Tomato soup: is it a key ingredient?

[Kashmiri Bob]

Picked up a couple of TAs earlier in the week from a place here in Brum recommended by a friend.  Chicken Pathia and a Lamb Garlic Chilli Balti.  Pathia was amazing, but loaded with I think bhaji oil (the place does very deep red onion bhajis).  Anyway, just warmed up the Garlic Chilli slowly and had a taste and it's obviously got tinned tomato soup in there.  However, when ready the taste of the soup wasn?t really apparent.  The curry was awesome. I'm wondering if tinned tomato soup is part of the BIR taste, particularly for spicy recipes, although I believe it was used in the original CTM?  Read many recipes including lots on here and haven?t as yet seen the soup as an ingredient.  Definitely going to try it in my next madras.  Any ideas guys?  It was definitely not the taste of tomato paste.

Rob

[beachbum]

I've often wondered myself if the tomato soup thing was an urban myth, supposedly a chef knocked together a CTM from a tin of Campbells and some ground cashews as the base when some customers were complaining about the Chicken Tikka being too dry.

Some AIR chefs put a squirt of tomato ketchup, not soup, in some of their base gravies. 

[joshallen2k]

I've also read the lore about CTM coming from an improvised tomato soup base, and I think at least one of the recipes for CTM on the site uses it as an ingredient.

I've tried tinkering with tom soup in CTM, and it never seems in place and a backward step for me in recreating what I recall as CTM in the UK.

I've also never seen it on cr0 as part of a restaurant video. As far as I'm concerned, the answer is "possibly in the odd place, but no more than that."

-- Josh

[Kashmiri Bob]

I might ask the chef on my next visit.  Bet he wont tell me though.  I?m thinking half a chefs spoon of cr?me of tomato in my next spicy one.  On the theme of less-than-exotic ingredients in BIR curry, a while back I read some comments following a CTM youtube by a guy who, apparently, had worked in a TA for years. He basically approved of the recipe, but indicated that one vital ingredient had been left out.  Coffee-Mate (aka coffee whitener).

Rob

[Geezah]

Here's a recipe I use all the time for CTM that uses tomato soup and it really delivers.

https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1823.0

[Kashmiri Bob]

Here's a recipe I use all the time for CTM that uses tomato soup and it really delivers.

https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1823.0

Nice one!  And no jar pastes in the sauce either.  I'll be giving that a go.  C2go base, Blades tikka, and the exact sauce recipe (might add extra heat).

Rob