Quote from: chriswg on March 11, 2010, 07:38 PM
Out of interest, George and Cory, have either of you had a go at it yet? It would be great to hear your thoughts.

This does look good and I hope I get to give it a try. Like Cory, though, there are so many recipes to try, it's hard to prioritise them, or try everything. At present, I'm building a MK2 tandoor oven, ready for the warmer (barbecue) weather, so my interest will soon be on chicken tikka, naan bread and perhaps Chicken Tikka Masala (CTM) style sauces to go with it. The CTM sauce will need to be made well in advance. People don't want to be waiting around at a barbecue while I make a sauce. So traditional butter chicken, Makhani and CTM type sauces (from scratch) will be up against recipes starting with a base sauce. I don't have time to try them all and I'll probably go for a traditional recipe, for the best taste - my gamble.

If one compares a fresh base sauce in a hurry like the one from Chris, isn't that likely to be better than a more long-winded base sauce which has been frozen and defrosted?

I prefer the CIAH base as it produces a curry that tastes very similar to the ones from my local TA that showed me how to do it. It can be used to make any kind of curry from Madras to creamy coconutty ones. I need to play around with it a bit more myself and experiment with other recipes.

The general rule when using it but following a traditional recipe is to avoid adding any spice mix as the base already has plenty in it.

Id also avoid adding any chilli powder to a recipe unless making a hot one.

Quote from: chriswg on March 12, 2010, 01:24 PM
The general rule when using it but following a traditional recipe is to avoid adding any spice mix as the base already has plenty in it. I'd also avoid adding any chilli powder to a recipe unless making a hot one.

You've persuaded me, so I hope to try it in the next few days, to make a chicken korma, for which I shouldn't need any extra spices anyway.

George,

a slight aside on timing - for the biryani i've been making 3 off curry sauces in quick succession a few hrs in advance of the meal being ready and simply using the microwave to reheat. this would be a problem if u had quite a lot of curry to reheat (each 200ml portion bowl took 4 mins to reheat) but putting them all into a big pot and then into the oven would be almost the same.

Quote from: JerryM on March 13, 2010, 08:06 AM
a slight aside on timing - for the biryani i've been making 3 off curry sauces in quick succession

I like biryani too! Is that the sauce you add into the rice for the biryani proper, which you're talking about? Have you ever tried to produce an accompanying vegetable sauce, like most BIRs serve with their biryanis? How close can anyone get with the taste of that simple vegetable curry dish? It can't be much more than pure base sauce.

George,

no - the 3 off sauce were plain curry sauce as a side dish (using Secret Santa's chilli sauce).

interesting on the veg sauce - this was what we were served with initially when we had BIR biryani long time ago. after getting to know the waiters we became aware of the plain curry version and never looked back.

the difference as u say is really just down to the extra veg but they are quite different dishes. i've never tried to make the veg version. i'm not sure if just adding par boiled veg (ie cauliflower) at dish frying would work. Haldi or Domi would be best on this subject.