Thanks Phil; can't find any locally, could you please let me know the name on the jar?

Thanks ELW; not the one I had in mind but very interesting thanks: increased my knoweledge of what foodstuffs contain lots of natural glutamates!

Found it though, here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2005/jul/10/foodanddrink.features3

Cheers

I've never tried making a so-called Handi curry but if we're talking about curries from scratch versus curries from base gravy, I've recently reverted, like you perhaps, to preferring curries from scratch. I find they're easier and more tasty, with no need to store large amounts of base sauce.[/quote]

Me too, one reason I've not been on this (still excellent) site recently: the Misses & I subsist mainly on what we call 'scratch curry', that is curry cooked from scratch rather than BIR-style.  The whole BIR thing (as we all know) is just supposed to be a time saver to enable BIRs to serve-up finished dishes in short-order, essentially assembled from pre-cooked parts.

Whilst I still love BIR-style food, I tend to make curries now from scratch becasue I get tastier results, and by the time base sauce and other pre-prepared stuff is taken into account, BIR is not really any quicker. I remmeber one one the members here saying that a BIR chef they had spoken too saying essentially the same thing (it might have been in a thread comparing different types of onion for base sauce)

I still love BIR food, it's just they are different, kinda like filter coffee compared to instant. I happen to like Nescafe Gold Blend, I just prefer the stuff made directly from ground beans!

I now believe I can surpass any of my locals with my own BIR style stuff, but the 'scratch' curries taste better still.

As a parting shot I would say (just as Secret Santa has suggested in the past), that I have NEVER been able to equal the flavours I found in a Pakistani BIR back in 1982-85, near Leeds Univeristy. It was a cheapo place, all the dishes were virtually identical, but it did not have to be other, because the taste was amazing.

Hi Ray
The importance of the grinder, if your trying to emulate the curries of the 60/70/80's
in those days, every BIR and TA would have two or three whole chickens boiling away in the curry base brew!

They would fish out the overcooked chicken at the end, literally falling apart, leaving lots of bits and pieces behind.
Once put through the grinder the base was ready to go!  This was a real "curry secret" which meant all the vegetarian's of the time weren't, if they liked a good curry that is!)

cheers chewy
[/quote]

VINDICATED AT LAST!!!!!

I've mentioned this before on here: I've been using home made Chicken stock in my bases for years now, which is effectively what the above process achieves: I would never go back to making base without it, it's completely inferior IMO.

I use chicken stock in place of some of the water in the base, made by simmering the remains of a roast chicken joint in a few pints of water, skiming the fat off the top and filtering out the crap.

If you havn't tried it PLEASE do, it makes a HUGE difference.

I have a big can of the KTC blended stuff.  I remember being very suprised when I opened it that the smell reminded me of linseed oil!

I've used in in some curries but found I didnn't much like the taste, I've not tried it in a tikka marinade yet though!