Curry Recipes Online
Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: peshwarinaan on January 18, 2025, 03:34 AM
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Like the title says - if you're able to consistently produce restaurant or takeaway-quality dishes with "the BIR taste", how are you doing it? Which recipes are you using? Any special preparations you make? And what's your cooking method like?
(Personally I'm only able to produce "clone" curries occasionally, and I haven't narrowed down specific techniques yet. I can consistently make great curries but not all of them taste recognisably BIR.)
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I'm afraid not, PWN, at least in my case. But I am delighted to see such a question being asked here, because questions such as yours hark back to the "good old days" of CR0, when this was a truly thriving forum. Perhaps your question will inspire others — I most certainly hope so. And perhaps even the long-departed such as CBM, Razor, Domi et al might poke their heads above the parapets once again — they are truly missed.
P.S. I am planning to attempt a "cull yaw (https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/features/the-cornwall-project-matt-chatfield)" (= "culled ewe") dhansak in the very near future — call yaw pre-cook complete, only the final dish remains.
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** Phil.
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I am planning to attempt a "cull yaw (https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/features/the-cornwall-project-matt-chatfield)" (= "culled ewe") dhansak in the very near future — call yaw pre-cook complete, only the final dish remains.
That sounds incredible, Phil. I bet the flavour is going to be fantastic.
Mutton is my absolute favourite meat and it's a crying shame that it's so difficult to get a hold of. I have to get it from Asian butchers in Glasgow and even then it's not so common.
Where did you get your ewe from?
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I get it from Great Cornish Foods (an independent annexe to Waitrose in Truro, Cornwall). But it can be ordered online and delivered, from/by Pipers Farm (https://pipersfarm.com/collections/cull-yaw-mutton?page=1). Hope that helps !
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** Phil.
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That’s a big NO from me. Making consistently decent curries, and the occasional beaut, but alas, not quite the BIR I miss from my UK life. I was inspired recently by that Latif’s video showing old school base gravy that included a chicken just to make the base.
Maybe that’s the grail? Rik’s vindaloo base was a winner for me but the quest will seemingly never end for my ‘proper’ old vindaloo from the 80’s and 90’s.
We had temps of -10 this weekend, so no outdoor cooking for me.
And yes, that’s Fahrenheit. Colder than the temp of my freezer.
Bring on the spring…
Robbo
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I get it from Great Cornish Foods (an independent annexe to Waitrose in Truro, Cornwall). But it can be ordered online and delivered, from/by Pipers Farm (https://pipersfarm.com/collections/cull-yaw-mutton?page=1).
Thanks Phil. I might have to order some as a special treat.
How did yours turn out?
That’s a big NO from me. Making consistently decent curries, and the occasional beaut, but alas, not quite the BIR I miss from my UK life.
I've seen loads of people talking about how curries tasted different in the olden days. I can't say I remember them being hugely different myself; if anything, perhaps just a general reduction in the overall quality (due to increasing costs) rather than a change in cooking methods.
Chicken stock in the base gravy would certainly contribute a deeper more savoury flavour, but personally I wouldn't want that in every dish.
What is the missing flavour you're looking for? Is it a savoury richness, an aromatic spiciness, a sweetness, or something else?
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I honestly can’t put my finger on a taste / texture / whatever but I know that a curry made by me at home never comes close to the BIR I grew up with. Even now, British restaurant curry is better than home cooked of course but it’s a bit expensive to fly across the Atlantic for that vindaloo hit I crave….
Tonight it’s chicken tikka done in the air fryer then in a nice hot curry of some sort. No base gravy to hand, so winging it from scratch.
Robbo
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Like the title says - if you're able to consistently produce restaurant or takeaway-quality dishes with "the BIR taste", how are you doing it? Which recipes are you using? Any special preparations you make? And what's your cooking method like?
(Personally I'm only able to produce "clone" curries occasionally, and I haven't narrowed down specific techniques yet. I can consistently make great curries but not all of them taste recognisably BIR.)
I would say yes I am. Bruce Edwards came on here some years ago and dispelled a lot of the myths that were becoming the orthodoxy on this forum. This was not helped by some members who seemed to enjoy making provocative or inflammatory posts. However I think at that time, the forum reached a critical mass of posts and with it a very good learning curve to boot.
So I use Bruce Edwards spice mix for most of my curries. I make all my curries with Chicken Tikka these days and I adapted the Tandoori Masala recipe from one by Pat Chapman (it's his fault for getting me into all of this).
I use Taz base and method. This is a somewhat unique base because it contains a huge amount of oil. This means that you don't need to start with oil when you are making your curry, there is so much oil in the base that your spices fry in the base rather than boil. I managed to get good quality curries quite quickly using this approach so I just stuck with it and adapted lots of recipes to suit this base. Many (possibly most) of them are posted on this forum.
The method is simple.
hot pan
add base stage 1 (200 ml or thereabouts)
add tomato paste
add garlic/ginger paste
add ground fenugreek (unless recipe doesn't include it)
add spices
reduce this base right down till it's almost a dry paste and no water is leaking
add base stage 2 (200 ml or thereabouts)
add pre-cooked chicken
add other ingredients, as per the recipe, e.g. pre-fried peppers, onions, lemon juice, sugar etc.)
reduce the base to complete your curry sauce to your desired consistency
garnish with coriander if you like it (I do)
That's it.
So how do I know that my curries are up to BIR standard? People tell me. I've cooked hundreds of curries which have been eaten by family, friends, work colleagues etc. and their feedback has been consistent. They are surprised, impressed, delighted, amazed, gobsmacked.
There's no secret. Like any other skill it's just practice and I feel that I my curries have gradually improved over the years.
I've achieved my goal and, this is why I am no longer a regular contributor to the forum.
There's one major problem though. I have never produced a wonderful restaurant quality naan bread using my domestic electric cooker. I've come close, and I have found that pre-heating a non-stick frying pan on full, till it's fiercely hot, then going over the top with a blow-torch at the same time has produced my best naans. Not BIR but edible and tasty.
I hope that helps. If anyone has any reasonable questions or constructive I'm happy to respond. If anyone comes here to pour scorn or disbelief, I'm not interested.
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One question, if I may Stephen ? Why have you decided to "make all [your] curries with Chicken Tikka" ? I ask because as someone who started eating BIR curries in Chislehurst, Kent, in the mid 60's, chicken tikka in a curry is complete anathema for me. It seems to me that the idea of using chicken tikka in a curry (other than in a CTM, of course) is a relatively recent conception, and one that does absolutely nothing to improve the quality (especially the mouth-feel) of the dish. Tandoori chicken jhoul, on the other hand, I do rather like — see https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=9003.msg80799#msg80799.
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** Phil.
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When I read a post like this Stephen, I am inspired to cook a curry using the described method and core ingredients. Of particular interest here is the apparent deviation from what may be considered the recognised BIR method to achieve BIR standard dishes. The order of using the ingredients appears "arse about" but you have explained why it works, being the volume of oil in the base.
I'm interested to know how frequently you do include the ground fenugreek, as I think this is a highly influential contributor to the restaurant style curry aroma and flavour. I learnt 30 years ago that it adds a character to a dish that I thoroughly enjoy.
In reply to the original question, I have no idea. I've not limited myself to a single base or mixed powder, but experimented with nearly everything I've found. Some dishes are superb. Others are enjoyable but nothing special and I've had more than a few duds, but rarely inedible and I can usually tart them up.
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I'm interested to know how frequently you do include the ground fenugreek, as I think this is a highly influential contributor to the restaurant style curry aroma and flavour. I learnt 30 years ago that it adds a character to a dish that I thoroughly enjoy.
Absolutely. If I include ground fenugreek, my wife complains "the house smells just like an Indian restaurant". No ground fenugreek, barely a whinge ...
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It dawned on me that I don't ever recall making and using Taz base, so I thought I'd better give it a try based on Stephen's post. Anyway, what I found is that the references to it on the forum are a complete mess. Posts moved around by CA back in the day, links to posts within posts that go back to the same posts you've already read, etc.
I've found the mixed powder and base recipe, so that's taken care of. There is however not much I can find on actual curry recipes specifically for use with these. Am I missing them or is it just use whatever recipe you want but substitute the base and powder for these?
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No hyperlinks in the following, nor have I followed any, but the search engine throws up the following :
- House Specialities / Lamb Keema with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Chettinad with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Achari with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Bengali with Taz Base
- Korma / Chikcen Korma with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Sharabi with Taz Base
- Dansak / Chicken Dhansak with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Punjabi Masala with Taz Base
- Pathia / Chicken Pathia with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Murgh Makhani (Butter Chicken) with Taz Base
- Lets Talk Curry / BULK - North Indian Chicken Special - with Taz's Base
- Jalfrezi / Chicken Jalfrezi with Taz Base
- Bhuna / Chicken Bhuna with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Goan Coconut Chicken with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Methi Palak with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Kerala with Taz Base
- Vindaloo / Chicken Vindaloo with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Garlic Chilli Chicken with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Shakuti with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Bangla Garlic with Taz Base
- Ceylon / Chicken Ceylon with Taz Base
- Madras / Chicken Madras with Taz base
- House Specialities / North Indian Special with Taz Base
- House Specialities / Chicken Chasni with Taz Base
Stephen Lindsay is by far the most prolific poster on the subject of using the Taz base, so as he had posted here recently let's hope that he can help with your search.
P.S. Isn't it good to see the forum coming back to life ?!
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** Phil.
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Thank you Phil. More than enough for me to use the search again, and hopefully with more success. I'd searched for "Taz Base" and I ended up in a recursive loop for some reason.
And, Yes.
I have my ingredients ready to go, and my spice sensitive daughter departs tomorrow on a 10 day trip to Bundaberg Queensland. Let the curry festival begin.
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The forum is broken. I'm reading through Taz Base threads from the search results (34 pages) and any links provided within posts lead to 404 errors. How sad.
Pictures are missing and Stephen Lindsay's ingredients for the Chicken Jalfrezi are 1 portion of pre-cooked chicken. Not very useful.
It actually appears that all (or most) recipes posted by SL have been truncated. Several have just chicken and nothing else and others are apparently (possibly) incomplete.
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The forum is broken.
Yes I noticed this myself several years ago. I sent a PM to the admin (Yousef) about it but never heard back.
You could try finding a historical copy of any broken pages using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/) but it's unlikely that many pages have been archived.
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I hope that helps. If anyone has any reasonable questions or constructive I'm happy to respond.
Thanks a lot for replying, Stephen, and well done on achieving a result you're happy with.
Like livo in the post above, I had a search of the forum for recipes using the Taz base but it seems that they've all been lost; truncated by a forum bug or similar. For example, one of your own posts for Chicken Punjabi Masala (https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=8947) is missing most of its content.
Do you have a copy of your recipes stored offline? If so, would you be willing and able to upload them again for us please? You're very welcome to send them to me directly and I can type them up / format them for the forum if that's easier.
I hope we can recover at least some of the lost recipes; it would be such a shame to let them remain lost.
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I have my Taz Base made as well as a quantity of Mixed Powder. Tomorrow is pre-cooks and hopefully a dish or two. What dishes I attempt will depend upon what I can find still intact here or maybe just wing a few. It's a shame the forum is in such a state of disrepair / decay as far as historical integrity goes.
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Livo, I have one recipe typed up long ago that uses Taz base. I just entitled it ‘Taz Basic Curry’. Must’ve been ok for me if I typed it up - I have others from Chef Syed, Romain / Glebe, Rik etc etc
Taz Basic Curry
400ml Taz base
3 TBSP chopped tomatoes
4 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tsp Taz mix powder
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp kasuri methi
Pre-cooked chicken
Taz Mix Powder
8 parts turmeric
5 parts coriander
4 parts mild madras curry powder
4 parts cumin
3 parts paprika
Add 200 ml base to pan and bring up to heat
Add tomatoes and all the spices and fry to reduce right down to dry paste consistency
Add chicken to pan and coat well
Add remaining 200ml base and reduce to desired consistency
Garnish fresh coriander
It’s been a long time since I made this base, but maybe time for another bash.
Robbo
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Thanks Robbo. It doesn't come more basic than that, but it will certainly allow anyone to judge the potential of the gravy and mixed powder. That will be #1 dish for sure. I'm about to sit here and search for the dishes in the list Phil provided to see if any are still usable. I already know that for some odd reason, many of Stephen Lindsay's recipes are missing. The threads are still there but the Original Post of each has been cut off part way through.
Edit: I've just searched for 12 recipes from the list Phil provided. Only 1 of these had the recipe. The Bulk North Indian Chicken Special - with Taz's Base.
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I've just searched for 12 recipes from the list Phil provided. Only 1 of these had the recipe. The Bulk North Indian Chicken Special - with Taz's Base.
Oh. Bum.
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One question, if I may Stephen ? Why have you decided to "make all [your] curries with Chicken Tikka" ?
We will have to wait for Stephen to answer for himself, but I know what I've just found. Stephen has referred to the Cook4one website resource. I've seen it before but never really paid it much attention. I think that may have been a mistake. So, today I found another future "go to" pre-cooked Chicken. I usually do Misty Ricardo's because I like the depth of flavour he gives to both chicken and lamb pre-cooks, and I will continue to use it.
However, if you haven't yet tried it, you need to try Cook4one "fake" chicken tikka pre-cook. I'm planning on a Butter Chicken (Makhani Gravy already made) and probably a CTM. This chicken isn't Tandoor or oven or grill. Simply spiced and boil, like other pre-cook chicken. Amazing for tikka / tandoor style chicken curry and so easy. I used Tandoori Paste instead of powder masala and I pimped it out by adding some G&G paste, dried mint leaf and a squirt of LJ plus a little Deggi Mirch for good measure. I think next time I do it, I'll also include a splash of Mustard Oil.
My Taz base dishes have been put off till tomorrow because we have too many leftovers in the fridge. Taz base done. Mixed Powder done. Pre-cook lamb, chicken and fake chicken tikka done. Makhani gravy done. Frozen Roti Parathas in the freezer. Spice sensitive daughter on holiday trip for 10 days. Mrs Livo will be over curry by the time they get back.
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I have that Cook4one website bookmarked and have typed up a couple of the base gravy recipes to try. One quick base suggests using canned French onion soup and tomato soup. Not sure about that one but there are so many curry recipes on that site, it’s mind boggling.
Robbo
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The chicken tikka pre-cook could be a game changer for me. It certainly tasted pretty good straight out of the pot. I will need to use less water next time as Ì was unable to get to the nearly dry point. It has been observed here that our chicken breast is possibly being pumped full of water. I know that when I try to fry some it tends to release a lot of water which bubbles away before browning begins. I cooked some chicken breast a few months back and weighed it to find there was a 30% loss.
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Livo, I have one recipe typed up long ago that uses Taz base. I just entitled it ‘Taz Basic Curry’. Must’ve been ok for me if I typed it up -
Well Robbo, that one's pretty good at cook's taste test. I'll know better when it's dinner time. For some reason I'm finding the Taz Base a little salty even though I followed the recipe. I'll be leaving the salt out of this dish next time.
I've also cooked a basic Mild Lamb Curry using 1 heaped TBSP of Ashoka Mild Curry Paste, with the first reduction of Taz Base. Again, pretty tasty on cook's test although, again a little salty. Both used Misty Ricardo pre-cooks so I wonder if I was heavy handed there. They should be fine when served up with rice. I won't mention it to the other diners and see if it's just me.
The third curry so far is a Butter Chicken that used the fake Tikka pre-cook from Cook4One and a mix of about 1 part Taz base and 3 parts Makhani gravy. I like it a lot. The tikka pre-cook is a regular from now on. I used it all, so I'll need to do it again to try a CTM.
Curry number 4 is Masala Prawns which is a favourite here but does not use BIR method or Base Gravy. I'm about to cook it soon because I always do it right before serving. It's meant to be served on Saffron Rice, but I have no Saffron.
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Hi all if any recipes needed please give me a shout and will have a look, have all the Taz recipes, which are excellent and also the Cook4One recipes too which i have tried nearly all of them.
I do still sell curries around 40-120 a week, better than the restaurant, that's what my customers say lol.
CTM is my best seller by far making 20-30 every week.
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With that number of orders you're obviously doing something right UF. More power to your curry pan :lol: .
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Cheers CH wouldn't of been possible without the help from this site and the members.
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Hi all if any recipes needed please give me a shout and will have a look, have all the Taz recipes, which are excellent and also the Cook4One recipes too which i have tried nearly all of them.
I do still sell curries around 40-120 a week, better than the restaurant, that's what my customers say lol.
CTM is my best seller by far making 20-30 every week.
That's amazing UF. Is it just you doing everything yourself from home, like a cottage industry? I dream about being able to do that, if only so I have an excuse to buy ingredients in bulk.
If you have all the Taz recipes saved offline, could I PM you with my email address for a copy of them all, please? I can then post them (with credit to you) in their respective threads.
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As to the topic of this thread I should say that I'm making curries with a BIR taste most of the time, but it's not quite 100%, and that's why I asked if anyone else has got the consistency down. The missing pieces for me probably just come down to things like ingredient brands, spice ratios, and strength of the curry base etc.
My view is that the fundamental BIR taste is a combination of onions, GG paste, spices, and reclaimed oil. How accurately this taste can be reproduced at home will vary from person to person because of their own preferences and the techniques/ingredients used by their local curry houses, but I definitely think those four elements make up the majority of the "secret".
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Even now, British restaurant curry is better than home cooked of course but it’s a bit expensive to fly across the Atlantic for that vindaloo hit I crave….
Robbo
This comment is debatable Robbo. It seems the vast majority of BIR establishments here now are, at best, producing very average dishes, countrywide. Old school curry is a rarity.
Rob
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Even now, British restaurant curry is better than home cooked of course but it’s a bit expensive to fly across the Atlantic for that vindaloo hit I crave…
Robbo
I beg to differ, but we have all but given up on BIR curries and did so a lot of years ago. The inconsistency you can get from one outlet is bad enough, but when you look at any one dish, madras, Dhansak, etc., from a number of restaurants in the same area no two will ever taste the same. And regional differences seem to compound the problem.
I fail to see how someone can replicate a BIR dish at home when there is no consistency as to how they taste in a restaurant?
I would suggest that there was a lot more consistency in taste across the restaurants in the 70’s and early 80’s when Pat Chapman attempted to teach us to capture the taste at home, I’m not sure when Bruce Edwards started on his crusade? I’m pretty sure Bruce Edwards did have an article printed in the Curry Club Magazine back in the day.
We cook traditional style at home so no two curries we prepare ever taste the same when put side by side as they don’t have a common base.
We have friends and relations forever looking for an invite to one of our curryfests, and I know that work colleagues who have had a curry night at ours have told other colleagues how good it is.
If I venture into a BIR these days I will stick to a mixed grill or a platter of starters with chapati or roti to accompany.