Topic: New Glasgow curry base sauce.

[spiceyokooko]

Agreed they are two different bases

Which is why it's a little dubious to do an oil comparison between them given the very different levels of dilution each one contains.

Has anyone done a significant scaling down of this base yet, as I would like to try it in a scaled down version.

[Cory Ander]

There appear to be some dubious calculations going on here.

It is clearly more relevant to compare the oil content of the curry base with the volume of curry base (rather than with the mass of onions).

The following then holds:

• BB1's original base (i.e. 2 litres of oil & 7kg of onions) - about 54ml of oil per 300ml of curry base
• BB1's revised base (i.e. 1 litre of oil & 5kg of onions) - about 38ml of oil per 300ml of curry base
• MYN's (yet again) revised base (i.e. 800ml of oil & 5kg of onions) - about 30ml of oil per 300ml of curry base
• CA's curry base (i.e. 125ml of oil & 600g onions) - about 16ml of oil per 300ml of curry base

So, it is clear that there is considerably more oil (at least about twice as much, and up to about 3.5 times as much, oil per volume of curry base) in all of the BB1 variants compared to mine.

Compensating for this is that BB1's recipes do not (generally) call for the addition of any more oil at the curry cooking stage (but there is the addition of amounts of oil with any pre-fried onions, precooked chicken, pureed garlic/ginger, minced chillies, etc).  Whereas mine (like most that we are more familiar with) do.

Having said that, oil is our friend (curry cooking wise, if not health wise) and not our enemy.  I'm not particularly concerned with any of the above amounts of oil.

Nevertheless, I found BB1's original curry base and recipe "greasy" (rather than "oily").  I also put this down, in part, to the addition of a whole block of creamed coconut in the original recipe.  I have also found "greasiness" an issue (for me) with other bases using relatively large amounts of creamed coconut block (e.g. Ashoka).

Clearly BB1's original recipe was "work in progress" and, the fact that MYN has revised it AGAIN, suggests that it probably still is.

MYN, I think you might do us all a favour if you could please post the FULL recipe that you massaged to get the reduced quantities.  Each of us can then scale it as we deem to be appropriate (and, hopefully, get more mileage from this curry base and associated posts).

[spiceyokooko]

There appear to be some dubious calculations going on here.

Stop pinching my words.

And I agree that your revised oil per base by volume is probably the most accurate way of assessing the oil content of the various bases. Which shows clearly that yours (which is what my own is broadly based on, with some personal modifications) contains the least oil.

Accepting (as you rightly point out) that more oil is added at the initial frying stage, but you can control and modify that according to your own requirements which you cannot do with oil contained within a base.

[Martinwhynot]

CA and others,

I agree the observation that once the oil is in the base it can't come out and that with CA's recipes, you can therefore control the oil a bit more.  Fair enough but the comment is getting made that the oil isn't the major issue here, it's the greasiness.  I agree with CA that it will be the coconut (I've posted this already as an observation but I fear it got buried in sideways arguement?)

It's not my recipe to post so I will ask him, if you don't mind. 

For what it's worth, when I looked at the full 25kg recipe the calculations I offered (800ml are exactly proportionate to the *estimated* 4L of oil that went into the pot direct from the oil tin) 

I also suggested halfing the sugar for the same reason

I also suggested halfing the coconut for the same reason

If people stopped burying these comments with blah it would have been easier to find?  (Not having a go, just an observation)

I think this post will tweak the 5kg base to something less oily and less greasy.  It was the recipe I used for the base in the videos and was less 'heavy' in the mouth than my first attempt with the 7kg version.

I think there is mileage in this base for sure - close to many restaurants I've eaten in up and down the country.  Please go with this for now, if BB is content I'll post his recipe.

I'm glad this post is kinda back on track - for now at least!

Regards

Martin

[PaulP]

I appreciate you posting this Martin and I'd like to try something different myself.
So I'd be happy to see a fool-proof version of this Glasgow base sauce recipe.

Cheers,

Paul

[Whandsy]

I don't know if this has been documented anywhere but I pm'ed BB1 when his recipes were 1st posted and the takeaway he works in uses reclaimed bhaji oil 

W

[Martinwhynot]

I don't know if this has been documented anywhere but I pm'ed BB1 when his recipes were 1st posted and the takeaway he works in uses reclaimed bhaji oil 

W

Hi,

I wouldn't let that put you off.  It is debatable how much that will affect the outcome as it depends on how used the oil is (you'll never know that!).  I've done it, taking C2G's suggestion in his book and I didn't notice much of a difference TBH.

Regards,

Martin

[Whandsy]

I don't know if this has been documented anywhere but I pm'ed BB1 when his recipes were 1st posted and the takeaway he works in uses reclaimed bhaji oil 

W

Hi,

I wouldn't let that put you off.  It is debatable how much that will affect the outcome as it depends on how used the oil is (you'll never know that!).  I've done it, taking C2G's suggestion in his book and I didn't notice much of a difference TBH.

Regards,

Martin

I'm fine with that and have some bhaji oil myself (a la C2G as you say), it makes perfect sense that bhaji oil would be used, just that I know some members are uncomfortable with that. Anyway I'll leave it at that as its been discussed many times elsewhere on the forum 

W

[ELW]

I don't know if this has been documented anywhere but I pm'ed BB1 when his recipes were 1st posted and the takeaway he works in uses reclaimed bhaji oil 

 , in the base? in the dish??..I seldom see anyone with bhajis in glasgow, unless he meant pakora. "seasoned oil" is appearing in a few more vids these days i've noticed 

I found using half of the 5kg batch left this underspiced for a finished sauce, still greasy. A chefs spoonful of this base does fry tomato paste/GG/methi really well, why wouldn't it?
  The instruction was to stick with the oil, add no extra water. The amount of water evaporated or gained from the onions could obviously vary( i recently made 2kg onion CBM Little India base, using 150ml water initially & ended up with over 3ltr of base un doctored with water after blending, which i was surprised by)I think mine needed more water & less coconut(hardly any oil floating on top)

I  ended up with the Glasgow base which was almost identical in taste & texture to the Ashoka version, minus some extra water for thinning it out. For anyone who has not made it, Ashoka is nowhere near a finished sauce, as it gets alot of its spice content from the onion paste. So  a basic curry following the Glasgow recipe was way underspiced as there's a pretty standard amount in a 2.5kg base, with no more to be added at dish stage. I don't yet know what effect on taste will be by upscaling the spice in the 5kg version

Thats when i looked at a few other bases i had made to firstly try & find a balance with water & oil, hopefully to make this technique work, before the thread went all Asperger style again, sums included

To say this bir method whatever anyone thinks of it, is strange, unusual, wrong, is neither here nor there unless you have broad kitchen experience, have experience of varying bir business models(i have none of both so could never make a comment like that  :)Corner cutting/lazy/astute - possibly
If it didn't cook curries "properly" ...no one would buy it....if the Asian chefs don't care much for scientific knowledge of ingredients then i sure don't...i'm trying to copy them

I'll do a 5kg next time tinkering a little before making my mind up

@martinwhynot - posting the 25kg recipe would be great. It would let me see if less is more regarding spices as the base scales up

Regards

ELW

[Whandsy]

, in the base? in the dish??..I seldom see anyone with bhajis in glasgow, unless he meant pakora. "seasoned oil" is appearing in a few more vids these days i've noticed 

It was about the base ELW

W