace
1T cumin seeds
2 T coriander seeds
Toast spices in a dry pan till a shade or 2 darker allow to cool and grind.