Mick's/Taz's Curry Base Gravy

[gazman1976]

Hi Paul i only put in the leg of lamb and nothing else, i set the slow cooker to high and let it cook in its own juices for 5.5 hrs exactly , when i removed it i used my carving knife to cut the lamb into bite size pieces, i have had lamb from restaurants before and its been very tender, this lamb was even more so, give it a bash , the lamb cost me ?5.50 from morrisons and i could have served 4 curries with it .

Garry

[joshallen2k]

Interesting. I don't own a slow cooker. I doubt very highly that BIRs use it, even posh ones, but if it help get the meat more tender then good on ya!

Lamb is a meat I can get BIR tender, through long cooking, as you note. Chicken not so much...

[gazman1976]

they dont use slow cookers, i have been in the ashoka kitchen they just use very high heat, tip for chicken , buy chicken fillets and put them in a pan , turn the gas up high heat and boil a kettle , when the kettle is boiled put the pan on the heat and pour the boiling water over the fillets and let them boil for 3 - 4 mins , your chicken will be very tender !!!

[PaulP]

Just a comment on the whole/ground seeds issue.

I've made four 3 litre batches of Taz base since finding the recipe. For the latest one I added 1.5 tablespoons of cumin seeds and 1.5 tablespoons of corriander seeds to my coffee grinder (only used for spices) and ground them and added the freshly ground powder to the cooking base.

For the first 3 goes at this I stuck to the Taz recipe 100% and used whole seeds.

I have to say I think it tasted better using the whole seeds despite the nuisance factor to get a smooth blend. Has anybody else tried both methods? I was surprised to be honest - the whole seeds created a stronger flavour for me.

I'll save a 500ml tub of this base and use whole seeds again next time and try to compare the two.

[gazman1976]

with the whole seeds i would recommend dry roasting them first for a couple of mins in a dry pan then grinding them with the coffee grinder , you will notice more flavour from the dry roasted spices

Garry

[joshallen2k]

Whenever I've made this base, I've used whole spices as directed, and blended in a blender vs the hand unit.

I remember when I made the Ashoka base (which called for whole cumin) I used the hand blender, and a lot of cumin remained whole. I did notice that after blending, the remaining cumin was white in colour and noticeably smaller.

Dry roasting is a good idea. I find it really helps when I use roasted ground cumin/coriander. Much more fragrant.

I will stick to whole (roasted) seeds in this base.

[PaulP]

Thanks for the replies - I definitely think I have diminished the taste by not following the recipe i.e. whole seeds then blend.

BTW Josh, what are your thoughts on the Ashoka base? - I have that one on my list to try next.

[gazman1976]

Having another lamb curry tonight lol

[Razor]

Guy's,

Although I'm very happy with my own base, and more than happy to alternate mine with CA's, Friday night I felt like a bit of a change.  So, I had a go at this base, as I had all of the ingredients to hand.

Very easy to cook, and surprisingly, had a very nice aroma during the cooking.  I followed Mick's suggestion and increased the oil from 400ml to 450ml.

The end base looked the business and had a good layer of oil on the top, never had that before with any base.

So on Friday night, I made a Madras using Mick's method.  It turned out very very good indeed, I really enjoyed it.  I reported back to Mick via PM as there was a couple of questions that I wanted to ask him, with regards to sweetness.  Anyway, questions answered, I made another Madras last night.

Wow, different again.  The method I used was pretty much the same except I followed Micks advice, and really let the first lot of base reduce much further than than I would normally.

Using this technique, and the fact that the base had a chance to mature overnight, produced a very very close, good TA style Madras. 

My only gripe with this base is that, if your blender or food processor isn't great, then you will struggle to blitz the coriander seeds, however, I've spoken to Mick and he now uses ground or grinds the spices himself.  So next time, I intend to dry roast the coriander and cumin seed, just a little, then grind them up.

great base Mick, and thanks for the help.

Ray

[George]

when the kettle is boiled put the pan on the heat and pour the boiling water over the fillets and let them boil for 3 - 4 mins , your chicken will be very tender !!!

...and much of the flavour will have been sucked out of the chicken by the water. This really must be the worst way to cook chicken. You could salvage the flavour by pouring the resultant water (stock) into the base sauce or final curry pan but that will benefit the sauce, still leaving the chicken less flavoursome.