Curry Recipes Online
Curry Base Recipes => Curry Sauce, Curry Base , Curry Gravy Recipes, Secret Curry Base => Topic started by: gary on January 19, 2006, 08:35 PM
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As per Muttley's base - differences marked with a *
Ingredients
4 Large Onions (or 8 small ones - probably better, but hard to get hold of at the moment)
200ml vegetable Oil
aesofetida - just a wee touch of this stuff: I just dabbed a teaspoon handle into the tub
1/2 tsp Basaar Masala *
3 tsp Turmeric
3 tsp Ground cumin
1tsp ground Fenugreek seeds*
2-3 Black Caramoms*
Teaspoon of Fenugreel leaves*
1 tbls peeled/chopped garlic
1 tbls peeled/chopped ginger
NO tomatoes - Muttley already commented on this. *
Small-medium carrot sliced
A thumbs length of Mooli sliced*
A normal sized jar of spiced water - my wife taught me this trick, she never lets anything go to waste if there's possibility of it adding extra flavour!
Spiced water is simply collected water that has been used to rinse out empty curry paste jars - you can use this to top up bases & currys in addition to plain water.
Method
Heat oil until garlic and ginger just sizzle quietly
Cook garlic and ginger for about 8 mins until almost browned
Add aesofetida, turmeric, cumin and chilli and continue cooking for 2 mins
Add onions, sliced and stir to coat with oil
Add enoughg water to nearly cover the onions
Boil on a gentle simmer for an hour
Puree with a hand blender (or in a food processor if you haven't got one)
Cook (covered) on a very gentle simmer for 4 hours. This sauce is sufficiently runny that it will not gloop or stick, so just needs a very occasional stir - in fact, I'm not sure it even needs that.
The result is a lovely creamy tasting (no cream went into it, but it tastes like it did!) yellow sauce, very very similar to the sample I got from a local takeaway the other week. It has the same smell, and that 'Picallili' aftertaste that I mentioned.
Ok I know most of this is't new to anyone on here, but what about the spiced water? Really I should have thought of it earlier - the Mrs and I do it with everything else, from pesto to bolognaise. Any thoughts?
Gary
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Ok I know most of this is't new to anyone on here, but what about the spiced water? Really I should have thought of it earlier - the Mrs and I do it with everything else, from pesto to bolognaise. Any thoughts?
Sounds like exactly the sort of thing the BIR's would do
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I had a lot of success with Mutleys recipe last year
I thought it was very good
I tried this modified one yesterday
and it was even better
I think the addition of the black cardomons really improved it
I was comparing it to a sample curry gravy base from my local curry house
Muttleys base wasn't as red as the sample
So I added a little tomato puree
I know the recipe says "NO" tomatoes and that is with very good reason
It totally wrecked the sauce
It lost it's "taste"
Although I have been given base recipes, with tomato in, I reckon that it doesn't work on a small scale using them.
Before the tomato addition, the muttley sauce was almost perfect
Any redness, in my curry gravy sample, must be from paprika
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Thanks Pete,
One thing, if you are going to add tomatoes to a small quantity base, I reckon it's best to give em a good fry (to the point of destruction!) before adding to the curry base - same for tomato puree & passata. Tomato puree I usually water down a fair bit before frying - mainly I follow my nose on this: when the tomatoes actually start to smell sweet like fruit, I stop frying. I do this for curry, bolognaise, chilli con-carne, whatever.
Unlike onions on the boil, which start of smelling awfull, but then mellow to a nice sweet smell, tomatoes seem to go the other way - my experience anyway (and I've been at this curry base business since about '95-'96 now)
One thing I have noticed with all the bases that I've tried: After blending, cooking on for too long can really ruin them - you can cook them forever before blending, but once blended they are best used fairly soon IMO.
Anyway, glad you liked :) I made a chicken tikka biryani and a veg curry using this base (with no extra spicing) and it was not very far from a BIR at all.
Take care,
Gary
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I have added black cardamoms , methi leaves and more tomato to the Bruce Edwards base and got quite a diverse flavor that is very pleasant - also substituting the restaurant masala with Balti masala can provide an entirely new taste sensation .
CC
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It's mentioned, in the Bruce Edward's Curry House Cookery, how hot the curry gravy is, when you blend it
I have noticed, on many occasions, that it loses it's aroma and taste when it's pureed hot.
The last time, I had a really successful result, was when I pureed the gravy on the following day.
When, I did that it, kept nearly all it's character (take out the whole spices though, then put them back after blending.)
I reckon that there is still that certain little something, missing from it's flavour
It must be how the onions are cooked before adding water at the start
They must be fried first
Either that, or maybe some pre fried onions are added to the base sauce
We all know that they add "pre fried onion" to many dishes so this is an ingredient they would have around.
I have never seen them pre fry the onions, I wonder what quantities they do it in?
They never seem to have more than half a yoghurt carton's worth next to the cooker.
But this adjusted muttley recipe is definitely one of my favourites.
It needs salt but definitely NO tomatoes though
They ruin it and mask the desired flavour.
I think that, that's what we all are doing
We hide the "taste"
It is something really simple and can only be found by very subtle ommisions and inclusions
Maybe it's only the flavour of turmeric?
I pureed a quarter can of tomatoes and heated this with a couple of ladles of this base and 1 desertspoon of garlic ginger puree.
It was a extremely good result
I can still taste the slight difference, but everyone who tried this was very impresssed.
"Just like a takeaway" they said
I wish......but close
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Interesting read Pete! Nice to hear from you again. Do you think you could possibly post what you actually did and I will try it during next week from start to end. It sounds extremely promising.
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I have been getting so many complaints about the smell from my cooking that I have been trying to find less offensive ways to do it.
I shut all the internal doors to my kitchen, and open the windows but everywhere still reeks of fried onions and garlic.
The kids have been picked on, for their clothes smelling like curry
So I have turned to the casserole dish, and although it is definitely NOT the way restaurants do it,
it has produced some of my best results.
I didn't stink the house out either
Ingredients 1:-
3 medium onions roughly chopped
1 medium carrot chopped
1/2 green pepper chopped
1 stick of celery chopped
2 desertspoons of garlic ginger puree
3 black cardamoms split (very, very important)
1 bay leaf
2 inch cinnamon stick
1/4 teaspoon of thyme
1 desertspoon salt
250 ml oil
No tomatoes & no tomato puree
I added this to the casserole dish and it nearly filled it
I then put in enough water to come up to an inch below the vegetables
All these ingredients are familiar enough and I know they DO go into curry gravy
I cooked in the middle of the oven on medium heat for an hour
This gave off an aroma, but it was one that made you feel hungry, not " what are you cooking now?!!!" :'( :'(
After an hour, I opened the casserole dish and stirred
Nothing had burnt or dried out
I then added
1 desertspoon of turmeric
1 desertspoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of East End Garam Masala
Again, I know they go into the gravy
A lot of emphasis has been placed on Paprika at my demos
They call it tomato powder!
I have heard too many people say that garam masala, goes into the gravy, to discount it.
But we all know it can also ruin any curry too.
So only a teaspoon
Cook on for another hour and then leave till the next day.
Remove the whole spices
Remove as much oil as possible
Puree
Water down to a consistancy of tomato soup
Put the oil and whole spices back in
At this stage it does taste very nice
Reheat in the oven with the casserole dish until boiling
Add
Half a tin of pureed canned tomatoes
1 desertspoon of garlic ginger puree
Cook fifteen minutes more and you will have a very fine restaurant sauce
It also looks correct
There is nothing new in the above ingredients, but this was a very successful way of achieving close to what I am after
I tried adding proper restaurant spice mix (which I had been given) and this did NOT improve it.
To get this right it is a balance & very easy to get wrong
One flavour can so easily cover another
If you wanted to add spice mix, then maybe you shouldn't add the garam masala earlier in the recipe
I think adding some prefried onions to the start of the recipe might improve it too
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Thanks very much Pete for taking the time and effort to post the above. I shall surely be trying this next time I make some gravy.
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Pete, I am going to try this recipe soon and i will post some results. The only thing is that it seems that you won't get alot of gravy with this base. After watering down - how much did you get? How many meals will it make? I'm thinking of doubling up the quantities as I have large dishes.
Thanks,
CashNCurry
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I had a play at the weekend too with muttleys base, only i changed the quantity's right down to the minimum and modified, it turned out pretty good, infact it tasted exactly the same as the base sauce that i got from a takeaway in December.
Ingredients:
1 Large Onion, 300gr unpeeled weight, peel and dice
50ml vegetable Oil
aesofetida - i tried this but it left an odd taste at back of throat (will leave out next time)
half tsp Turmeric
1 Black Caramoms
2 green Cardamoms
5 stalks of coriander - the leaves were used for the main dish
4 clove garlic - sliced thinly
1/4 of medium carrot sliced
1 small potato - sliced, must be of the floury type, eg i used Maris Piper, wax type dont work to well, eg new potato
Method:
add oil to pan and fry black cardamom and green cardamom on low for 5mins, then add onions and turn up heat to low/medium and leave to fry for 15mins, then stir in the turmeric and add garlic,carrot,potato and coriander stalks and leave for another 10 mins, then add some water from your boiling kettle to make the mixture quite thin, then remove only the "black cardamom" and blend.
* - You will notice that the blended sauce is quite thick, this is caused by the potato and it should be watered down to make it
runny. But you will also notice that the sauce consistency is very similar to what you get at the restaurant-thick and gloopy but still runny, the only thing i can say about this recipe is that i should have used a smaller potato for the quantities, i think an inch sq potato would have been perfect.
I then used this sauce to make a madras curry with darths pre-cooked chicken, bruces spice mixture and a tsp of chilli powder.
This curry turned out realy well and the only thing i can find missing is the pre-cooked spiced onions that adds that special taste!
Thats where im looking next.....with help from my not so local takeaway and all you lot too!
Regards
John
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After watering down - how much did you get? How many meals will it make? I'm thinking of doubling up the quantities as I have large dishes.
Thanks,
CashNCurry
After watering I made five curries
Of course you need the precooked chicken,veg or prawns to go in the sauce
The lovely thing was that the sauce was so good
I think it's the combination of the long boiled sauce with the newly pureed tinned tomatoes.
I am sure you could use passata if you wanted
Several people on this site have seen this used in takeaways
Darth uses it in his recipes
I'll be doing this recipe again at the weekend
Hi John
You're having some success too!
Something around this general recipe is right
It sounds silly, but this is such a delicate taste it is very easy to ruin with spices
Any changes I make will be subtle
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After watering down - how much did you get? How many meals will it make? I'm thinking of doubling up the quantities as I have large dishes.
Pete, this made enough sauce for 2 seperate curry portions of the bir size.
----- i forgot to say that i did add tomato puree to the madras, but i felt if would be better if pureed tomatoes or passata were added instead. I have another mini base on the go as we speak, left on low simmer so i'll try more experiments tomorrow.
John
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Pasata rocks IMHO, all it is is pureed tomatoes with all the bits taken out (pips, pith)
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Pete, thanks for your response above. I'm going to give it a try tomorrow.
Regards,
CashNCurry
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Pete, thanks for posting your variation of the gravy above, and sorry for not getting back earlier. I did follow this recipe to the letter where possible.
I also made a Chicken Dansak, and a Chicken Korma. Basically to check the depth of quality in the sauce.
Before I give you the results. I only use Natco products. I used a very large covered Saucepan, the type you get in good Asian grocers.
Right here we go.........
First thing, I noticed after I pureed down the sauce (when luke warm), added a little more water. I noticed that it was a good colour (Orangee brown) and looked the part. It didn't have a strong aromer (which I was not expecting). However, I was more interested in the flavour.
I did not think the sauce itself is as good as my normal one, but it did produce 1 good curry.
I am off the opinion and some may argue this, that if the sauce tastes good on its own before spicing, then it is good. It should not be spicy hot and have a lot of body, and good taste, before adding to the main meals. I don't like KDs sauce because of this. I don't think it has flavour on its own. All gravy's should taste good, but not be a meal on it's own - if you get what I mean.......one sauce for all meals BIR style!
I would say your sauce fits the word quality, but lacked something. Maybe coriander or something.
I cooked a chicken Dansak (recipe on this forum) and Ghanna's Korma - both excellent in my opinion.
The chicken Dansak came out almost as good as my normal standard (I make my sauce similar to markJs) but it lack a level of spicyness. I did not want to change the recipe as I was testing your sauce. Overall it was OK.....Pete I have pictures. Email me.
The chicken Korma was not as good. I don't normally cook Korma's as they are not my ball, but I wanted to see how the sauce coped. We all know that the korma is a simple dish that is not spiced in general. The flavour being more dependent on the gravy. After adding the ingredients the Korma looked nice, because I felt it was bland, the coconut and Condensed milk overpowered the meal. Again I did not want to change the quantities.
This I think proved to me that the sauce lacked something, The dansak was powerful enough to be good with the existing spices. However, the korma was exposed and was too creamy and sweeter than normal. Almost custard like to be honest.
Using my normal sauce the balance is about right - again I don't like Korma's in general but I know what they should be like!
Pete, I think it's a good effort on your part. I might play with the sauce next time and report back. I have pictures of the meals cooked with this sauce.
Email me and I'll send you the pictures.........
Regards,
CashNCurry
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Thanks for trying it
I'm glad you had some success and avoided the temptation to change it, before an initial test.
I think it does lack a little something
Frying some garlic ginger till brown, and adding at the start might do it
I am sure that somewhere, around this recipe, is right
I have revised my thinking of BIR cooking since tasting genuine restaurant gravy
It is very nice
I wasn't expecting that
It has a subtle spiced taste with a lovely flavoured oil
Nearly everything I liked about curries (except the heat) was already there
My goal is to reproduce that base
I recently got a tip to fry a few cloves with garlic ginger, at the start of the cooking
This is never going to end, is it?
We all keep trying
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Pete,
I really think that this 3 onion version you put together worked quite well. It just seems to tell me again that it's about getting the balance and timing right, along with the heat. Adding a bit more Garlic and ginger, and maybe a touch of Coriander would help. For a scaled down quick gravy you can't go wrong, and in you case the family are happy because the smell is minimal with the casserole dish being used.
Few cloves and ginger at the start is interesting?.....do you mean at the start of the meal Or the start of the Gravy cooking?
Thanks Pete,
CashNCurry? ?
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At the start of the gravy cooking
I've not tried it yet, but will
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Ive tried this base and thought it was good, I did fry ginger garlic at the start until golden, I would have thought fresh coriander and a green chilli would be a good addition to the base which I will try next time I make it
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When I get the chance I will try this again, with Coriander added, but a little more Garlic/ Ginger fried with a few Cloves. I'm not going to add any green chilli. I want to see the results with the same two meals I cooked last time that Pete saw the results of.
Cheers Guys,
CashNCurry