Topic: Darthphal's 99.9% Curry Base Appraisal

[raygraham]

Hi All,

I have just followed the recipe for Darthphal's 99.9% clone Curry Base and completed a Chicken Vindaloo as per instructions (well almost).
Here are my findings:-

The initial preparation of all the ingredients is the most time consuming thing and 15 Onions later my eyes were streaming so much I couldn't see! Next time I will cut them outside!
Once all the ingredients were prepared I was confused as to how much water/liquid to add to the cooking veg and spices at the start as it wasn't made too clear. I know this was a slight oversight and is being rectified meanwhile!

I added enough water to just cover the veg and in this recipe the volume of prepared ingredients is huge and will need a LARGE pot. I actually used a big cast iron wok which took everything.? Once cooking this volume reduces and becomes more manageable.
After the hour's cooking and cooling I blended the sauce which turned out the consistency of a thick condensed soup. I had ended up with about 4 litre's in volume! My first reaction to the taste was, "god that's hot"!!
Knowing Darth like's his curries hot is apparent by the first taste. For me this was quite enough "heat" so I decided not to add any more chillie powder at the next stage which calls for an additional 3 dessertspoons extra hot powder!!! Phew!!

Darth told me the sauce I had made was too thick and I had not added enough water at the start so I rectified this by adding more at this stage. This immediately brought the heat down to a better level for my taste and the sauce was then more the consistency of in Darth's words "cup of soup". I believe Darth gets about double the volume I had got so obviously I had not added enough water.

If anyone has made the bases from Bruce Edwards or Balti Kitchen it should be about the same consistency as this so we must be on the right track from that point of view.
What about the taste?
I am not very good at description's but I thought it was great, reminicent of others I had tasted, particularly Bruce Edwards but with an intensity in taste deeper and richer than Bruce's. More flavours and spices go in to it than many other recipes so I suppose it stands to reason more flavour and taste will come out of it!!
This initial base looked very promising and certainly does the author justice when he rates it highly like he does.

Next on to the actual Chicken Vindaloo recipe.

As I said I am not a fan of extreme heat so I decided not to increase the Chillie content above an extra teaspoon in the final recipe. Perhaps this could be said I am not following this recipe so how can I achieve the same result but I don't think the "heat" aspect would affect the overall flavour too much.

My first reaction to the Curry Recipie was how odd to just "boil" the chicken instead of fry. However, it really does make for tender and moist meat. Perhaps adding some turmeric to the water for added effect or even pre-cooking in some of the base sauce would be an option? However, Darth's method was good enough for me.

Making the finished curry was very simple and straightforward. Fry off some Garlic and Onion, Gather all the spices together, Pre-cook the chicken add a bottle of Passata, add these things in sequence to an amount of the base sauce. Bring to the boil and..............done!

My bowl of powdered spices was fairly substantial as I had used rounded dessertspoons of each. On reflection I think I have made my own error here and should have used level spoons as the resulting taste was strongly spice tasting. Not spicy as in "chilli heat" but just too much spice. The predominant taste was Fenugreek Leaves and I think I had overdone this a little. Perhaps my dessertspoons are a different size from the author's!?
The actual taste was lovely but just too much taste if you can understand that!
Next time I will reduce the quantities of spices and see how that goes.
The final dish, of which I had three whole litres was enough for about 8 curries. It looked the right colour, was of the right consistency and tasted a lot like I expected it would. The only let down for me was the overspicy end taste but I think it was my error.
I shall definatley be making it again as I feel it is a worthy contender as one of the "good one's on the site" but I need to review what I did and compare this with Darth's instruction's to see what I "should" have done!

With all credit to Darth I think he has a good curry base and it's no wonder he puts a high mark of success to it and has followers at his work who rate it.
But it also goes to show whatever recipes we follow and no matter how good the author say's they may be there is always some bozo like me that comes along, jumps in with both feet and cocks it up!!.
Better luck next time eh !

Ray

[DARTHPHALL]

Thank you again Ray for you positive thoughts .
Hope this teaches the un believers on this site of my Curry cooking prowess  ;D.
As there are many who ignore my efforts( do you think i post for my own benefit ? )
As for the over spicing mmmmmmmmmm.
                  It could be because of the amount of water added may not be enough.
                   or the desert spoons , i use just over level but not heaped to maximum,
                   if you know what i mean.
                   My Garam-masala is fresh ground by an Asian friend i met on e-bay KAMILA who runs
                   ( SPICEOLOGY).
                   Rajah is my main spice brand but not all but as they are all in big jars i cant tell which is 
                   which etc...
                   I don't use any Chillies just powder.
  I believe the other reason for over spiced food is the fact that it is cooked for so little time, this is why ( i`ll answer my own question everybody !!) take-away Curries don't keep very well & lose flavor, they
for economy sake keep it heated through the night & therefore over cook the spices & the smell is lost, my Curries never smell as good as the cupboards the spices are kept in  ;D, cooking degrades spices simple.
I'm sure Ray you`ll get it right ( i think it was mainly the water content).sorry but the chefs are a little vague & we do what we can with what we got etc...
Glad the chicken turned out tender, you will find that it goes yellow when in the curry freeze a portion & have it another time,mmmmm!!
Had a Take-away last night ,the missing smell is very,very,very much like bulk buy French Onion or minestrone onion soup powder( Maggi brand) we are getting closer chaps.
I need to check this theory out .
 DARTHPHALL...........

[raygraham]

Hi Darth,

First of all I still have half the base I originally made. The taste of this from the outset is excellent and that's not just for your benefit Darth.
This leads me to believe and agree with some others on this site that the initial Base is the most critical part. Like Kriss Dhillon's Base it is excellent initially and has great potential but can be easily spoiled by what is added after that.

I added too little water at the start but think I more or less corrected that before going on to the curry stage. The only other thing I did was add the spices which I now feel were excessive. I did feel I was adding too much simply by the pile I tipped in. Perhaps my spoons are too big. Seeing as the spices are added to the base I see no reason why I shouldn't add say half the amount, taste and then add a little at a time and see what happens.

The underlying taste of the initial base was still there even though the spices overpowered it somewhat so I know a good result was there to achieve, I just ballsed it up!

Just for the next attempt can you tell me this:-

How much water in oz's, pints etc do you think you add to the veg at the beginning.

Just confirm how many litre's you end up with and how many bags do you get from that.

At which point do you add the Passata at the curry stage as your recipe doesn't say. I put it in just after the spices.

If you fill one of your dessertspoons to the required amount, how many level teaspoons would that be?

Regards,

Ray

[DARTHPHALL]

Hi Ray .
The Passatta is added with the 3 half liter bags of base mix.( i see i messed that bit up also, i did ask the admin to correct it for me but alas he is also not responding to my messages,perhaps he is on holiday).
Just done test & one heaped teaspoon virtually fills the desertspoon !!!
There is variation in the quantity our cutlery holds.
So next time Ray try 1 heaped teaspoon of each Spice mate i`m sorry didn't think this would vary that much from spoon to spoon. ;D
As for how many bags i end up with the only certainty is that i end up with 8 home curry portions of the ( out of the 3 half liter)second stage,this equates to 16 Take-away sized portions down here, your Bir about the same Ray ?
I can remember how many bags exactly i get from the big base mix, but will be doing it again within the next 3 weeks.
As for the water...well i wasn't told exactly by the chef only that to put enough water in to cover the vegetables whilst cooking & to add more if level dropped below the said vegetables due to loss through condensation.

Any other questions Ray feel free to ask mate, i think you didn't get my last e-mail either, send me the last one i sent you, I'm typing this on my clanserver & don't have your e-mail address on it.
Your friend DARTHPHALL.........

[pete]

Hi Ray
You have the base and have done a trial run
You have filled in the few blanks
I am really curious about this one
When will you give it another go?
I want to know your final score
Will it be 99%?
It's going to be good.

[raygraham]

Hi Pete,

I may be giving it another go tomorrow as I have half the original base left which I think is very good. Also the wife is at work so I can make as much mess without the earache. I know where my mistakes were and now I have cleared up with Darth his methods of measurement I am sure the next run will be far more successful. I will certainly post the results. I do know of one other person on with this recipe as well so will encourage him to comment too.
I wanted to know from you what differences you felt flambeeing made to the end result and how has this process altered the finished dish. The pictures looked great!

Ray

[pete]

It seems to give a sweeter but older flavour
It rounds off the flavour of the spices
There is no "raw powdery" spice taste

[raygraham]

It seems to give a sweeter but older flavour
It rounds off the flavour of the spices
There is no "raw powdery" spice taste

That's a great description in a very short space, thanks Pete,

Ray

[DARTHPHALL]

Ray i think also it would be worth experimenting with much less Passatta so as to get a more savory less tomato flavor, something i will do in the next few weeks ( time/business permitting).
As my local seems to have two Vindalloos one more savory than the other ,one with more a Tomato flavor, both incidental have the same lovely onion smell & one is more red & one more Brown,did you say someone else was trying this recipe as no one else seems to have posted in this thread regarding this recipe.


                               DARTHPHALL(I`m a Spice God  ;D ).

[Mark J]

Darth, do you generally freeze your curries and then reheat in the microwave? Do you often eat them straight from wok?