Topic: Curry base using a pressure cooker

[gajman]

Hello All,  Im a Newbie here and loving the site, Im a bit of a curryholic but since finding the site I havent been inside a takeaway, the reason being I am now making  and enjoying my own curries.  The number of base sauce recipes is incredible  but whilst Im sure most of them are very nice Ive decided to keep things as simple as possible.  What surprises me is the time spent making the different sauces anything from 1 ? 2 hours being the norm so I thought I would put down my recipe using a pressure cooker which takes around 20 minutes and has given excellent results.  Probably the takeaways  don?t use pressure cookers because they cant get them big enough for the quantities they use ? anyway heres what I do

Recipe removed by SnS at request of Gajman (breach of copyright)

Please feel free to ask any questions and if you try it I would welcome any feedback or suggestions   

[JerryM]

gajman,

glad you're having success although a bit disappointing you're no longer frequenting the TA's - i'm doing the same but i still love my TA's - the sense of the occasion, trying something different etc.

the rest of the post is certainly different and probably one that no one else has even thought of never mind consider.

taking the pressure cooker aspect to the side for now - how did u arrive at the recipe it's intriguing to me - would appreciate the gist of your thought process or how it evolved.

[gajman]

JerryM

Thanks for the interest.  Whilst I havent been to a TA for a couple of months I will probably go back as you say for special occasions etc.  The recipe is basically one from another site as far as ingredients are concerned with one or two minor differences, less water for one as there is not as much evaporation with a pressure cooker.  Why I tried this was mainly the length of time it took my first base sauce using the usual methods. Whilst the sauce was usable I found the onions didnt dissolve as I'd expected.  Also my wife isnt a big fan of her kitchen smelling of onions for a few hours (shes not a curry fan) I have made 3 lots of base sauce using the pressure cooker and the results have been consistently very good, taking perhaps 20 or so minutes for roughly 1500 mls of sauce each time which Ive used to make chicken jalfrezis (my favourite), dopiazas, chicken madras and chat aloo with tinned chick peas (incredibly quick and easy. Unusually my son and daughter now like the curries I make, Ive tried all the off shelf sauces in the past - Pataks, Sharwoods etc and they all taste the same.  Have you got a pressure cooker?  Asda do one for about ?20 which should do the job nicely, the wife wouldnt do without hers for soups stews etc.

[JerryM]

gajman,

no pressure cooker at mo but familiar with them and 20 at asda sounds pretty good.

the 1st thing that attracted me to the recipe was the use of the whole spices in water. i made ivangough's AIR base a few weeks ago and it was pretty good - a bit different to BIR though. i also make rajver, saffron and ifindforu bases. a difference between the AIR and BIR bases (or those that i've tried) was the use of the whole spices.

these in the AIR definitely added extra flavour particularly the cassia / cinnamon.

i know what u mean about the onions - my latest effort has involved cooking my last base for an extra 3.5 hrs and this i believe did the trick of dissolving them - i was aiming to reclaim oil for use in the cooking and it all worked very well.

i know what u mean about shelf sauces also - i try to stay well clear.

suggest u try Stews (admins) jalfrezi is 100% spot on. also go for Curry Kings CTM it too is 100% spot on.

i'd have to think how the pressure cooker would work with my need now for oil reclaim as my experiences to date have found it tricky (although i am now going to try malacara's method which looks good). what's the capacity of the pressure cooker - my pan is 4.5l which is about right for me giving curries for about a week.

[gajman]

JerryM

As you will see Ive had to take down the recipe because of complaints.  I will probably try a base from this forum at some stage just to see how it adapts when using a pressure cooker.  The Saffron one looks like one I might try although as given 4 litres of sauce is probably too much given the size of my freezer, may well half the quantity.  Gobsmacked at the 3.5 hrs it took to dissolve the onions you mention, that must be some sort of record - my missus would have a hissy fit, the word divorce comes to mind.    Do you not find that there is so much taste in the base that it overpowers the actual curry produced at the end.  I would think a mild korma for instance would be overpowered by the base (not that I like kormas.  The pc I use is 5 litres although thats a big one 4 or 4.5 litres would do the job I reckon.  I will try to find the recipes you mentioned so I can give them a try.  Would be good if you could provide links to them.

[JerryM]

Do you not find that there is so much taste in the base that it overpowers the actual curry produced at the end

NO and this is a crucial no - SnS has the better words -something like the base must be versatile - translated for me that means a thin sort of bland base - but not a soup - the taste makes u think it's close to a finished curry but not yet there - it needs the final cooking stage.

the saffron is a good base to go for. the onion may have dissolved before the 3.5 hrs - i was concentrating on oil reclaim

original saffron link http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,2271.0.html

i'm not an expert on korma (more madras and derivatives) but i cooked Ronnoc's and felt it was spot on.
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,2332.msg20045.html#msg20045

jalfrezi http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,2664.0.html
ctm http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,539.0.html
tikka http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1555.msg13736#msg13736

Remember the site members are really spot on and will be more than happy to answer all your questions.

[Bobby Bhuna]

Lol, you need to give the missus a good punt and get your stock pan out! ;D

I'm always scared of alternative BIR methods - you have to keep it as close to the real thing as possible. That said, if the wife doesn't take too well to being punted I'm sure the pressure cooker can't be miles off. Do you find that due to the cooking time in the pressure cooker that your base has a lot of sweetness? I would be very interested in cooking the onions in oil in the pressure cooker for a few hours then adding the rest of the ingredients to see how this compares. A few of us have been experimenting with this idea.

Cheers, BB.

[JerryM]

link found whilst browsing on how to use pressure cookers

http://www.indiacurry.com/faqappliance/pressurecookeruse.htm