Topic: I couldn't believe my eyes

[Razor]

So, tonight I nipped to my local to get a kebab, before I settled down to watch the match.  Unfortunately, the TA owner is a smashing bloke, but keeps his cards very very close to his chest.  Anyway, I got a rare glimpse into their kitchen as one of the chef's had left the door open, probably because of the heat?

Well, on the stove, was a cooking pot, I would say of about a 30 litre capacity.  The pot was overflowing with whole, tennis ball sized onions.  They cam at least 2 inches above the top of the pan.  The lid was placed on top of the onions and I could clearly see that the pan was sat on a low flame.

I asked the guy, "what's in that big pan"?  He looked at me whilst he closed the door and said "Onions"

I said, "yeah, I can see that, but why so many, what are you cooking?"  He just said, it was tomorrows curry sauce.  I took this to mean base.  I was absolutely gobsmacked with the amount of onions.  I have no idea of what else was in that pot or was going to go in it, and I think England have more chance of winning the world cup, than I have of finding out but, the amount of onions was unbelievable.

I would guess that there was water in the bottom of the pan, maybe oil, garlic and ginger but I couldn't say for sure.

The question I'm pondering over now is this, are we using enough onions in our base's?

I would say that my pot is probably 5 ltr but if I used my TA's method, I should be putting in enough onions in, that I should not be able to get the lid on.  A quick guess, I would probably need about 25-30 tennis ball sized onions?  My own base only calls for 1 kg of chopped onions, which roughly equates to about 8 onions or 3 large ones.

This theory, blows my idea of the base wide open now.  Do I need more onions, and cook for about 3 hrs? 

Have any of you guy's witnessed anything like this?

Axe, did you observe these quantities in the IG kitchen?

I've got a mind to have another crack at a new base using massive amounts of onion but not sure on what level of spicing to add.

The one thing that I would say, If you check out Dipuraja's base video, look at his pot at the start of the process.  Same thing, overflowing pot, with the lid sat on top of the veg!!!

Any thoughts guys?

Ray

[chriswg]

I saw the same thing at Zaffrons except his were chopped onions rather than whole. He had a tool like a crowbar for stirring them.

I assume this is purely down to the scale that they are making. If you tripled your recipe the onions would be overflowing. Its amazing how much they reduce down too.

[gazman1976]

Chris have a look at the ashoka base on here , you will find that using loads of onions , i have witnessed this in 2 different bir kitchens

[Paul1980]

For my last two batches of bases I have doubled the amount of onions for the CA base but didn't double the rest of spices or ingredients only and extra 800-1000ml of water.
This has improved my curries over the last two months by at least 10%.
Give it a go Razor I beleive this may be the way forward and let us know how you get on?

[Domi]

Dip's base pot was like that too, Bezzer

[mickdabass]

Check out Darth Phalls Base recipe as well first one i used off this forum and imo still one of the best

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=674.0

[Domi]

Check out Darth Phalls Base recipe as well first one i used off this forum and imo still one of the best

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=674.0

One of the forum's biggest losses is Darth....I'd love to know how his base has evolved (if it has at all). His was my fave base for a long time though I must admit I haven't used it for quite a while now.

[mickdabass]

[I must admit I haven't used it for quite a while now.

no nor have I but will probably give it a try again soon now that i have more experience.
Such a shame old DV doesnt post here any more.
I wonder......has he defected to the darkside? lol

[Malc.]

Ray, I didn't get to see the start of the base only the finished product. However, they did say they used about 40lb of onion but this the brother that runs the business not the chef.

As Chris mentions, onions do break down alot and added whole, there will be plenty of space to reduce down. I do hope to go back to the IG but it's just taken an awful lot longer than I had hoped or anticipated.

The only thing I can say is that the IG Chef was very insistent about the level of spicing he uses in comparison to onion etc. He really is quite proud of his base,you can tell this in the way he talks about it, which uses just a small amount of careful spicing. He also went out of his way to say how thin the final base was and that it is very important. This later comment had me confused as you could never accuse the IG of delivering a thin curry sauce, or at least not to my knowledge. I assume that the level of onion content is very high.

[joshallen2k]

I'd love to know how his base has evolved (if it has at all). His was my fave base for a long time

That was one of my first curries too.

Didn't his finished madras have a whole bulb of garlic in it?