Full Size Curry Gravy

There were no excuses left, but plenty of unproved theories
Years of failure, finally required some ghosts, to be laid to rest

I have a really large stainless steel cook pot
I begged it, off a chef, a few years ago
It cost nothing
One handle is loose, so it can?t be lifted when hot and full, and there is no lid
I have to use a lid, from a wok

I have a second hand BIR gas hob

What held me back for years, was the fear of cooking a curry gravy to a wrong recipe
I didn?t want that level of wastage, without justification

Last year I got into the kitchens, of a local Indian Restaurant kitchen
I was shown twice, in detail, how they make the Curry Gravy
I also saw various stages of the gravy, being cooked, on several other occasions
One thing became clear, the only random element, is the oil used
Sometimes this would be the oil from the chip fryer
Sometimes the oil from cooking poppadoms
Sometimes from oil from cooking poppadoms first and then onion bhajees
I never saw fresh used

Although this experiment is clearly excessive, it was fairly cheap too
Two 4 kg bags of onions cost ?1.98, Poppadoms ?7.60, Oil  ?2, pepper, carrots, chick peas & tomatoes about ?3
So ?15 to prove, or disprove a point
And hopefully some first class curries with gravy to freeze

I began, on Friday evening


I roughly chopped 8kg of onions to nearly fill the large saucepan
I added 2 carrots, 1 green pepper, 1 400g can of chick peas, 2 400g cans of tomatoes & enough water to bring the level to half way up the pot

The pot was brought  to the boil then simmered covered for two hours
(using my antique Ken Hom wok lid)

Meanwhile, I heat 1 ? litres of ktc veg oil, in Ken?s large wok
I cooked 60 poppadoms

Yes, this is where you start questioning how far, you can go.

I saved 20, the rest were crunched & binned
After 30 poppadoms, were cooked, the oil seemed to lose it?s heat
It required turning the gas up, to increase it?s temperature
I had planned to cook the whole pack of 100
But the oil was clearly getting past it?s best

After the oil had cooled, I poured the oil into a pyrex jug
There was only a litre left
The aroma was (unsurprisingly) poppadoms and it was very cloudy

I waited until the next day to continue the recipe, because that?s what the restaurant did
So bright and breezy, on Saturday morning, I continued
I reheated the pot of onions and simmered for another hour
Then I added 1 chef spoon of turmeric & 1 ? chef spoons of salt.
I simmered it another ten minutes, then blended
Now, that was a job and a half!
It took about ten minutes to get to a fine consistency

I heated the litre of poppadom oil and added 3 chef spoons of garlic ginger puree, 400g of tomato puree and gently folded the purees together in the pan, as it rose to a simmer
After five minutes I added 3 chef spoons of spice mixture (coriander,cumin,paprika,madras powder,turmeric)
After a couple of minutes the spices stopped fizzing and I added the oil into the pureed onion pot.
I stirred everything really well, for a couple of minutes

The recipe was nearly complete
All that was needed was to simmer the pot until the oil separated again.
This took another hour and red oil, rose to the top, of the gravy

At the end of cooking the gravy really looked the part, but didn?t smell right
Maybe I had been overexposed to spices
I honestly don?t know

Anyhow, a couple of hours later I used some, to cook a recipe shown me by the author of this gravy

Tarka Dhall
I heated some fresh oil (in my BIR pan) and added 1 ? chef spoons of precooked lentils (They are simply boiled with a little turmeric)
Stir this all round for a couple of minutes, until the mixture dries out
Then I added 1 desertspoon of spice mixture, 1 teaspoon fenugreek leaves and ? teaspoon of salt
Stir this round the pan for a couple of minutes, scraping the pan
It does stick!
Add 2 ladles of curry gravy and simmer/reduce for five minutes.
In another pan, on a low heat, I added a little oil
Into this I put 3 sliced cloves of garlic and a desertspoon of chopped fresh coriander.
I stir fried this for about three minutes, so the garlic was just turning brown at the edges
It?s not wanted dark brown, and is easily burnt!
At this stage I poured the garlic oil, over the lentils
Tarka Dhall ready!

The curry was good
Probably as good as ones I had bought from the restaurant
My wife loved it
But in no way had I made any quantum leap, with my cooking
No extra fantastic flavor appeared
I would conclude that , cooking in quantity, doesn?t affect the gravy outcome
I would also conclude that my wheely bin stinks of crushed poppadoms and old onion skins

I shall freeze a couple of litres of gravy, and who knows, when I thaw it out, the curry fairies may have worked their magic

Cracking post Haldi! 

I have often wondered if we lose something when downsizing our bases. Theoretically, it shouldn't matter as long as the ratios are correct, but fair play for actually setting out to prove this, as that is a gargantuan task you put upon yourself there.

By the way, I can't imagine how mind-numbing peeling and chopping 8kg of onions must have been!

Haldi,

love the post - you're madder than me. i can fully understand such effort. appreciate the oil colour.

i don't hold any grudge to the chefs who have clearly tried to help out plight - those little bit's all eventually go to the full picture. in short i fully believe all is not told. it's commercial and no one would.

i am now totally convinced my remaining gap lies in the oil somehow. i suspect that it's not 1 single item but a collection of things.

what we know for sure is that curry2go is bhajis oil and Zaal is veg ghee. these being used at dish frying not for the base. to my knowledge there is no post saying to use anything other than fresh oil in base.

the only suggestion going forward would be to try taste compare your red oil to that at the restaurant.

on a cheerful note we always need to remind ourselves that we have already traveled far - my initial expectations on the quality of curry we can produce being long and well exceeded. my only real problem being the extent of prep meaning that i have to cook a lot of curries in the week and rely on TA/Restaurant for the times in between. not such a problem.

Great report Haldi.  What lengths we go to in search of  BIR heaven : :.  A huge task you undertook here Thanks for sharing the results. I would have kept the poppadums in a large tuperware container.  They keep for ages providing it's airtight

Great effort and report Haldi 

Where do you think that leaves you now?

Nice one Haldi.

I've thought a lot about  this many times. We seemed to have spent every other weekend cooking for 10 guests at our place, then a good mate suggested that I should maybe cook up one big batch of base, set up BBQ stoves over the road at the park, and feed the hoardes, as a one - off party.

I must say i like the idea, but was unsure how it would work out.

I have cooked up CA and Chewys bases regularly and love them both. But if i were to cook...say... 50 litres of CA base rather than 5 litres, would I times everything by 10???

I have previously tried quadrupling up certain recipes, only to find that the proportions were all wrong. IE a certain dish that asked for 1 tsp chilli and tasted spot on, but when x4 with 4 tsp chilli, it was so hot it was almost inedible.

So, the big question is, if I did 10x everything on CA or Chewy base, would I have 10 times the amount of normal base, or would it not work out?

Quote from: Cory Ander on June 17, 2012, 11:34 AM
Where do you think that leaves you now?

I have heard many times before, that you can't downscale recipes
But I now know, that it makes little (if any) difference
I reckon I will keep to an eight onion base
Whatever the difference between home made, and BIR made curries is, it's not down to the size.
It has to be ingredients or technique
Like JerryM I still think there is something different to the oil used at BIRs
My base lacked a roundness of taste

Perhaps the length of time you cook the onions is critical

This testing goes on forever doesn't it?
Well, what ever happens, I can still make cracking curries

Quote from: Aussie Mick on June 17, 2012, 03:10 PM
So, the big question is, if I did 10x everything on CA or Chewy base, would I have 10 times the amount of normal base, or would it not work out?

If you try this, that will be a thread worth following

Quote from: curryhell on June 17, 2012, 10:24 AM
I would have kept the poppadums in a large tuperware container.  They keep for ages providing it's airtight

Thanks CH
I don't have tuperware, but I have Asda carrier bags, pegged shut, which are full of poppadoms
And I actually think we will get throught them by Monday
Perhaps on Tuesday, I'll be going through the wheely bin for the smashed ones!!

Great report, wow, thats dedication to the cause. I too have mulled over slight diffences that may affect outcome and can't really come up with anything, but do you think it may have been worth leaving it to simmer (keep warm) on a very low light for 3 or 4 hours. The t /a gravies i have tasted have had a much deeper and richer flavour than mine and i'm convinced its the gravy that makes the difference from a great curry to an exceptional curry!

Wish you'd got the result you deserved

W

Quote from: Whandsy on June 17, 2012, 04:58 PM
it may have been worth leaving it to simmer (keep warm) on a very low light for 3 or 4 hours.
W

Thanks, I will do this
The gravy does seem to have improved with a day in the pot
It has a better aroma now
Perhaps it's not quite the failure I thought
I'll give a long simmer, before freezing anything
Here it is
It's over a sink full!

Great post Haldi  . I normally do a 1kg onion in 1600ml water purely for storage base. I was toying with the idea of doing a big batch & cooking 1 curry sauce after another to improve consistency or lack of it. I've did 1/3 Ashoka which is normally pretty good, apart from the time I left it in the slow cooker all day. The smell/taste  of coconut seemed overpowering although maybe  the fact that I don't like it swayed me. How or if a restaurant tops up their big pot of base with fresh I've no idea.

I've used reclaimed oil from the Ashoka Banjarra paste to start a dish as per the kitchen report, which was neither here nor there. The scaling up & down of recipe's is interesting. Someone in the catering trade would be ideally placed to tell us how that works. I remember one of the contestants in UK Masterchef final botching the huge pot of curry to be dished up to soldiers or another large group of people. An educated guess , I would reckon he'd scaled up per portion / amount, resulting in a curry that was far too hot.

I've just attempted another slow boat method curry which turned out awful. Never managed this yet, not even close

Regards
ELW

PS-  ;D at the latest member username, he seems to have made a typo