Let's start a riot

[mutmee]

Morning everyone, as Richie used to say...
Regarding the subject heading.......has anyone tried making base gravy  WITHOUT oil/ghee or for that matter,
any indian dish?
If so, how did it turn out?
Pete

[Secret Santa]

My latest base, if you can call it that, was just onions boiled until their natural sweetness was very evident, roughly three hours, and then blended as normal. So yes no oil there.

Made a few curries and really no discernible difference to curries made with oily, spicy bases of the kind you'll find all over this forum. There was of course some adjustments to spicing levels in making the curries to compensate the lack of in the base but otherwise the cook is pretty standard.

[Peripatetic Phil]

My latest base, if you can call it that, was just onions boiled until their natural sweetness was very evident, roughly three hours, and then blended as normal. So yes no oil there.

Made a few curries and really no discernible difference to curries made with oily, spicy bases of the kind you'll find all over this forum. There was of course some adjustments to spicing levels in making the curries to compensate the lack of in the base but otherwise the cook is pretty standard.

But were there also "some adjustments to the oil level" to compensate for the lack of oil in the base, Santa ?
** Phil.

[mutmee]

Many thanks Santa...I want to start eating more healthily
but by mainly eating curry!
I am going to make a base gravy (just onions, garlic/ginger paste, carrot, cabbage and a little
salt/turmeric).
I'll let you know how I get on...

[Secret Santa]

But were there also "some adjustments to the oil level" to compensate for the lack of oil in the base, Santa ?

Well not really. As you know I'm an advocate of lots of oil being used at the curry cooking stage and that didn't change for this experiment I tried.

I think mutmee is after a "diet" base which I hadn't quite caught on to so it would still be of no help in that respect.

[Stephen Lindsay]

I made an oil-free base gravy years ago, to try and produce some low cal, low-fat curries. It worked up to a point but you still had to start the curry with some oil to get anything that tasted remotely like BIR. So all in all, I felt it was not really to my taste. I'd be interested to hear how you get on though.

Here is my recipe. It is basically just about a Taz base without oil and  I notice it was done in 2014:

No Oil Base (enough for 9 curries)

Ingredients:

6 large onions, approximately 1kg peeled weight, roughly chopped
12 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped, approximately 2 oz in weight
2 inch x 1 inch piece of ginger, chopped, approximately 1 oz in weight
1 average sized red pepper, roughly chopped
2/3 tbsp salt
1

[livo]

Welcome to the BIR (uses oil) forum Pete / Mutmee. 

......WITHOUT oil/ghee or for that matter,
any indian dish?
If so, how did it turn out?
Pete

Simple google search Pete / mutmee.  159 oil free Indian recipes.
https://www.tarladalal.com/recipes-for-Healthy-Zero-Oil-403

In case you hadn't found it, here is a current thread on the use of oil in BIR foods.
https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=15039.0

The use of hard returns
for no apparent reason in the middle of sentences
is an identifiable keyboard / writing technique
and a hard habit to break.    This is what your posts would look like without them.

Many thanks Santa...I want to start eating more healthily but by mainly eating curry!
I am going to make a base gravy (just onions, garlic/ginger paste, carrot, cabbage and a little salt/turmeric).
I'll let you know how I get on...