Ok, so one or two of you may recall me making reference to me toying with the idea of a base "paste"?
Now, I'm not going to post a recipe here at the moment because it is still a work in progress but I thought I'd share with you my progress so far.
Just to give a background. The idea came from having a bit of a row with the much better half. She was livid that I had filled up the whole bottom compartment of the freezer with my base sauce (just made the 14 litre version) and to use the very articulate words of Shaun Ryder I "kettled er swede" or, done her head in, for those not familiar with Mancunian slang, lol.
Now, as much as I love making curries, I've got to admit, I don't always enjoy making all the precooked stuff, especially the base
It proper pecks mi yed in(more Manc slang). The storing of it alone, can be a nightmare! So, I thought of the idea of creating a base, that is so concentrated in flavour, I could get away with using very little of it, and increase the liquid volume at dish stage by simply adding water.
So, this weekend gone, I made a very loose version of Panpots Ashoka bunjarra, not quite sticking to the quantities as such but mostly followed the method. At the end, I took out the cinnamon stick and bay leaf, and gave it a good blitzing in the food processor (not part of the original method).
Giving the bunjarra a little taste, I thought 'wow, that's quite strong!' Very oniony, as you would expect, very savoury, quite sweet and a wonderful after taste, infact, every element that I look for in a BIR curry!
Tonight, I thought I would give this bunjarra a bit of a "prototype" status, and try it out as a starting point for my experiment. I made my standard Chicken Jal Frezi, using precooked peppers and onions. At the stage whereby I usually add the first 100ml of my base, I added 1 heaped chef's spoon of the bunjarra (4 tbsp) and 100ml of hot water. I gave this a good stir to mix the paste and water, and then proceeded with the next 100ml followed by the last 100ml of water. I cooked this off until I had my desired consistency.
I can, hand on heart, tell you, that it was wonderful, really really surprised how well it turned out. My only gripe, not enough salt easily sorted though.
This has confirmed to me that, I can create a paste, that will give me the exact same result as using my base with the added bonus of not gettin it in the neck of Mrs Razor for robbin all the freezer space. ;D
Phase 2 will be, cooking my next batch of base using absolutely no water whatsoever but slowly frying everything until soft, then blitzing. I will keep all the other ingredients exactly the same but I will not apply the "two pan" technique as I know for sure that It won't be necessary.
Hopefully, I will post back at the weekend with a full recipe including step by step pictures, as done in my original base recipe.
Any hints, tips or advice at this stage, would be truly welcomed.
Ray
Topic: Interesting Development! (Read 30588 times)
