Some toms are really course in nature. Piths of course are what they came from but in all honesty I haven't had a problemo with Italian tomatoes.

Heck some sauce/bases call for greek 'High Tower'. Which I think are also blended from Italian tomatoes?

Piths however are a problem in sauces. But only in Indian sauces it seems?

Great point peeps. ;D

I know in pizza cooking, its common to remove the seeds before making pizza sauce from scratch, due to the bitterness they add, even for Italian tomato varieties.

On the other hand I can't imagine it being common BIR practice to seed tomatoes before use in a base. I may try it on my next base though, to see if there's any difference.

Quote
i know that all good bases show up as very little difference in the final curry taste. so the why is probably down more to personal taste or preference. ease and speed are important to me and i tend to stick to 3 which i rotate everynow and then (saffron, rajver and mytake).

i agree with you jerry, if you just remember what spicing you added to the base then any base of onion,tomato, veg i think will produce good results. Im still very much experimenting with bases, the one im using now i just made from what i had lying around needing to be used up.

I think presentation is important to so if the base is not reddish then i tend to add the tomato for colour at cooking stage, what ive gathered so far is if you use the correct spice combinations then its not so important to worry about what makes up the base, the base is after all just a carrier of your spices imparting little taste to the final meal. Im sure many would disagree with me here but i recon a decent base could be made from little more than onions and water.

I think its more to do with if you get one in your teeth in a meal perhaps? I cook some lovely Italian food and never bother to remove seeds. Actually I cannot remember eating one and having a reason to spit it out? Hmmm

My favourites are Bruce's SnS' and CA's. This is not only because they turn out good curries and are versatile but because the recipes are laid out in such a way as to leave no room for error. This is crucial.

That said, I've still not managed to make a base like the one I bought from a takeaway. It tasted very mild and more pleasant than any I've made. It was like a nice mellow oily soup. I need to try and buy more base from takeaways.

Quote from: jimmy2x on December 22, 2009, 09:51 AM
Im still very much experimenting with bases

jimmy2x

it depends what sort of a charater u are but for me too it's essential to do this (i need to know the why as well as the what). i've made over 15 different bases but overall 30 different variations mainly making 1 off change on the previous or even doing a side by side.

very best wishes

Admin's rick stein's base is best for me....probably because it's from a Bradford curry house...I'm in West Yorks so it's closest to what I'm used to....and it's bloody good!

Quote from: Domi on December 24, 2009, 10:05 AM
Admin's rick stein's base is best for me....

Which one is that then? I know he did a recipe for a lamb curry from a curry house, but I never heard of him doing a base. Can you post it?

EDIT: Oh, I just saw that it's admins base? I'm a bit confused now?

The base is the lamb karahi recipe minus a couple of ingredients...recipes are posted here:-

https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1846.msg16005#msg16005

https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1894.0

Since the original recipe is from Rick Stein's show I call it the rick stein base. I really do recommend that you try it, SS - by far the closest to older style BIR than any others I've tried, though I haven't tried them all 

Quote from: Domi on December 25, 2009, 10:51 PM
Since the original recipe is from Rick Stein's show I call it the rick stein base. I really do recommend that you try it, SS

Ahh, yes, I remember it now. I did actually try this when it was first posted, but I had the same problem that a few others did in that it turned out very bitter. I moved on after that and forgot about it.

Time for round 2 I think!

P.S. if you have the recipe for the Bhuna that you make with it that would be splendiferous.