Quote from: curryhell on October 23, 2013, 10:51 PM
One recommendation, keep your grinder either for grinding coffee or grinding spices.  The twain should never meet I think.  Perhaps a coffee expert can confirm  ;D
PS, i don't think leaving the cabbage out of CT's base will impact on its quality too much  ;D

You're probably right, although im no coffee connoisseur. As long as it's strong and the spoon stands up in it, it's perfect wake up juice in my eyes. Although i'd no doubt ensure whatever grinder i get can be cleaned to some extent, otherwise it would make for some interesting coffee flavours (i did find a coffee with ground cardamom in on my quest for pre-ground cardamom, so maybe it tastes nice?).

Quote from: Phil [Chaa006] on October 23, 2013, 10:37 PM

Quote from: Lee989 on October 23, 2013, 10:21 PM
If the cardamom isn't all that important to the spice mix (which it doesn't seem to be now ive looked at others and a lot dont have it), i might just try it without the first time round, as i REALLY don't want to wait to get a grinder. I want my curry tomorrow! I'm impatient... and hungry

If you already have green cardamom and can't face grinding them in a pestle and mortar, you might consider just giving them a good thump with a kitchen mallet and then including them in your pulao rice (I assume you are going to make pulao rice, to accompany the Madras).  A few cardamom in your pulao will really lift it, and I can refer you to my microwave recipe for cooking it which is pretty d@mned foolproof once you learn to judge by eye how much water you should add (aim for 1/3" above the top of the rice).

** Phil.

Hi Phil, thanks for the reply.

You'll be surprised to hear that ive never tried pilau rice, yes, i really am that new to curries. Since i only get the chance to eat out every hop and catch, i tend to stick with what i know unless someone else offers me to try some of theirs, as im always concerned i wont like it (stems from ordering a korma once to try something new, and i hated it, turns out creamy curries aren't my thing. Tried a masala too once, which was OK, but far too sweet and got sickly after half a dish, so my second adventurous attempt went badly too, so i never tried again).

Anyway, that's what im here for. Too look at pretty pictures and cook new things to try myself. So i'll be sure to try out your pilau rice instead of sticking with my usual egg friend rice!

I don't have the cardamom yet, but im half tempted to just get some since i need to go out shopping again anyway. i'm sure i'll find a way of using them such as your rice suggestion (i dont even know what cardamom tastes like, it would probably go with some of the non-indian dishes i cook too, to be fair, so probably wont go too waste).

I'll see how it goes. I might be tempted tomorrow to just get a grinder (i have a coffee maker and buy pre-ground coffee, so i could grind my own coffee too, just so that it's used for something other than just cardamom ). Got to pop to tesco anyway as my local Asda didn't have fresh coriander, unless i happen to find a shop on the way to work tomorrow morning which looks promising of selling fresh herbs.

I think i've got all the powders and stuff that i need to attempt a "lee version" of a recipe anyway, so i might just give CA's or chewy's a whirl tomorrow (think it was the cabbage that put me of chewies, but i'll just leave it out if that recipe wins the toss). Probably try making half of the recipe just so i can try another base sooner since it's only me and my old man that eats indian curries in my family, it will be hard to use the large amounts of base some recipe's cater for

Anyway, im gonna stop going on, and print out a couple of recipies for the 3 component parts, should keep me elbows deep in washing up for a while mixing and matching them and trying to work out what i like and dont.

Thanks both, might invest in a grinder. I do have a cheap jug type blender too if my even cheaper wilko stick blender isn't up too much (never used it in sauce as such, only ever used it trying to mince some onions in the first ever curry i tried to make from a rough recipe the local pub's indian owner gave me. Didn't really do what i had hoped, but then again, i was only trying to blend a couple of onions, probably not a decent enough amount for it to really do what it should.

I'll take a look at chewytikka's base and mix, i might be converted or try it second time round. I chose CA's stuff purely based on a picture of his madras and the ingredients in his base as i wanted to start off with something that was fairly close to what im used to eating (seems birmingham BIR's are a lot less adventurous than some other area's. I'd never gotten a carrot in a balti before i had a curry in southampton the other month, and cabbage and celery.... never!). I'm not expected to re-create the dish perfectly, so i know i can't really compare the two, but as im not really a seasoned curry eater, i figured i at least have some idea of what the stuff im used too should taste like. Then i can branch off from there and try cabbage/celery and any other weird concoction of base that i fancy trying.

If the cardamom isn't all that important to the spice mix (which it doesn't seem to be now ive looked at others and a lot dont have it), i might just try it without the first time round, as i REALLY don't want to wait to get a grinder. I want my curry tomorrow! I'm impatient... and hungry

I'm a little new to cooking with spices, and for my first attempt at a curry, i chose CA's Madras along with his base and spice mix. The spice mix calls for a lot of powder's, most of which i managed to get in either asda's own brand (apart from the shwartz fenugreek powder).

However no where local seems to have ground cardamom. Even an online search yields no pre-ground cardamom results apart from a forum topic related to a single online store (spice of india or something).

I've found three methods of making my own powder, one is to buy a spice grinder, another to get a mortar and pastle, and a method of using a rolling pin and granulated sugar.

What would you advise me to get (i cant afford some of the more expensive kit i've seen mentioned so far, such as ?100 grinder, which whilst im sure is worth it's weight in cardamom, it's a little too much given i've not made my first curry yet). Or, do i just not bother grinding them at all? (not sure if i would have the sieve them out later though, or do they break down into the gravy?


Side note: Just for the sake of not creating another post or asking another question elsewhere, could you also tell me... The CA recipe calls for fresh tomatoes as opposed to the chopped tomatoes of a lot of others i see. Should i de-seed/de-pulp the tomatoes before using them? Should i skin them before using them? I imagine there will be a decent number of seeds which will be left in the base, and likewise i imagine unskinned tomatoes will end up leaving there skins in the base as i doubt my stick blender will blend them to a point they aren't noticeable (not that ive tried, i just don't expect it too be able to blend that finely). Maybe the secret is that you sieve the base after it's made and its just so common knowledge to most on here, that CA never mentioned that part?

Thanks Stephen. That's really useful to know, so in theory if I find a good rated recipe that seems to contain the kind of ingredients that I would expect based on what im used to eating (I.e. no celery or potatoes), I can vary the colour of the base depending on cooking times (I'd guess that would have an effect on the taste of course, so I'd probably half out the base at the recipes stated times just so I have a comparison, at least Ill learn for myself how cooking times affect flavour).

I figured balti was a little too generic to get a recipe for after hours of reading on here, so I settled for madras as I've tried that before. I'm going to presume balti is just a chefs own interpretation of a generic balti curry dish rather than being a specific thing. Unfortunately my limited exposure to Indian curries thus far isn't helpful in working out the differences between a lot of curries I've ordered.

What makes it worse is the bhuna curries I've ordered tend to have a lot more sauce than most would expect since its supposed to be dry. Not as much sauce as other types, but considerably more than I expect the majority of users here would expect if they ordered a bhuna from the same takeaways.

Anyway, thanks for the reply. The colour thing was one of the more concerning things on my mind for my first attempt. So a basic understanding of how the colour comes about and why some are darker than others is fantastic!

Ill see if anyone else replies with some good suggestions to try. If not ill play roulette and just dive in and hope.

Whilst I'm waiting for the shops to open tomorrow, ill go work out what I'm going to use my curry leaves on that I bought for no apparent reason other than they had "curry" in the title

Thought I'd say hi (and to ask a question afterwards). I'm fairly new to Indian curries, I think I've eaten at 4 or 5 restaurants in total, and only in the past few years. Decided to use cooking as a way to escape the day job (which ends up being the evening and night job if I dont force myself into doing something else), been mainly doing Fairly basic herby pastas and general english stuff so figured I would spread my wings.

My only adventure into Indian cooking was a curry recipe I got from a local pub owner, that also did the pub grub. Until today, I couldn't work out why mine never looked like his, I'm assuming after reading stuff on hear, it was that I didn't prepare the base correctly (in fact, I just whacked everything in, in the order he wrote down and cooked it and served). Main reason I think was my error of not boiling the base correctly and really just heating up the mixture until it was hot enough to eat.

Well now I'm here and looking forward to trying some new things with more detailed recipes that hopefully I can't mess up so badly. I was looking at trying a balti to begin with as its what I tend to always eat along with Bhuna, so I have some sort of reference in my mind as to what it should roughly taste like. but I'm guessing after looking at the forum, what I really want is a madras/balti madras, god knows what the Indian restaurants put in a plain balti, but its hard to find reference to such recipes online.

Anyway, I'll stop going on now, and get to the question I mentioned at the beginning.

Could anyone recommend a good balti madras recipe including what base. I've looked at quite a few recipes but I'm getting a bit of information overflow now. I may be being too picky, but I'm looking for something that resembles closely what I'm used to, to begin with. I'm from Birmingham (black country to be specific) and I've never seen a piece of celery, a carrot or a potato in any of the Balti's I've ordered.

If I am being too picky, then feel free to just recommend a place to start I guess. The curries I've had also tend to be a darker colour rather than the lighter golden colours of some of the recipe pictures I've seen here (not that I'm adverse to the golden colour recipes, I was just hoping to start off in my comfort, "what I know" zone then I have a base understanding to then try new things and other recipes).

Right, I'm going to shut up now. Any help would be appreciated. As I'm sure you can see, I'm all confumbled!