Just been to my friendly takeaway tonight and talked to him at length about the base sauce.

He said start with vegie oil and fry garlic and ginger

Add chilli powder, curry powder, turmeric and salt. I said I use rajah curry powder and he said that would fine in the kind of way that meant basically any curry powder would be fine.

Add onions, carrots, green peppers, celery, fresh coriander and tomato paste, add water.

Simmer for an hour, then liquidise, then cook on high for 10 minutes and low for 5 minutes, job done. He leaves it overnight and said this added to the flavor.

He was adamant that it cant be done at home and seemed to indicate it was to do with quantities, he said the amounts of spice are very important.

He also said he cooks curry for his kids at home and they say, dont cook it at home, bring some from the take away kitchen!

He said the tomato he adds is definately called paste and he buys it in big cans


Just realised I posted this in the wrong section, Stu can you move it to base sauce area, cheers

Nice one mate .
This forum now officialy has BALLS !!!!

I see the Carrots & Green Peppers are in there again !!! 

One more thing , did they give you any indication of quantities of the above ingredients ??

Mark - Many thanks for obtaining and reporting your restaurant owner's comments - invaluable in building up a picture. But one thing concerns me -  he said any curry powder would be 'fine'. These people never like to offend. I'm sure Rajah curry powder would be fine. But would it be optimal or best? There's likely to be a significant difference, including the ingredients which lead to the best taste, between a curry powder mix which is fine, and one which is optimal. In my mind, I think the inclusion or omission of things like green peppers and chicken stock could be the difference between one local BIR and another, fine tuning. BIR curries do vary a bit. But I also believe the common 'special taste' is from what's in the curry powder, or perhaps herbs.

I reckon he is bang on, the curry powder blend isnt the secret IMHO, its all about fried onions garlic and ginger and technique

He didnt give me quantities and I also meant to ask about chicken stock, next time I am in there I will get the exact recipe for his base sauce (and Im sure he will give it to me), the thing that will be tricky to get is the quantity of spices as Im sure he will just do it by eye but I will get an idea

good stuff Mark - I'm very interested to see how this one pans out. Is there any chance he might let you go in and watch him prepare it?

I think he would to be honest, its just a question of if I can get there at the right time, its only about 1.5 hours as well so not too bad

Quote from: Mark J on May 11, 2005, 11:27 PM
He was adamant that it cant be done at home and seemed to indicate it was to do with quantities, he said the amounts of spice are very important.
He also said he cooks curry for his kids at home and they say, dont cook it at home, bring some from the take away kitchen!

You know, I really believe this man.
I think you can get close to the flavour by being very scientific about it, but at a restaurant they must just chuck it all in!!
There's no time for our methods.
Maybe the "bengali cuisine" curry gravy recipe is ok.
You just needed to make up thirty times it's volume.
There are too many similar curry gravy recipe reports for them to be untrue.
Onions, carrots, green pepper and? tomato paste come up again and again.
It just can't be that difficult to make!