Curry Recipes Online
Beginners Guide => Just Joined? Introduce Yourself => Topic started by: El on February 01, 2007, 04:36 PM
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Hello,
I'm new to this site - which i think is brilliant by the way - and have tried Darth's Clone Base (i halved everything to make a smaller batch).
I have in the past tried the Natco base (http://www.natcoonline.com/acatalog/Holy_Grail.html)
and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Darth does stress that the amount of oil used is important in achieving the right taste and i used double the amount on the ingredient list but nowhere near the amount he recommends for "that BRI taste".
Suffice to say, i dont think i used enough oil !! - it looked like vegatable soup, didnt have the golden colour like in Darth's pics. It didnt taste like a curry gravy either, more like spicy vegatable soup!
I then went on to the next stage of make his chicken madras and after i'd added fried onions/garlic, all the curry powders/spices, passata, added the chicken (i used Bruce Edward's method of pre-cooking the chicken - v.nice!), it turned out ok and i enjoyed eating it but it didnt have "the taste".
I wonder how much of this is down to not using the right amount of oil? (although the NAtco recipe doesnt use that much oil and I was still well impressed) Or maybe its something else? I know the Natco base uses a lot more ginger/garlic in its base and uses red onions. I must state again how impressed i was with the Natco base.
Anyways, Im looking forward to trying out more recipes in the future and for anyones' advice on the above.
Thanks
El.
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Hi El,
Welcome to the site!
The amount of oil you use is important, if your not sure you have used enough add more, you can always remove it before serving ;)
cK
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;) ;) Right on C.K. Hi and welcome El to our domain of spicy utopia.
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Hi EL ;) glad to have you aboard....... ;D
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Thanks for the welcoming guys, glad to be on board.
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Hi EL.
My base shouldn't taste like vegetable soup :'(, it should be virtually edible on its own, but not quite, if you know what i mean, perhaps halving the ingredients was the reason for you problem, anything you need to know just ask.
Cheers.
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Hi El -
Welcome to the kingdom of curry ....enjoy !
CC
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Hi El, Welcome to this wonderful forum! Just keep plodding on and you'll be sure to be turning out top noctch dishes very soon. CQ
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Welcome, El. It sounds like you're off to a good start.
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I feel bad now darth, like ive upset you (by saying your base taste like veg soup), its cause you used :'(. Anyways, the photos in your original curry base post shows photos of 2 pans on the go, hence you splitting the ingredients no? I have a 7.6 litre stock pot. If all the ingredients dont fit in there then i'll have to split the ingredients? Ok, lets not SPLIT hairs here (excuse the pathetic pun!).
With regard to your garlic and ginger purees. I follow Bruce Edwards's method of blending equal amounts with just enough water to make a puree. Im worried that im somehow not using enough ginger/garlic because you talk about needing to add water to the oil/ginger/garlic/spice mix to stop it becoming sticky. Well, my mix is nowhere near sticky (which is why i assume theres not enough ginger/garlic mix in there - maybe ive added to much water to puree the raw gin/garl)
Can you shed any light on my confusion?
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I think that should be "if" it becomes to sticky, also Darth tends to go easy on the oil so there would be less liquid in the pan for the g&g puree to move about.
Correct me if I'm wrong though Darth?
cK
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No CK you've got it in one mate ;)
Hi EL hope i cleared it up in my PM.
I answer to El's question about splitting the base .....
Basically i cook all the Spices, Garlic & Ginger puree in the biggest pot, then put the remaining vegetable ingredients in both pots as they cook & reduce i spoon some of the juices from the big pot into the smaller pot to keep it moist & to transfer the Spice juice over to ensure a more even taste when finally combining/pureeing the two pots (See below).
Close to the end of cooking you should be able to transfer much of the ingredients from the smaller pot to the bigger one.
When you start to puree the ingredients in the bigger pot the liquid level goes down so you can add almost all of the ingredients from the smaller pot to the bigger one.
It is as easy as that, this is why being so particular about measurements makes me laugh, i make bloody good Bir copies of Curries & I'm really slap dash (Chefs Spoon that'll do me ;D) As long as you make enough to ensure the margin of error just doesn't count, that seems to be the trick & as soon as i started making big batches i noticed a 0 failure rate, unlike before when i made smaller batches, then you can concentrate of the hardest part, getting the final dish right. 8)
I'm not Orthodox, but my method works for me & most who have tried it.....Go for it EL, and you can make any dish you like with the base if you reduse the amount of Chilli powder accordingly.
Also instead of wasting your base that didn't turn out that well, you can make a really nice Stew with it. ;)
One thing to remember though EL many good bases don't always taste that good , many are bland.
Hope this is of use all you peeps.
Cheers for now :)
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Ok, so i had a go at the base again, this time with full quantities.
I made it on Monday night so I hadnt read the advice about splitting into two pans and pouring some of the first pan's juices into the second. So what was i gonna do?
Firstly i drove to my local Asian shop to buy one of those massive 15 litre stock pots but the shop was closed. (bearing in mind that ive just spent ?30 on a 7.5 litre stock pot form debenhams!!)
I was determined to not do it "wrong" so i bobbed into my mum's and nicked her Magimix and purreed all the vegtables, now they fitted into the one pan!!
I was worried that (the fact that u say dice the veg) purreing them would somehow f*ck it all up ofcourse and I simmered only very gently for an hour.
I have to say the resulting stock was a lot better (i think!!). Ive bagged it all and frozen it all and will come back when ive tasted it. In between blending it and bagging it, i kept licking the spoon and i have to say that i think the taste was a lot better than the first time round.
Thanks again Darthphall.
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No probs, the base should taste quite nice as it is, this then helps fortify the second stage of any Curry you make & if you do make slight errors the underlying flavor of the base helps to mask then, this is why this & other slightly more complex tend to give better uniform results.The old margin for error philosophy etc..etc..
Cheers for now. ;D