Topic: Stew?s Base Curry Sauce

[Cory Ander]

Hi Mike,

Since you want to make this this weekend, and subject to Stew's confirmtation, I'd say (and would be reasonable certain of) the following:

• Yes, "TS" = teaspoon
• Yes, "green pepper" = capsicum/bell pepper
• Don't worry too much about the onion size, but I'd say "large" = about 10cm diameter (or about 2kg of onions in total)
  

.
With respect to removing the oil before blending (and adding it again after), I presume this is because it will otherwise be difficult to re-separate the oil after blending (without more prolonged heating).  Personally, I just blend the lot and find that the oil anyway separates again when cooking the final curry.  It seems to me that 100ml may not be a lot of oil to separate in the first place?  I would definately blend though, for a better consistency.

Hope this helps Mike, and good luck with the cooking!  Don't forget the photos! 

[Yousef]

Good luck with it Mike, remember to add in lots of diced corriander stalks to the final curry.  I find this always works a treat and really makes a BIR Curry.

Stew

[mike travis]

Hi all, Well Stew I finally got round to doing your base. A good afternoon in the kitchen and an excellent result. I did use a hand blender although at the end of cooking everything had reduced really well. I did notice the end result came out a little on the thickish side but I added some water when doing the curry and it was fine. I don't think my curry lived up to your base thou. Do you have a recipe you use with it? I have been doing a curry using fried and blended onions and a base sauce. I did fry some finely diced onions and added your base but I think your base already has that nice "chutney" texture. Anyway enough chat heres some pictures......

[mike travis]

Hi all,  . I have today cooked another curry using Stews base because I wasn`t happy with the one I did last night(any excuse for a curry).

            Oil in wok....
            1tsp garlic paste...
            1tsp ginger paste...
            1tsp green chili paste...
           
            Fried for 1min...
            Added base...
            1/2tsp chili powder...
            1tsp salt...
     
            Added chicken..
            2 sliced tomatoes...
            Cooked for 5Min's...

            1tsp Garam masala...
            1/2tsp Cumin...
            Pinch of Fenugreek powder...

        Similar to KD`s Chicken Curry................ 


    Ahhhhhhh....thats better.  ;D

[Yousef]

Looks good MT,

Did you add the chicken stock i couldn't see it in the photos?
I agree its a little thick, maybe more chicken stock and blending would make it better...tasty though.

Stew

[mike travis]

Hi Stew,  yes mate, Stock in the Pyrex measuring jug top right. I did use 4 decent sized onions and fried them for a good 30Min's, maybe thats what took the oil. I must say after I added the spices and the blended tomatoes I could have eaten it straight out of the pan! The smell was spot on.

In the base sauces I have done so far, everything has been boiled and blended, then when I have done a curry I have started off with frying and blending onions to give me that "chutney" texture. Your base already had that so there was no need for me to fry/blend any more onions so the second curry was perfect. I just added a bit of hot water till I got it to the right consistency which made no difference to the taste.

      still a big thumbs up for me chap..... ;D ;D

[fumble]

I thought I'd give this one a go this afternoon. I used 6 medium onions, total weight about 1.25Kg. The other changes were I used more oil (250ml vs 100ml in the original) as it didn't seem much, and I upped the ginger/garlic using about 2 inches of ginger root and a whole garlic bulb, probably about a tablespoon of each after pureeing. I also added 1tsp of ground fenugreek seed to the spice mix.

Having made the base (not yet used it, I'm going to let it stand until this evening) I can see why the KD book says to boil the onion/garlic/ginger rather than fry it. It has the same effect of softening it but avoids the risk of burning - I had to keep the pan on a fairly low heat. However frying avoids the dreadful smell that the KD method results in! Perhaps seperately frying the ginger/garlic would be a good idea too. Anyhow the recipe seems to work well and the result looks and tastes good too!

[fumble]

Ok so after a few hours I tried a simple chicken jalfrezi using the base. Put about a tablespoon of oil in a pan and heated, then added a pinch of cumin seeds and a tsp of spice mix. after about a minute added a roughly sliced onion and cooked for a couple of minutes until starting to go soft. Added 2 tbsp base, plus a tsp of Veeraswamy madras paste, then added 2 chicken breasts cut into about 1 inch cubes and cooked again until the chicken turned white, about 2 mins, then added half a green pepper, one tomato quartered and 6 green chillis cut lengthways. After another 5 mins added the 2.5 ladles base sauce and cooked for another 5 mins or so.

Results was very tasty but the sauce was too thick - I think it needs more water or chicken stock, rather than 400ml I suspect 600 or even more might be better.

[mike travis]

Hi fumble,  have done stews base and found it to be very good  ;D . I know what you mean about KD`s boiling ginger/garlic/onion  what a pong! Sounds like you could be on to something. I think, it doesn't matter too much about base sauce its what you do prior to adding the base that makes the curry. Spice mix/order of adding ingriedients that sort of thing. Keep posting your results...... ;D ;D

[Manterik]

This is an amalgamation of my knowledge and what I have learned over the years, it works for me and makes the closest to a curry house madras sauce.
Because you dice the onions finely and cook them until they are golden brown they actually dissolve into a liquid when adding the stock and tomatoes?..you?ll see.  Blending the sauce is optional.  If you do blend just remove whole spices prior to blending with a hand blender. 

(Snip)

I made this today, I did need to blend it, but bloody hell it is fabulous. I did thinly slice the onions but failed to dice them.

It smelt fabulous once I added the tomatoes. I wanted to dive in there and then.

I shall definately make it again. Thank you so much.