Topic: Freestyle Curry that went really well!

[Bobby Bhuna]

 ;D After my lack of success at the weekend, I freestyled a curry last night using various influences, and tips from members in the "secret ingredient" thread. It was absolutely beautiful and reeked BIR  . I thought I'd share it and see what you think.

Base

I put a fair whack of veg oil in my stock pan and heated it until it was nearly smoking. I added a couple of bays leaves, a pinch of Mustard seed, black caromoms and about 5 or 6 green ones and stirred them around for a minute or two.

Then I added 4 small chopped white onions and fried them on the intense heat for about 10 minutes. I put in a good few teaspoons of garlic paste and about 1/2 of that of the ginger paste and cooked for a couple of minutes. I then added the can of chopped tomatoes and reduced the heat.

At this stage I added 2 tsp Paprika, 2 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp Madras curry powder 1 tsp ground cumin and 1 tsp ground coriander and a BIG pinch of methi (I read this suggested in the aforementioned thread) and mix it together. I then took it off the heat and removed the whole spices from earlier. I then blended, added some more oil (as I intended to reclaim it - again heard about spiced oil in the aforementioned thread) and some hot water, just to make it soup like. I then poured in about 1/3 tin of Sharwoods coconut milk. I cooked this slowly for an hour. The oil rose and I scooped it up into a bowl for the curry stage.

Chicken

I used darths method of covering it with boiling water until cooked. I kept the chicken water and reduced it right down. I then put it in a bowl.

Curry

I heated up the spiced oil until it nearly smoked. I then put 1 small finely chopped onion in and 2 finely chopped small chillies. I fried that for a couple of minutes. I added 1tsp ground coriander, 1tsp ground cumin, 1/3 tsp of ground fenugreek, 1.5 tsp garam masala, 0.5 tsp tandoori masala and 1 tsp chili powder and stirred for a minute. Then I added 1 tsp of garlic paste and 1/2 tsp of ginger paste. I stirred that and added the cooked chicken. After a couple of minutes of stirring the chicken in the oily mix I added the base bit by bit. Once I had added enough I added the reduced chicken water. I stirred it all up and reduced it to the right consistency. Just before serving I crumbled a fair pinch of methi in. It tasted fantastic.  ;D

[curryqueen]

Hi Bobby Boy,

I have used the spiced oil for years now and have never turned back, as a matter of interest how much oil did you put into the base and how much did you get out of it? I got this method for oil and base from a restaurant in Brighton.  CQ

[Bobby Bhuna]

Hi Bobby Boy,

I have used the spiced oil for years now and have never turned back, as a matter of interest how much oil did you put into the base and how much did you get out of it? I got this method for oil and base from a restaurant in Brighton.  CQ

Hey Curry Queen,

thanks for your response to my PM about your use of spiced oil. I did find that it makes a significant positive difference to my curries. How much I get back depends upon the curry base that I use. I probably use about 1 cup of oil in the base and get back around half that if I'm lucky. I find that if I have time to cook the base on a very very low heat for an hour or even two, I can extract more oil.

Also, you know that scum like stuff you get after blending when you simmer? I have found that carefully spooning that off makes it easier to extract the oil.