Topic: Curry Tester's Base Soup + Curry

[JerryM]

currytester/tamala,

there is bound to be some sceptism. currytester is offering something different which is outside most peoples comfort zone (inc me).

anyhow back to progress. i'm ok on going for the make except the chicken stock. my wife certainly won't buy 2 carcases and i think stock cubes would not please CT at all. CT please if you could

Use any good recipe for chicken stock if you need one please ask

i will buy the ghee (easiest for me). i'm not keen on the celery (but Ronnoc is in the same boat and the celery in his base left me still pindering it and unable to discout it) so will comply to the spec.

i'm no sold on the no green pepper but happy to wait (i noted that CA's development base tasted pretty good and it had no pepper).

suggest we leave the garam out of the dicussion for now to keep things simple ( the special spice mix stays as spice mix for me.

planning to cook the base tuesday along with (now i'm not sure). only kidding the saffron as i really need to exclude/or prove oil reclaim.

[Tamala]

after all the posts and disparagements from members

I think you probably didnt help your cause much by your opening gambit currytester:

What a load of twaddle you guys are talking

I dont know, maybe it got peoples' backs up do you think? 

For the life of me, Im still not sure what you meant by it anyway?  Maybe you can elaborate?

[adriandavidb]

Interesting thread this one...

I always use home-made chicken stock in my base, stock cubes are rubbish in my opinion and just don't produce a good flavour.  I make  a stock with the left over carcass of a roast chicken, containing peepercorns, (a little) star anise, bay and cloves.  I would normally add onion, pepper and celery but there is little point if those ingredients are going in the base also.

I always add a stick of celery, and I think it makes a difference.  I also add some carrot and green pepper, but I made bases that are just as good without them.

I agree completely with the remark that currytester made about never getting good results with 'off the shelf' garam massala, I don't it in everything, but I do think home-made is much better.

I used to belive firmly in the importance of pre-frying, however now I'm not so sure!  having tried making base without initially frying the garlic/ginger/tomarto first, and it seemed ok.  Also I wongder if if is evfen necessary to fry the spices, provided oil/ghee (or some other lipid!) is present to extract the flavour.  In some base recipies here the spice is simply added to the base with the oil, at leat that way the temp can't climb above 100c and the spices won't burn!

I use amethod that is a bit of a distillation of many on here.  Boil; chopped onion/celery/pepper/carrot and stock, then after an hour or so fry garlic/ginger paste a few minutes in oil, add blitzed tinned toms, fry another few mins, add spice mix fry a minute, and then add  the fryed mix to the reast of the base, bltz the lot, cook and skim for 20 mins or so.

I think currytester is right in his opinion that if the base tastes like a good (albeit slighty spicy) soup in its own right then it can be the basis of a good curry.  I still believe the success of the final finished dish is more down to the on the ingredients and techniques used in the final stages, and this is far more important than minor differences between base recipies!

[adriandavidb]

Ouch, sorry everyone, I really must take the time to type more slowly and check my post properly before pushing 'send'!  Oh, and using spell check would help!

[JerryM]

Currytester,

am i ok to make the stock as: one chicken carcase, two carrots, one onion, 10 peppercorns, 4 bay leaves, simmer 2 hrs time (nb i will have to put 1 anise just the same as adrian does).

[currytester]

Reply to JerryM

Chicken stock will be fine with one carcase - Just not so highly flavoured - you could add a chicken stock cube to help improve it. The rest of the ingredients are absolutely fine - if you arent going to use the wings chuck those in as well or alternatively if you precook the chicken using my method put them in with the breast cubes. Please note that I dont use salt until the final stage of making the curry. The star anise addition is interesting but I would leave it out first time round. My reason being it would be nice to see if your experience of the base was the same as mine.
If you like your curry with a hint of aniseed in the background I would try dry frying some fennel seeds for a few seconds then grinding them down and adding to the curry a little at a time until you get the taste you want.

[currytester]

To Tamala

What got to me was reading mutiple posts about the addition of a potato to a curry base. This led to my opening statement which looking back was a little harsh I have to say. However what it did do was make me get off my backside and put my chef's hat on.

[JerryM]

Currytester,

a brief update (will add full details and pics later).

have the base made (3pts finished base). have also made the saffron alongside. have tasted both hot & cold and find them not much dissimilar in terms of a base.

headline would be that both pass the threshold for me. the currytester base is certainly a "delux" but requires a lot more effort.

will make my std madras curry sauce tonight to gauge the taste (this is the only real test for me - proof in the eating).

[JerryM]

pictures of base

1) frying onion & carrot
2) onion & carrot finished
3) frying complete and chicken stock
4) the finished base

[JerryM]

Currytester,

details of yesterday's efforts on the base cooking. it kept me going all day off and on.

i'm glad u included the times for frying otherwise i'd have been lost. i thought times were spot on. the stock tasted pretty good with 1 carcase and didn't fancy ruining the good taste with a bought stock cube so did not add. i ended up making the ghee myself.

i like to make a base by basically throwing all into the pot and leave it cook. this method was a marathon for me and would probably have to admit that it's too much effort for my weekday curry making. i think if u could use a stock cube then this would alleviate much of the effort.

i found the ghee a bit messy and struggled with the amount of sat fat compared to oil. i noticed a vegetable ghee in the supermarket (no cholesterol) and this would again alleviate much of my concerns.

something was a little too strong in the taste for me and i am pretty sure it was the ghee (i'm not used to it). so if this could be reduced or switched then i would be all in favour.

i did not add any extra water at step 11 and not sure that i should (consistency seemed good). there was no separation of ghee at step 12 but i did remove a fair amount of scum at step 13.

surprising to me i could not detect the celery. i would increase the bulk veg % by increasing the onions to say 600g. i think this would help to perhaps soften the taste of the ghee (or alternatively reduce the amount of ghee).

so in summary as i said earlier - this base has a totally different taste "delux" from the saffron (from which it's based). to me i don't feel it will have that much effect on the final curry though - based on my experiences to date which suggest that a base either does or doesn?t make the threshold. once the threshold's past then the impact is down to the spices at frying and the frying technique.

have starved myself all day in prep for trying my std madras with both bases for a side by side comparison.