I've made the savoury base (the big one), but not the melting base yet (the current one). The curries I made with it were great, as good as I've made. I also made the balti base, which was nice as well, but I preferred the savoury base. Haven't made the current ones like the Saffron from this site yet as I haven't been making curry for a while. Last one I made from here was Stew's base, and I've also made Darth's... In fact, I forget all the ones I've tried now.

Regarding freezing, last time I was making curries, instead of making the base and freezing it in portions, I made all the curries right away and then froze those instead. It seemed like a good way to work, albeit rather labour intensive.

R.

I've made quite a few, and I've none in the freezer!  :-0

Still think it's an idea with some degree of potential for a quick fix, if the right soup can be found.

Next time I'm in the supermarket I'll haunt the soup section and see what's available.


R.

Hullo!

Having made a few curry bases from the site, knowing what's in them, and seeing the directions usually specify the taste as something like a mildly spiced soup (and consistency not far off a perhaps more watery soup), I was just wondering if, at a push, any of you would consider knocking up a quick curry base by lightly spicing a can of soup, watering it down a bit and liquidizing? Haven't tried it myself. Just looked on Heinz web site briefly to see if I could find one that had roughly the right ingredients in roughly the right quantities (couldn't see one). Anyway, in theory, what do you think?  :-)  Obviously we're not going for BIR authenticity here, just perhaps in a rush, but wanting to use BIR recipes without making a big base type scenario.


Richard.

Hi Gary,

Interesting post, thanks!

Couple of questions about the heat used when cooking:

first he reached up to a shelf above the cooker to the stacks ot frying pans and put it on the gas ring to heat up about 40 seconds then added 2 tbsps of veg oil from an old ghee pot on the back of the cooker. he then reached into a pot and sprinkled chopped garlic 2 chefs pinches into the pan after about 30 seconds he stirred it and removed from the heat to add the other ingredients 1tbsp tomato paste (from a large tin and mixed with water ketchup consistency) 1tbsp chilli powder 1tsp salt 1 heaped tsp curry powder (bought in prepacked did not get the brand-but any good curry powder will do,rajah mild )

Would you say the heat was at 'medium' up until this point?

he then put the pan back on the heat turned up to full power then added 1/4 large ladle of runny base sauce(200ml ladle ) to the pan mixed well the he turned the extractor on ( i guess he smelt toffee :) then added 2 more ladles of base and then 1 chefs pinch of methi and shortly followed by chefs pinch of fresh coriander (cilantro) stirred in an then left to bubble away for about 5 minutes stirring occassionally.

Was the heat left on full for the 5 minutes of bubbling, or turned down?


Cheers,

Richard.

Richard, I also transfered the mix to a blender and washed out the pot, so maybe thats how we lost that oil.

Wonder if there's another way then, short of buying a hand held blender... I suppose more oil!

By the way, my curry base was the same consistency as yours when I finished making it, but then next day I re-blended it and added more water until it stayed 'flat' on top, instead of leaving spoon trails/terrain (!!), aiming for the 'tomato soup' consistency mentioned elsewhere. Seemed to work well enough when cooking, and it thickened back up a bit.

Lettuce know once you've cooked summit with it what you think of the garlic level, Mike.


R.