Hi everyone
I made a scaled down version of this base on Friday. It's been sitting in the fridge and I'm going to make a curry up tonight with it. I followed George's procedure (thanks, George!) but scaled to two pounds of onions - scaled down from the full recipe, not up from George's. It's given me about four litres of base.
However, I must have done something wrong somewhere. It doesn't smell or taste much different from my 'tweaked' KD version at this stage - despite the extra ingredients. That's not a criticism of the recipe or anything - I was just expecting the celery and pepper to make more of a difference. Another problem is that despite pureeing for over two minutes (two litres at a time) I haven't managed a very smooth result. I'm wondering if this is because I didn't cook the base for long enough - but I did cook it for the full hour rather than 30 mins before blending.
A very likely explanation is that my blender blades are worn out after three years of use! :
George, how smooth was your puree after 30 mins?
One thing that did happen, though - after having browned the garlic and ginger, I added the spice paste to the hot oil and wallop! The 'smell' hit me. Bingo! I thought. But then it disappeared when I added the onions. I assumed this was just me getting used to the smell, but it's definitely gone from the base now - it just smells of onions and garlic.
Anyway, proof of the pudding and all that... I've got a carton of Oxo 'Real Stock' (chicken) liberated from my partner's larder. I didn't get round to making up the proper version this time. I'll intoduce it bit by bit during the dish stage and see what happens - if it makes the right sort of difference, I'll try adding it to the base.
Ian
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