Topic: CA's Chicken Tikka Masala Phal

[missy]

Thanx for that CA. Thailand is difficult to find anything that's even slightly out of the ordinary for Thai people. Thai chilli powder is very mild and even a little bit sweet, so I have found some hot chilli powder that's been imported here. And have a friend that goes to Indian regularly and he brought back enough mango powder, onion powder and mint powder to last me for a couple of years. Gonna ask him bring some hotter chilli powder back with him next time. I also need some red and yellow powdered colouring, but will have to wait until someone comes over here from the UK. At the moment I'm only using the liquid form.

I'm using your recipes now for all my dishes in my shop apart from my Bhuna masala and my customers love them. The only thing that I've been doing is quadrupling your ingredients to make larger batches, and they have been coming out just fine. I will try your curry masala spice and curry base soon as well. At the moment I'm using razors base but I added green peppers, celery and tomato paste to it last time and it came out much thicker and a better consistency.

Cheers for your help.

Regards

Phil

[Gazza63]

Thanx for that CA. Thailand is difficult to find anything that's even slightly out of the ordinary for Thai people. Thai chilli powder is very mild and even a little bit sweet, so I have found some hot chilli powder that's been imported here. And have a friend that goes to Indian regularly and he brought back enough mango powder, onion powder and mint powder to last me for a couple of years. Gonna ask him bring some hotter chilli powder back with him next time. I also need some red and yellow powdered colouring, but will have to wait until someone comes over here from the UK. At the moment I'm only using the liquid form.

I'm using your recipes now for all my dishes in my shop apart from my Bhuna masala and my customers love them. The only thing that I've been doing is quadrupling your ingredients to make larger batches, and they have been coming out just fine. I will try your curry masala spice and curry base soon as well. At the moment I'm using razors base but I added green peppers, celery and tomato paste to it last time and it came out much thicker and a better consistency.

Cheers for your help.

Regards

Phil

Phil ? where are you living mate, unless you are in the middle of some village in Issan , I cant see any problem for obtaining the ingredients to cook the curries on this site, I have lived here in Pattaya Thailand for over nine years  and can obtain everything except poppadoms, there are two companies who make cocconut milk/cream powder Chokay and Yaearra  both available at friendship foodland stores and carrfour all over Thailand,   liquid food colouring is just as good but not as cheap and as for Imported spices they are also readily available at Friendship, Tops, Foodland, Carrfour supermarkets, and if you are anywhere near Pattaya we have an Indian supermarket next to the Sikh temple just off 2nd rd, and there are several in little India in Bangkok, and as for Thai chillis they are as hot as anywhere else in the world as most of the hottest one's origonated in south America anyway, just to assure anyone thinking of visiting Thailand that are reading this that western food is  available all over Thailand, i.e. PizzaHut, KFC,McDonalds, Sizzler, Burger KIng,Subway, and European and other ethnic food is available in many supermarkets as well ,either  fresh or frozen and in any tourist resort you will get Expat bars  serving pies pasties all day brekkie, pizzas spaggheti bol plus Thai food and in some Indian curry though maybe not as good as you can cook on this site.

[loveitspicy]

I agree Thaiexpat - im up in the North and the Chilies are some of the hottest I've eaten. Its been a  while since i was in Pattaya - there are a lot of things up here that i cant get hold of and if i get into Chiangmai there are a couple of western aimed little supermarkets which sell some of the spices but not all (which is  pain) however the little spices they have are ridiculously high priced!!
Phil (Missy) should be OK he is in the Capital and should be able to locate things down there.
Tamarind paste to make today!

[loveitspicy]

Sorry - forgot to add
The BEST coconut milk by far is from the market freshly made - you can get the thinner watery type to boil down anything and the thicker creamier to add to any dish to give it that cream coconut taste

[missy]

Thanx for that CA. Thailand is difficult to find anything that's even slightly out of the ordinary for Thai people. Thai chilli powder is very mild and even a little bit sweet, so I have found some hot chilli powder that's been imported here. And have a friend that goes to Indian regularly and he brought back enough mango powder, onion powder and mint powder to last me for a couple of years. Gonna ask him bring some hotter chilli powder back with him next time. I also need some red and yellow powdered colouring, but will have to wait until someone comes over here from the UK. At the moment I'm only using the liquid form.

I'm using your recipes now for all my dishes in my shop apart from my Bhuna masala and my customers love them. The only thing that I've been doing is quadrupling your ingredients to make larger batches, and they have been coming out just fine. I will try your curry masala spice and curry base soon as well. At the moment I'm using razors base but I added green peppers, celery and tomato paste to it last time and it came out much thicker and a better consistency.

Cheers for your help.

Regards

Phil

Phil ? where are you living mate, unless you are in the middle of some village in Issan , I cant see any problem for obtaining the ingredients to cook the curries on this site, I have lived here in Pattaya Thailand for over nine years  and can obtain everything except poppadoms, there are two companies who make cocconut milk/cream powder Chokay and Yaearra  both available at friendship foodland stores and carrfour all over Thailand,   liquid food colouring is just as good but not as cheap and as for Imported spices they are also readily available at Friendship, Tops, Foodland, Carrfour supermarkets, and if you are anywhere near Pattaya we have an Indian supermarket next to the Sikh temple just off 2nd rd, and there are several in little India in Bangkok, and as for Thai chillis they are as hot as anywhere else in the world as most of the hottest one's origonated in south America anyway, just to assure anyone thinking of visiting Thailand that are reading this that western food is  available all over Thailand, i.e. PizzaHut, KFC,McDonalds, Sizzler, Burger KIng,Subway, and European and other ethnic food is available in many supermarkets as well ,either  fresh or frozen and in any tourist resort you will get Expat bars  serving pies pasties all day brekkie, pizzas spaggheti bol plus Thai food and in some Indian curry though maybe not as good as you can cook on this site.

You are right mate, you can get most of the spices and western foods here in Thailand, but at a cost and must travel to the other side of Bangkok to go and buy them. None of the shops near me sold mango powder, which I use quite a lot of for my tandoori masala spice. And the mint leaves I could only buy the very small jars from carrefour/ Villa market which was costing me a small fortune. Makro has a good selection of spices and I can buy big bags of cummin seeds, coriander seeds, turmeric, mustard seeds, cardomons, etc. But, a few other spices they never have them.  I'm sure that india town sells everything I need but I dont have the time to travel there as it's miles away and would probably be just as easy for me to go to Pattaya as I live not too far from the airport. I never said I couldn't find coconut milk powder, I just never thoughtn about using that until now. And, I don't like the heat that Thai chillies give off compared to whatever chillies they use in BIR's. They instantly burn your mouth and lips. And yea your right the liquid form of colouring is expensive when you make 30 CTM's, etc every week, so hopefully one of my relatives or friends will be over here soon and can bring me the powdered kind.

You are right, you can buy everything here in Thailand but have to go out of your way to find them, and to find them at a reasonable cost. And, I'm sure that in Pattaya your shops aren't as spread out as they are in Bangkok, so much easier to find things.   

[missy]

I agree Thaiexpat - im up in the North and the Chilies are some of the hottest I've eaten. Its been a  while since i was in Pattaya - there are a lot of things up here that i cant get hold of and if i get into Chiangmai there are a couple of western aimed little supermarkets which sell some of the spices but not all (which is  pain) however the little spices they have are ridiculously high priced!!
Phil (Missy) should be OK he is in the Capital and should be able to locate things down there.
Tamarind paste to make today!

Thai chillies are certainly hot. I sure can't eat somtam (papaya salad) like Issarn people do. But I would like to try using Birds Eye Chillies, Jolokia Chillies or Habanero Chillies, just to see the difference. Unfortunately, with teaching and running a restaurant I don't have 7-8 hours spare to go shopping around Bangkok to look for these things. I looked in Villa market and makro and they have only Thai chillies. My friend will be going to India soon, so he will bring back some Jolokia chillies for me and I will dry them out.

[loveitspicy]

Phil

how big a bag of mango powder did you get hold of
could do with that myself up here in the North

[missy]

Phil

how big a bag of mango powder did you get hold of
could do with that myself up here in the North

He brought back 5 fairly small boxes of it so that when I open a box I will hopefully use it before it dries out and clumps together.

If you know of anyone coming from the UK soon I'm sure they can find some there easily enough and bring you a few boxes.

[Gazza63]

Your right Phil, it is easier to shop here in Farang friendly Pattaya point taken, as I mentioned if you do get to visit there is a small Indian shop next door to the Sikh temple Soi 17 just off 2nd rd, they stock Mango powder, garam masala and sometimes the ready mixed boxes of tandoori masala along with big bags of basmati rice and cans of ghee they also stock other ingredients that are hard or expensive to come by like green and brown cardamons and Indian bay leaf , no mint though, I have seen it fresh in Foodland as well as in those small expensive jars, have you thought about drying it and grinding it yourself as it should work out a lot cheaper, also there is a similer plant available at the markets that smells and tastes a lot like mint  maybe you could use it as a substitute.

Regards...........Gary

[missy]

Your right Phil, it is easier to shop here in Farang friendly Pattaya point taken, as I mentioned if you do get to visit there is a small Indian shop next door to the Sikh temple Soi 17 just off 2nd rd, they stock Mango powder, garam masala and sometimes the ready mixed boxes of tandoori masala along with big bags of basmati rice and cans of ghee they also stock other ingredients that are hard or expensive to come by like green and brown cardamons and Indian bay leaf , no mint though, I have seen it fresh in Foodland as well as in those small expensive jars, have you thought about drying it and grinding it yourself as it should work out a lot cheaper, also there is a similer plant available at the markets that smells and tastes a lot like mint  maybe you could use it as a substitute.

Regards...........Gary

Cheers Gary

I pretty much have everything I need now. It has taken me awhile to find all the spices I needed but I have enough now to last me for a good few months. Just the powdered colouring is all i need, but I can live without that until someone comes over from the UK.

It would be very handy to have a shop nearer me like the one you have that sells everything, but I'll get by.