Hi all,
Sorry for the delay in getting these posted. I can see know why pics & vids make such a difference as it's kind of hard trying to describe some things like the consistency of things at various stages.
I'm sure a lot of you will go 'Huh?' when you read one of the dishes that this goes in. I asked him two or three times if he had the right dish. The end taste of the dish in question was great though.
Reading through the recipes/discussions on this site there are often discussions about what makes this dish, this dish if that makes sense. There do seem to be big variations in different IRs recipes though. Within our suburb here in Brisbane, there are 3 IRs that we frequent. Each one of them makes a completely different Butter Chicken. One is very heavy on tomatoes but thinish consistency, another is strong tomato but very very thick with a great smokey flavor coming from fried onions, and the other one is heavy on nuts and you can only get a hint of tomato. Each tastes great but very different.
As with all things it is easy to judge and criticize things before we try them. I must admit that after making this gravy and talking with him about what it was used in, I felt like I had been duped and wasted a lot of money and time, on the chef and all the ingredients.
But 5 hours later my scoffing had changed to 'scoffing' down the food!
On to the first of the gravies...
Nut Gravy
Ingredients:
- 0.5 cup Vegetable Oil
- 2 sticks Cassia Bark (approx 5cm long by 1 cm wide)
- 6 Green Cardamom Pods
- 1 Indian Bay Leaf (broken into bits)
- 5 Cloves
- 1.5 kg Onions
- 1 tbsp Salt
- 2 tbsp Ginger/Garlic puree (50:50)
- 1 tbsp Coriander Powder
- 1 tbsp Cumin Powder
- 1 tbsp Turmeric Powder
- 350g Cashews/Cashew pieces
- 350g Almond meal
Prep Work:
- Fill a food processor with as much of the cashews as possible and add water, puree to a very, very fine puree. Repeat until all done.
- Blend onions in a food processor to a very fine chop, not puree. If the processor does end up pureeing them then it will take longer to cook and require more oil.
- Ginger/Garlic puree is made 50/50 rough ratio with a little water to aid processing
Method:
1. Heat oil till just shimmering
2. Add whole spices and fry till aromatic and sizzling
3. Add onions and mix well
4. Add salt and mix well
5. Continue cooking the onions until golden brown, this may take some time ~30mins depending upon how chopped and the cooking medium, ie gas/electric etc. The oil will separate from the onions once they are cooked, this is the visual to go to the next step.
6. Add garlic & ginger puree and cook for a min or two
7. Add ~1 cup of water and mix through, the heat in the pan should be enough that the mix is bubbling away when the water is added in
8. Add powdered spices, mix well and fry a min or two
9. Add 2 cups of water, mix through and bring to a boil
10. Add cashew paste, bring to a boil
11. Add more water, another 2 cups was used, and continue to cook for another hour covered. It should be a sloppy but not running consistency, it should pour off the spoon rather then fall and dollop.
12. Add almond meal and cook for another 30 mins. The almond meal will thicken the mix considerably, additional water can be added to get back to the consistency mentioned above, or leave as is and add additional water when making a curry.
No extra water was added in the lesson, it was left very thick, and thickened up much more in the fridge. If keeping for a few days or longer then the thicker/drier the mix the better.
Use:
- From this sauce, 2 1/2 heaped tablespoons of it would be used in a single serve Korma
- The quantities listed above made enough for our family to have a Korma a week till early 2011 I'd say!
- Used in Korma, Navrattan Korma, Madras (yes, Madras! I'm still kinda surprised by this, but it tasted great. The only Restaurant Madras that I have had was tomato based so this was a very new experience for me. I looked at the 7 IR takeaway menus that we have and to my surprise they all have coconut milk/cream mentioned in them, this too goes into the Madras, more info on that one to come...)
Notes:
- It is always the same ratio of onions to nuts, 2:1. The split of nuts is 50/50 but will not be affected if the nut ratio is altered, ie more cashews/less almond meal etc.
- Cooking to a thicker paste will store better in the fridge rather then the consistency used in the restaurant
Topic: Aussie IR Lesson - Gravy 1 - Nut Gravy (Read 17615 times)
