Topic: A "disappointing" phall

[curryhell]

Having struggled to eat over the last few days, unless the food was ultra soft or soup, tonight i decided some sort of curry was in order, having had the offending tooth removed.  My initial thoughts were a nice mellow king prawn madras for a change, as i can' t recall ever having cooked prawns for myself and i have at least a kilo of freshly frozen in the freezer.  I then toyed with the idea of a pathia, a curry i have only had a tsp which was stolen from somebody else's takeaway. After some thought I suddenly got the urge for something hot.  The decision was made, king prawn phall it was.  Sacrilege I hear some say.  How can you waste perfectly tasting king prawns in a phall 
I know, but i did.  I fancied a little bit of an experiment.
So I assembled the ingredients.  Sorry but omitted the ginger/garlic paste, lemon juice and oil from the pic.



Tonight i used some base i had made according to a recipe posted by stevejet, posted quite some time ago which proved quite successful with a dish i made. I did do a review at the time of both. Can't remember exactly what it was but as bases go, it should produce a reasonable curry.
So i started using the normal method of high heat, oil, g/g tomato paste, spices etc.  I upped the chilli content tonight to a full chefs spoon and decided to use chef Az's method of adding additional water to get the heat out of the chilli.  I was really on a mission





Anyway,  rather than adding Mr Naga to the curry, as i do when i make a Zaal phall, tonight i decided to add an ingredient which i added to my North Indian Special when i was first developing the dish.  This i know is added but in the unground form and adds a distinctive taste to any curry.  So in went a couple of tsp of ground fried dried red chillis just to up the anti a bit more



Anyway, i continued to reduce using a low heat, as advised by chef Az.  Eventually it started to reduce and i added some coriander.  I did taste it.  Mmm, needs something to take the chilli edge off it.  I then added a tsp of lemon dressing and one of sugar and cooked for a bit longer. Another tasting, yeah that's ok.  I'd had worse phalls from restaurants but certainly had cooked many better ones in the last 18 months or so.  Here's tonight's supper.





Not a bad effort.  Compared to the majority of curries I now cook, inferior most definitely.  And nowhere near as tasty, and far less flavoursome than most of  the milder dishes i cook.  Just goes to prove how far my cooking has come since i've been on this site.  I smile all the more when i read others commenting that their curries are better than many of their local TA's and BIR's and nod my head.  This just underlines for me how far this site and its combined knowledge has  gotten us in our quest.  All i know is the next king prawn curry i cook will be worthy of the prawns  : :
And before anyone asks, YES it was ******* hot  ;D

[Malc.]

I favour those those prawns woudl have been great with a curried crumb and served on top of my Omelette tonight.

Good post CH, though it was perhaps a step too phall for me.

It's good feeling when you know your not so good off the cuff curries work out ok.

[curryhell]

I favour those those prawns woudl have been great with a curried crumb and served on top of my Omelette tonight.

Looking at that omelette, my prawns would definitely not have been out of place Axe 

It's good feeling when you know your not so good off the cuff curries work out ok.

Agreed, a paradoxical sense of satisfaction in having cooked an inferior curry to one's norm, but better than what one has paid good money for in the past 

[Malc.]

Can you explain what sort of flavour you get from the ground fried chillies? They sound very similar to the Pul Biber I get from the local Turkish Supermarket. Colour wise the chilli flakes look like sumac almost and have a lovely deep flavour.

[Stephen Lindsay]

a chef's spoon of chilli? - oooooooohhhhhh mmmmmaaaaannnnnnn!!!!!!!

 

[curryhell]

Can you explain what sort of flavour you get from the ground fried chillies? They sound very similar to the Pul Biber I get from the local Turkish Supermarket. Colour wise the chilli flakes look like sumac almost and have a lovely deep flavour.

The only way i can describe it is an earthy, nutty well roasted hot smokey flavour, if you know what i mean  ;D :

[Malc.]

Can you explain what sort of flavour you get from the ground fried chillies? They sound very similar to the Pul Biber I get from the local Turkish Supermarket. Colour wise the chilli flakes look like sumac almost and have a lovely deep flavour.

The only way i can describe it is an earthy, nutty well roasted hot smokey flavour, if you know what i mean  ;D :

Apart from the earthy, that sounds very much the same. I might try adding some next time to see what it adds. Thanks CH.

[Peripatetic Phil]

The one thing that surprises me, CH, is that you appear to have used pre-cooked king prawns.  I have never had any success currying these, as they seem resistant to flavour uptake and also have a tendency to go rubbery with the second cooking.  I appreciate that you had 1kg of these in your freezer, but wonder whether you might enjoy it more with frozen raw king prawns.

** Phil.

[DalPuri]

Can you explain what sort of flavour you get from the ground fried chillies? They sound very similar to the Pul Biber I get from the local Turkish Supermarket. Colour wise the chilli flakes look like sumac almost and have a lovely deep flavour.

I love those wet chilli flakes from the Turkish places too!  ;D
Been using them for years to make a mild and simple peperoncino for pasta.
A Much better flavour than any other off the shelf crushed chillies.

[Malc.]

A Much better flavour than any other off the shelf crushed chillies.

I couldn't agree more, I've been using it for version of authentic Turkish kebabs up to now.