Topic: My Local Takeaway Base Gravy

[Burning Ring]

Hi Guys,
1st post newbie here
I recently asked one the staff in my local favourite takeaway if I could have a sample of their base gravy for me to compare with the gravy I made at home (Julian

[emin-j]

Hi BR and welcome 
That base does look quite 'heavy' compared to most BIR's, is the gravy still that thick when you have a curry from them or do they add water to thin at final cooking stage.

[Burning Ring]

Hi emin-j
The gravy is even thicker has been reduced a bit further in the foil container with all the chicken onions & spices added
Cheers and thanks for the welcome and reply.

[emin-j]

Bet their curry's have a nice spicy kick then 

[Secret Santa]

That looks more like a finished, basic curry. Did you actually see him take the base from the pot and put it in the container?

[Burning Ring]

Hi Santa,
No i didn't see him clearly but i did see him tell the chef that i asked for the base and would it be OK then saw the chef look at him and nod, the window view to the kitchen area is sort of head height so couldn't see anyone from the shoulders down so the counter assistant put it into the container.
Cheers
By the way Santa all i want for christmas is a base like this lol

[natterjak]

Hi BR & welcome.

You're not the first member recently to describe an "all in one' base with all the spicing contained within it. It certainly must speed up (and maybe de-skill) the process of churning out finished curries on the night of service, perhaps helping profit margins by decreasing staff costs. But the downside must surely be they struggle to differentiate their dishes from one another? 

Apart from being very thick, the base is very dark compared to most I've seen. This would seem to indicate a lot of powdered spices have been added, as I noticed the same darkening effect when following C2Go's video to try his base. I notice from your profile you're in N Wales, not too far presumably from Julian in Chorley (curry 2 go), so perhaps these heavily spiced bases are a regional variation in the North West / N Wales region?

Curry in this country is undoubtedly evolving over time - there are forum members whose primary interest is in replicating the BIR flavours of the 1980s and those recipes differed from the standard fare of today. Maybe all in one bases are part of the "new wave" which will take over?  If you look at what drives this evolution of restaurant cuisine it's usually economics, with new short cuts being introduced to get the costs lower - sad but true. I'm sure that the BIR flavours of the 70s and 80s came at the price of a lot of labour being expended with many different gravies being prepared. Once it became harder to bring in immigrant chefs willing to work for pennies, the recipes evolved into the single shared base with different spicing per dish... And now maybe it's heading to an even easier next generation?

A lot of speculation on my part there, I'm not sure any of that is really the case, but I wonder if it's all driven by labour costs.

[Salvador Dhali]

Many thanks for going to the trouble of acquiring the 'all-in-one' base and sharing with us, BR. Most interesting.

So, let me get this straight. In essence, it isn't a 'base' (in the sense that we know it) at all, but a basic curry sauce to which various ingredients are added  to make specific dishes on the menu (red and green peppers and green chillies for a jalfrezi, etc).

Is that what we're looking at here?

If so, then perhaps it is a recent development that's indicative of the so-called 'curry crisis', whereby experienced chefs are in short supply due to changes in UK immigration policy?

But then if it tastes as good as you say it does, then we obviously need to find out exactly how it's made!

Any chance of you getting behind the scenes, BR?

[emin-j]

I don't think Burning Ring has said it's a 'all in the base' style gravy unless I missed that which is quite possible  : I think he did say the gravy got thicker after it had been cooked down and spices added.

[Stephen Lindsay]

I wonder if something got lost in translation? One man's base is another man's sauce and another man's gravy. This looks like a finished curry sauce and not a base in the CRO sense of the word.