THE ULTIMATE MADRAS - AN EXPERIMENT

[Stephen Lindsay]

Agree entirely CH the more we cook the more we become disappointed with what our BIR takeaways serve us. I'm enjoying this thread and looking forward to seeing what MA's ultimate Madras will consist of once he has perfected it.

[spook8519]

Yes couldn't agree more. My local take away 'Indian' in St Michaels's Tenterden, served me with a Madras that was 8 bits of small chicken and carrot juice like sauce. I was hoping for a 'wow' factor but got oh dear me, Wife(very critical) said mine was better :0
I still reminisce about the wonderful curries from Curry Garden (Ashford), and still compare mine to the hay day of Indian cooking in the 80's.
The effort people put into their home curries is great and this forum has been excellent in helping me and probably others in striving for that curry perfection.

[Peripatetic Phil]

My local take away 'Indian' in St Michaels's Tenterden, served me with a Madras that was 8 bits of small chicken and carrot juice like sauce.

Would that be M*****k, Spook ?  A friend and I dined in the latter this evening for the first time; the food was OK (particularly the Tandoori Platter we had as a shared starter) but the Bhuna Chicken and the Lamb Dhansak were not outstanding, and the aloo in the Sag Aloo seemed to have been a little older than it should ...  Good service, though, and friendly staff, but being handed a hot napkin by a waiter using his fingers rather than tongs seemed a little unusual.

** Phil.

[Petrolhead360]

Tried this recipe last night and was impressed.
It's renewed my interest in BIR at home.

Good trick with adding the oil to the base and simmering for 1 hour.
Didn't have a tin of tomatoes so added the 'new' secret ingredient instead - ketchup!

Will definitely make this again.

How about applying the same approach with vindaloo?

[Madrasandy]

 Hi Petrolhead, glad you enjoyed the recipe. I too have used tom sauce in previous curries and may even have a go at this madras using it next time. I made it again last night and instead of green pepper i used 2 thin green chillis. The result waqs fantastic but a little too hot to be called a madras but it could be a winner if the chilli powder is altered. I still intend to test this recipe substituting the 3 chilli powders to just using 1 type of chilli powder. I think i would have to make it 3 times in one night, 1 with just chilli, 1 with deggi mirch and 1 with kashmiri, just to compare the difference in flavour for each curry. There are still many things you can change to a recipe and hopefully soon I will have a final recipe, if I havent already got it !

  Once I have perfected the madras I will be moving on to a Vindaloo and documenting that in the same manner as the Madras.

[spook8519]

Yes the M*****k is not as good as it;s parent house 
Will be looking forward to the vindaloo recipe, keep up the good work madrasandy 

[Madrasandy]

 Been experimenting with this recipe for last 2 weeks, but with the KD2 base as I ran out of Admin New Base. Ive tried different tomato (fresh/puree/passatta), tried different combinations of chilli powders(deggi,kashmiri,chilli), different spice mixes, different quantities of garlic/ginger, different cooking techniques from hard frying spices to not frying spices, with no significant breakthrough or improvement on first attempt.
My very first attempt was a huge success and it used Admin New Base and was excellent, so last night I made it again to spec apart from one different ingredient, THE BASE, I used KD2 base sauce and I have to say it was a very average curry, I could taste the base sauce more than the curry, it was a little overpowering.
I will not be making or using the KD base again and feel all my experiments have been wasted because I used the KD base for the past 2 weeks of my testing. As it doesnt even make a good curry for my first attempt recipe any experimentations are never going to be worth while.
  Oh well we learn from our mistakes, back to the drawing board!!!
  I will be making a new batch of base sauce this week, prob Admin New Base, but I am open to suggestions as to what people think the base sauce I should make for this experiment is.

Please comment for what base sauce you would like/think I should use ?

[Stephen Lindsay]

madrasandy I think as you had success with your first base I would stick with that and experiment with the other variables.  I have done this with several recipes, changing only one element at a time and kept notes when doing so (I can't recall if you were doing this so apologies if you were). It's a slow and methodical method but I think you learn something from each variation.

[LouP]

I have only tried 1 base (Zaal) and have several consistently great Madras curries. Iwill try another base when this is nearly done and when I make the Zaal again I will use more water but the taste is pretty great .
Let us know how you get on with Madras and other base as Madras is my all time fave

[Madrasandy]

Yes Stephen I have been taking notes, havent been updating post with them though as I had no positive results to post, and great point on using the original base again , thankyou