Topic: JB's chicken madras

[jb]

(As taught on my recent cookery lessons)

Ingredients
---------------

pre cooked chicken(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4972.0)
2 ladles of Base sauce(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4909.0)
1 tablespoon Mix Powder(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4908.0)
1 ladle of spiced oil
1 tablespoon garlic/ginger paste
1 teaspoon chili powder
Coriander
lemon juice
dried methi leaves
pinch of salt

Heat pan on a medium heat and add the oil and ginger/garlic paste.Stir around briefly and then add the mix powder,chili,salt and methi leaves.Also add at this stage 1/2 ladle of base sauce to stop it burning.Cook this for a couple of minutes.Then add the chicken and the rest of the base sauce.Leave until the chicken is cooked through,add the lemon juice and finish with coriander.



The chef told me a basic chicken curry is exactly the same recipe minus the lemon and chili powder.Nothing more....I was surprised at this but he was quite adamant that only these two ingredients are added for a madras.Furthermore a vindaloo is the same apart from more chili and some pre cooked potato.He seemed to think it was quite amusing that I thought there should be some secret ingredient to go from a basic curry to a madras!!! By the way I used fresh lemon but in his restaurant he uses a bottled lemon dressing.

[Unclefrank]

Thanks again jb for posting these recipes...
Just one question what spiced oil recipe are you using ?
Thanks.

[jb]

It was the oil that I skimmed from the top of my gravy.

[chriswg]

Hi JB

Great posts again, thanks so much for sharing.

When the chef cooked this, did it have the restaurant taste you were looking for? Were you able to recreate it? The recipe looks to be fairly standard for a Madras, the spice mix is similar to most on here, and the base is pretty similar apart from the lemon and potato. Where do you think the extra taste came from? I assumed it came from perfectly balancing the frying of the garlic and the spices so they are cooked but not burnt, in this recipe adding the base sauce so quickly would prevent them from frying for long enough. Was there anything in his cooking method that you did differently before the lessons? i.e. leaving the pan on the heat for a long time without stirring, or using the scrape back method to keep bringing the hard bits from round the side of the pan into the sauce?

If he got the taste with this recipe then there must be something blindingly obvious that we are missing.

Thanks
Chris

[Domi]

It's quite similar to Dip's madras (more G&G and the use of spiced oil in this one) which has become my preferred method for madras though I use Razor's base....fantastic results every time, even when cooking with a cold pan to start...I use more chilli powder than this recipe for madras though, approx 1 tblsp.

[jb]

It was not far off from my local takeaway.I'm convinced that oil plays a major part in the flavour,the one from my takeaway has a lot more oil(and more unhealthy I suppose)but it has a fantastic flavour.

[JerryM]

the absence of tom puree in the recipe is sort of pleasing although i'm not convinced on not using any at all.

i've been on quite a few TA's over the last few months whilst i've not been cooking and felt they use far less tom puree than CRO recipes suggest (1 tsp).

[976bar]

the absence of tom puree in the recipe is sort of pleasing although i'm not convinced on not using any at all.

i've been on quite a few TA's over the last few months whilst i've not been cooking and felt they use far less tom puree than CRO recipes suggest (1 tsp).

I'm beginning to think you are right here Jerry. I started using even more tomato puree as I thought it was a lack of it that was giving me bland results, but I now think that too much tomato puree overpowers the taste from the spices.

I've got some chicken tikka on the go and will try a madras this weekend using this recipe I think, but as you say only 1 tsp tomato puree.

I'll let you all know how it goes with pictures of course

[JerryM]

976bar,

i too would like to use this recipe as a control to compare tom puree - i'm thinking 1/2 tsp max for curry main dishes ie chicken madras.

i do kind of feel i've already tried this recipe "ingredients" over time but the leaving out of tom puree alltogether is not something i've tried. for plain curry sauce i remain an out and out user of Secret Santa's chilli sauce - this for me works really well c/w to BIR yet effectively contains quite a lot of tom puree in each portion.

the use and amount of tom puree must therefore be dish related as opposed to a std amount in all (which is what i've done in the past ie 1 tsp in all).

[Unclefrank]

It was the oil that I skimmed from the top of my gravy.

Thanks jb.