Topic: Talked about base sauce with take away owner and chef

[George]

MarkJ - I am so grateful to you for posting the "30-35 onions" base sauce recipe. Last night, I scaled it down roughly pro-rata to 2 onions, adapted it marginally, and ended up with by far and away the best base sauce I've ever made!  I've no doubt other base sauces listed here at this forum are good. It just happens that this is the first one I've tried, and I'm very pleased I did.

I encourage others to try Mark's recipe. Don't be put off by thinking you need to make the 30-35 onions version. I'm not saying it won't be even better, but I somehow doubt it. The previous versions of base sauce which I have tried over many years came from 'The Curry Secret', curryhouse.co.uk and, of course, Pat Chapman. All required a lot more effort than the MarkJ recipe, and none came remotely close in terms of flavour at the end. I am very optimistic that this base sauce will allow me to produce a good BIR chicken korma and various other dishes.

The colour is yellow, definitely not red, despite 2 tsps tomato puree being added.

As I said, this base sauce tastes excellent but, in a way, that's irrelevant, if promising. It will only be proven when I use it to make a final dish.

Regards
George










 

[DARTHPHALL]

Mine always turns out Yellow also , but tastes nice none the less.

[Yellow Fingers]

I attribute the vastly superior taste of this sauce to the carrot, celery, green pepper

George, I totally agree, infact the addition of these vegetables to my usual base sauce has been about the only advance I've made in the many years I've been trying to replicate the restaurant flavour and that's thanks to this forum.

[Yousef]

The colour is yellow, definitely not red, despite 2 tsps tomato puree being added

[/color]

Yes i agree it is yellow after you puree in a blender.? I find however that when you put it back on the boil after this stage it reduces back to a dark brown/red.

In addition when you actually use the base to make a curry on high heat you reduce it down again and with the addition of spices and tomato puree mine always turn out just like the curry house dark brown, rich and lovely.

Let us know how you get on cooking your next curry with it!!

S

[George]

One thing I forgot to say was to discard the bay leaf after the simmer, before hitting the liquidizer.

The yellow colour, from the tumeric presumably (0.5 tsp alone and a key ingredient of the curry powder), is no problem for my no.1 target dish - a BIR style chicken korma. In fact this base sauce tastes almost like a korma already and is almost spot on for colour and texture!

My no.2 target dish is the BIR vegetable curry which normally comes with a chicken biryani. Now, that is brownish, with perhaps a hint of red. From your comments, and my findings with other base sauces, the yellow colour will hopefully subside when I try making that.

 

[Yellow Fingers]

My no.2 target dish is the BIR vegetable curry which normally comes with a chicken biryani.

George was it you who was looking for a recipe for chicken biryani? What recipe are you using?

[George]

George was it you who was looking for a recipe for chicken biryani? What recipe are you using?

Yellow Fingers - I may well have asked before. I can't remember! But I don't have any specific recipes in mind for the two-part BIR chicken biryani which I hope to replicate: neither (a) the main rice-based part with the chicken in it, nor (b) the vegetable curry side dish. Perhaps there are some pointers here at this forum. 

I believe part (a) is based on curry sauce + pre-cooked pilau rice + pre cooked chicken + some spices
and part (b) might be curry sauce + pre-cooked vegetables + spices including fenugreek, a bit like for chicken madras, but not as much chilli.

[Mark J]

George thats excellent news, tomorrow I visit the man again and will find out the following:

How much tomato paste, fresh corainder in his quantity of base and will also ask him about chicken stock/jelly in the base

[George]

If some distinctly above-average recipes appear on this site, then perhaps some of the lesser BIR chefs may actually improve their dishes by taking selected ideas on board, e.g. by adding carrot and celery to their base sauce, if they don't do so already.

[Yellow Fingers]

George thats excellent news, tomorrow I visit the man again and will find out the following:

How much tomato paste, fresh corainder in his quantity of base and will also ask him about chicken stock/jelly in the base

Mark, if you get the chance can you ask him how he makes chicken biryani please? I'm particularly interested in the spices used.