CA, I am only assuming they were and I buy mine from an Asian Store. I will check the vain thing later though once I leave here I will be out of touch for a wee while.

Derek the Thai recipes would be great when ever you can. Cheers Panpot

I was potting up the base today for the freezer and had a taste. It is by a mile the tastiest base I have ever come across. It's delicious. I'm tempted to try a Madras using only chilli powder in the spice mix. It has just the right amount of coconut, it's not at all overwhelming.

I made another Bhuna today using some BE spice mix and the Banjara paste again. I'm not sold on the paste. It doesn't taste that great by itself an is very oily. It tastes a lot of cassia (I didn't have Cinnamon stick)

I'm very pleased with base though and have a massive yield from the 3 kg onions, so I'll have plenty chance to play around with it.

I've now tried a few final dishes with the base. I think the base has massive potential -  ironically I prefer a simplified final version where I don't use the garlic and onion paste - I  may have over salted my onion paste though.

Many thanks panpot.. outstanding base mate.

I found the finals a little oily & salty so I tried the following

2 chef spoons of Ashoka base + 1 tbl tomato puree on medium heat for a min (no oil)
add 1/4 tsp garamsala
add 1 lvl tsp methi
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1 tbl fresh corriander
4 chef spoons of base

add in that order (total cook time 5 mins)

magnifico.....

Quote from: Jeera on December 15, 2008, 10:21 PM
I found the finals a little oily

Yes!

posted on behalf of panpot

Here if a little delayed is the photographs for the post I did in the Asoka Recipe post over Saturday/Sunday.

1  Assemble ingredients including defrosted Base, Bunjara and Garlic/Ginger Paste with Tomato Puree together. This was for preparing the chicken Bhuna, Chicken Jaipuri and Chicken Korma.

2 Finished dishes, the deeper red of the two curries on the left of the Korma is the Jaipuri

3 Ashoka Pakora for starter.

Yum Yum!

I've been very quiet on this site - most impressed by the passion of the people here and their application of both science and art to this lengthy quest. Ever since my first delicious BIR curry in 1960 I have been struggling to match that so-elusive taste and flavour. I must have cooked over a thousand curries since then - often starting with renewed hope that I might have hit upon the real secret this time but never, never so far, scoring my own effort any better than about 50%. "Nice" curries, certainly but NOT BIR.

And now here we have the results of Panpot's meticulous and tenacious quest (some people never give up!). In addition to the praise he's getting from the very critical people here who have already tried his recipes; what a very nice personality emerges from his postings! - Generous and without the slightest hint of grandstanding after having, apparently, cracked open a very crucial problem "the final 5%" somebody said.

OK I shall try to do the Bhuna this week and will post again after but, of course, from a guy who has done a thousand failed curries over 40 years, you'd have to be skeptical unless I started to rave at the result!

This is my first post. I have twenty years of eating curry (waistline to prove it) and have cooked hundreds and hundreds. Gotta say, this is awesome, Thank you.

I have added my comments on the garlic/ginger and onion pastes here https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3199.msg29109#msg29109

Quote from: Bobby Bhuna on December 14, 2008, 10:49 PM
The chicken Bhuna. Lovely! ;D

That curry looks really good Bobby