Topic: Undercover Curry - Anyone heard of it?

[CurryOnRegardless]

Hi Haldi

Try the onion sauce, I blitz half and keep half 'whole' so I can vary textures so to speak, and try about a tbs along with the tomato and/or g&g pastes and see what you think then.

Does seem to be a good book, I particularly like the way you are encouraged to play around with the recipes to achieve results that suit your own expectations.

Cheers
CoR

[haldi]

Try the onion sauce, I blitz half and keep half 'whole' so I can vary textures so to speak, and try about a tbs along with the tomato and/or g&g pastes and see what you think then.
Cheers
CoR

I will get round to that
That's something I've not seen in any place round here, but it's rather intrigueing
I'm going to give the pilau rice a bash too

[Secret Santa]

Nicely put Haldi I have the book and agree with everything you say, wish I'd had this year's ago.
Matt

Hi Matt

Would you tell me what you think this book has taught you that you couldn't have found on this forum?

[Secret Santa]

I have to say that the bought curry was the best, but these new recipes are very, very presentable.
They match the standard of curries I have bought
In fact, they surpass some

I'm genuinely surprised at that haldi. Either I've ballsed up in making the base or madras (or both), or we are looking for very very different things in our curies because my opinion was just the opposite.

But the general flavour isn't sweet enough and misses an extra yummy flavour

But isn't that always the way? In other words this has produced nothing new. It doesn't make a good BIR curry.

It's miles closer to BIR than The Curry Secret

Based only on the madras I have so far made I would have to disagree. It's a fair while since I made the KD base and madras, but I believe it was better than this version by a good margin.

[Secret Santa]

That asoefateda absolutely stinks
Some of the gravy boiled onto the stove and I can't get the smell off
After cooking, it mellows right down

To me haldi it mellows down so much that it is not noticeable in the final product.

Which brand of asafoetida did you use?

[haldi]

Hi SS
Sorry to puzzle you
The hing I used is by Vandevi
I got it in a local Asian shop when I was trying Indian home style cooking
It's used a lot in that
Here's a link for it
http://www.spicesofindia.co.uk/acatalog/Indian-Food-Vandevi-Asafoetida-Powder-Hing.html

There is some truth that the book offers nothing that isn't on this site, already.
But things are lost here, where this is neatly presented together
There is a temptation here to "mix and match"
With this book you create from start to finish using his recipes.
For instance the pre cooked veg were either simply boiled or were frozen.
Normally I would spicy pre cook
This is where you could over do a curry and lose some of it?s simple taste
I have certainly been guilty of that

I mentioned before, that the Ashoka recipes, could have been a book
And that could have been a very good book too

I?ve not tried Dave?s Madras recipe, perhaps I will be disappointed too
Yes the curries weren?t quite as good, as the bought one, but they were really close
I believe it?s the oil
I reckon that the oil I used, isn?t as good as the old oil a restaurant would achieve

The Curry Secret base gives a very bland boiled veg tasting gravy
This new base gives a  heavily flavoured oil and a big aroma
The spices are very well cooked

Tonight, one of my kids, reheated some of this new curry I made
You should have smelt it
This stuff really has aroma, it did smell like you were in a BIR

I?ve just tried the pilau rice
That, I?m afraid, was not as expected
Under cooked and lacking aroma
There are definitely better recipes here for that
Maybe I?ve just had a lucky start with the curries

[gary]

The hing
It's used a lot in that [Indian home style cooking]

No it's not! It's used rarely, and sparingly in Indian homestyle cooking. Mostly it's used to as an aid to relieve flatulence in lentil dishes, and sometimes to add a slightly 'oniony' flavour to dishes that don't contain onions.

There is no precedent using it in the quantities that this book seems to suggest.

Gary

[Cory Ander]

Hi Matt

Would you tell me what you think this book has taught you that you couldn't have found on this forum?

I obviously can't speak for Matt but, from what little I've seen, I suggest the following are just some of the things, presented in the book, that have not been presented or discussed much (if at all) on this forum.  As such, they offer intriguing alternative insights into what potentially goes on in BIRs.  And, as Haldi says, the ideas are all neatly wrapped up in one book:

• cabbage, asafoetida (large amounts) and bhaji oil in the base (perhaps the latter has been discussed most of all)
• garlic/ginger puree in the ratio of 1/3rd to 2/3rd in favour of ginger
• onion, vindaloo and patia sauces (I find these the most intriguing of all)
• addition of tandoori marinade in non CTM dishes
• making your own yoghurt
• modified tomato puree

All may have been discussed here, but not in any great depth.  I am not aware of anyone on the forum regularly using (or presenting) any of these ideas? 

And I presume there may be more, similar "novel" ideas, in the book?

[haldi]

No it's not! It's used rarely, and sparingly in Indian homestyle cooking. Mostly it's used to as an aid to relieve flatulence in lentil dishes, and sometimes to add a slightly 'oniony' flavour to dishes that don't contain onions.
There is no precedent using it in the quantities that this book seems to suggest.
Gary

Hi Gary by a "lot" I mean in a lot of recipes I don't mean quantity, I mean frequency
Check out "an indian housewife's recipe book" and Madhur's books
They have a "pinch" of asafoetida added all over the place!!
Particularly on the vegetable recipes

[976bar]

Hi Everyone,

I haven't read all of this thread so may have missed it, but has anyone actually made the large quantity of base from this book yet?

If so, what was it like?