Saffron vs. Darth 100 Percent Madras Clone base sauce comparison (illustrated)

[Secret Santa]

I find that kris dhillons recipes are seriously lacking (including her base)

I agree entirely that her recipes leave a lot to be desired, relying as they do on too much cumin an garam masala. You are so wrong about the base though. Its simplicity is its strong point and I haven't found many better bases. The fact that you find it lacking implies that you don't know how to achieve a suitable balance of base and added spices to give a good result. In other words it shows your lack of ability rather than a lack in the base.

Clearly the most versatile option is NO BASE...I conclude that a base with tomatoes in it is logically less versatile than one without tomatoes in it

Technically you are correct but you're just being a complete arse about it. BIRs use bases and the majority will include some tomato, end of story.

[Domi]

What I'm trying to say however, is that if you find yourself having to do this your base is not versatile enough. An ideal base should be subtle enough so that you do not have to account for it when cooking your final dish.

But with any base you have to take into account the ingredients used when making a curry from it? If I want a non-tomatoey curry, I'd hardly use a tomatoey base would I? By your own logic, Darths would be a better base to use as there is no tomato in it, making it more versatile when used across a range of dishes? The saffron base may be more bland, but it wouldn't work as well in hotter curries, so it would need to be modified in the curry recipe....agree?....Darth's base uses chilli, so to make mild curries from it you would have to omit the chilli....Saffron uses tomatoes, so won't work for non-tomatoey curries....now do you see my point? No matter which base you use you will always have to alter a final dish as per the base gravy bland or flavoursome, hot or mild....For a completely fair test, you would have to try every recipe against every base and compare results, you can't do it on a one-on-one, unrelated recipe-type test which you did in this case, as all three recipes were in some way bastardised by the others. : You can say which curry you may have preferred, but that gives no indication on the bases themselves really, as one recipe may just have happened to have a better mix of spices in the final dish due to certain ingredients being omitted by not being included in either the base or the madras recipe

There isn't a one-size fits all in base gravies....and I'm glad of that. Otherwise there would only need to be one gravy recipe, one bhuna recipe etc etc....and how boring would that be? Vive la difference! (pardon my French )

[Bobby Bhuna]

There isn't a one-size fits all in base gravies....and I'm glad of that. Otherwise there would only need to be one gravy recipe, one bhuna recipe etc etc....and how boring would that be? Vive la difference! (pardon my French )

I agree with your point here but you must agree that some bases are better than others. Is it not fair to conclude that Saffron is more versatile than Darths over a range of generic recipes though?

[Bobby Bhuna]

But with any base you have to take into account the ingredients used when making a curry from it? If I want a non-tomatoey curry, I'd hardly use a tomatoey base would I? By your own logic, Darths would be a better base to use as there is no tomato in it, making it more versatile when used across a range of dishes? The saffron base may be more bland, but it wouldn't work as well in hotter curries, so it would need to be modified in the curry recipe....agree?

Every generic BIR style curry has tomato in it. If you wanted to make a curry with no tomato in it, you would not be following a generic recipe. Therefore you should not be using a base designed to work for use with generic curry recipes.

A base sauce in our context is not a base for every recipe on the planet. As Rai says, if that's what your after, no base sauce is probably the key. For me a good base is one which is tailored towards working well with most generic curry recipes. A base with no tomato is less likely to do this than a similar base with tomato.

Saffron base would work perfectly well with hotter curries. Why wouldn't it? Chili is certainly one spice that is best added to personal taste.

[Secret Santa]

you must agree that some bases are better than others.

Well no actually I don't.

For a start define "better". Your idea of better might not be my idea of better (in fact going by your aguments in this thread it almost definitely isn't). I don't know about you but I've never actually tasted a genuine BIR base sauce (I've seen a few). So just how do you know when you've cracked it? I don't think you can until you've tasted a few of the real things. We're (almost) all in the same boat in that respect.

[Secret Santa]

And I very much doubt that BIR kormas or passandas have tomatoes in them...

Oh I'm pretty sure they do, but only that which is in the base sauce. It's just that the ratio of cream to base is so high that they come out yellowish in colour.

comment removed by SnS

[SnS]

I really think this tomato thing needs putting into some perspective.

Most of the bases posted on this forum have very little tomato or tomato paste, but nearly all contain some.

The Saffron base has 2 medium tomatoes and 200 ml of tinned tomatoes mixed in with about 4.5 litres of base. Not a lot. I hardly think this quantity is anywhere near enough to provide a dominant tomato taste to the final base ... and the reason for this ... to maintain versatility.

Whatever your opinion, Bobby has produced results from his own experiment (with a good subsequent post).

SnS  ;D

[Bobby Bhuna]

Ok, so the thread's been cleaned up and unlocked.

Rather than continue to go around in circles, would anyone like to summarise what has been learned from this discussion?

[Bobby Bhuna]

Ok then, I'll go first

Rai is a... -  ;D just kidding mate

[Chris303]

There is absolutely no point in arguing subjectiveness... To sum up -- I went into a Indian restaurant in Glasgow my mate swears as being the Curry in Glasgow and he lives out the place - I tried it - then tried it again just to be sure and the curry was one of the worst currys I have ever eat in my life (both times) - The taste and consistancy was just not what I like at all - but to him it obviously is.

The only thing I trust in this life in regards to food and cooking is my own taste buds.