Topic: G'day from Australia

[fajfall]

Hi all,

Been browsing through the forum for hours and I'm overwhelmed!

As the cook of the Castle, I'm always trying new recipes. I'm pretty good at Italian and Chinese food (I make my own handmade noodles and pastas from scratch), but for some reason Indian curry and cuisine is always bland whenever I try. I've tried numerous Indian cookbooks for home cooks (like Madhur Jaffrey's) but they always come out insipid, bleh.

The aroma that wafts from Indian restaurants is so amazing, so enticing, I'd love those flavours and redolence at home. I had a downstairs neighbour who made exactly that kind of fragrance every Sunday, so it can be done at home.

Chicken korma is my favourite curry. There's an amazing popular restaurant in Singapore where I'd order it every visit. Ironically the korma I had in India, like all other food I tried in India, was utter crap- watery, bland, insulting. It's the first curry I'd like to replicate at home. I don't know what UK Indian curries are like but I've had some outstanding ones in Singapore; mediocre ones in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and China, and the worst in- ironically- India.

Just a few questions, in case you have the time to answer:

1) how many toddler-friendly curries are there, and what are they? Even the Pakistani parents I speak to say their children refuse to eat chillie.

2) Are Indian bay leaves important? I can't access them. Spices like clove, cardamom and turmeric are obviously essential most of the time, but I don't know about tej patta.

3) I never thought of 'base curry paste' until this site. The concept sounds like Thai food, where you make a pungent base and then build many other dishes from a few spoonfuls taken from the base. Is this the normal for Indian food or just an Indian restaurant technique? None of my Indian cookbooks mention a base sauce.