Topic: Aussie IR Lesson - Gravy 2 - Tomato Gravy

[Masala Mark]

Here is gravy number two that we did. And again I was even more disheartened when I saw all of the whole spices that he was putting in thinking they were going to way over power everything. Once done though, it was one of those ones where you can put your nose above the dish and just inhale till your lungs are full it smells that good. Surprisingly the whole garam masala did not overpower at all.

The biggest drawback again as mentioned in the Notes section below is the quantity it makes, for home cooking it is not at all practical but very delicious. Not sure how it will be when I take some out of the freezer next week.

It's just coming up to midnight here, so gravy 3 will have to wait till tomorrow!

Tomato Gravy

Ingredients:
- 0.5 cup Vegetable Oil
- 8 sticks Cassia Bark (approx 5cm long by 1 cm wide)
- 8 Green Cardamom Pods
- 2 Indian Bay Leaf (broken into bits)
- 10 Cloves
- .5 kg Onions
- 1 kg tomato puree (tinned, but not paste)
- 2 tbsp Salt
- 2 tbsp Ginger/Garlic puree (50:50)
- 1 tbsp Coriander Powder
- 1 tbsp Cumin Powder
- 1 tbsp Garam Masala
- 1 tbsp Kitchen King Masala (or Curry Powder, KK was his personal pref)
- 1 tbsp Degi Mirch Powder
- 1 tbsp Kasoori Methi
- 250g Cashews/Cashew pieces
- 250g 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 1 cups of water, mix through and bring to a boil
10. Add tomato puree, mix through, bring back to a boil
11. Add cashew paste, mix through, bring to a boil, cover and simmer, it will plop and splatter the lid to no end
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
- Again, huge quantities leaving me from having to cook this ever again this year!
- Used in Butter Chicken, Tikka Masala

Notes:
- It is always the same ratio of tomatoes to onions to nuts, 2:1:1. 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

[Stephen Lindsay]

Wow Mark, another interesting recipe and a couple of questions that may be about semantics as opposed to anything else>

Also you say almond meal - is this the same as powdered almonds?

In point 7 of "method", does this mean a one cup? wondered if the "~" could imply a fraction?

[976bar]

Well I think they have set up blood banks and sperm banks............

I'm kinda thinking we should set up a curry base bank, where we can all choose from A negative to O group.......

And if you are in dire need then just order the base that will keep you alive!!!! LOL

Great work Mark!!

[Masala Mark]

And a pic of the Tomato Gravy paste.

Note that it does appear a little grainy in texture, I had hoped that this wouldn't be evident in the final curries when made, but it was. This is from the cashew nuts that are used in the recipe.

Depending upon how you like the texture of your curry that may not be an issue. One of our local IR's has a very grainy texture to the nut based curries, the other it is smooth and silky.

My personal preference is smooth and silky so to achieve this, I add 50-100ml of water to the paste and use a stick blender to ensure the texture is how I want. Make sure though that you go through the paste with a fork/spoon and remove any of the whole spices prior to blending.

When I have to make another batch of the pastes I will do this at the end of the process so as to not have to worry about it each time making a curry.



Here's the 3 pastes side by side...

[Panpot]

Absolutely FANTASTiC PP

[jimmy2x]

very intresting, thanks for posting these.

would this one be suitable for a vindalloo or phall?

it will be very intresting finding out the curry recipe to use these in.


nuts ehhh, maybe this is what we have been missing?

[Masala Mark]

Hi Jimmy,

I have posted the Vindaloo recipe in the BIR Dishes section under Aussie IR Lesson - Vindaloo I think was the heading.

Only the onion tomato gravy paste is used in it which is the one on the left. A combination of the tomato onion gravy paste and nut paste is used in the Madras recipe, I've posted that as well.

Don't know if it will be what has been 'missing' so to speak as these are very much what I have had here in Australia but seem to be quite different to the BIR recipes.

At first I was very skeptical of the pastes and thought I had wasted a lot of money with the chef, when he started making them. But that changed later that evening when having the dishes, and I've made 8 or by myself with them now and am wondering if I will ever go back to making a big batch of curry base that I used to do. The pastes take up way less room in the freezer and unfreeze much better then any of the base gravies that I have have tried to re-use in the past.

Cheers,
Mark

[Derek Dansak]

Hi 976bar, i am not sure about base keeping me alive lol ! but making it all the time is killing me !  ;D

[livo]

After my original mistake of using full quantity of Fenugreek leaf in my reduced quantity recipe I also found that I had read the amount of onion wrong in the OP.  No 0 in front of the .5.  Oops.

Any how I did the best I could in working out what quantities to put into a second batch to salvage it all and I've now ended up with a huge amount of absolutely delicious nutty tomato gravy.  You can eat this off a spoon straight out of the pan.  The tang of Kashmiri Chilli is great.

It isn't exactly what was in the recipe only in as much as it now has some extra onion. No problem to me.

For home cooking I would recommend only making this recipe in 1/5 quantity.

So that's the Onion Gravy and Tomato Gravy done.  Now onto the Nut Gravy and then curries for dinner.

Question.
What cashews do you use?  Raw, roasted or roasted salted?  I used the latter and cut down on salt as it was all I had.