3 Hour Curry Base

[Temesta]

That certainly accords with my recollections of good BIRs of the late sixties and early seventies.  In those days, one sure way of telling the good from the not-so-good was that in the good BIRs, the sauce with a lamb curry (any variant) had a distinctly lamb-ey flavour, whilst the not-so-good simply had a generic curry flavour.

** Phil.

I've actually never been to an indian restaurant in the UK. I am from Belgium and indian food is still fairly unknown for most people here. In the larger cities, there are indian restaurants, but the quality is often moderate. However, I have a good feeling of what to expect of an authentic BIR. A couple of years ago, I started with making authentic indian curries. I bought a lot of books but I was still unable to replicate restaurant food and full flavor curries. After few years of experimenting, I finally got it right. Thanks to this website, I managed to make my curries perfect.

Anyways, the trick with adding a bone for extra flavor is just some basic knowledge about cooking. It's something you should consider when making any sauce or soup.

[chewytikka]

Hi Temesta
Thanks for posting
Glad you had a result with this recipe.
Be interesting to know what final curries you make with it and how they turn out.
cheers Chewy

[Temesta]

Hi Temesta
Thanks for posting
Glad you had a result with this recipe.
Be interesting to know what final curries you make with it and how they turn out.
cheers Chewy

I tried CA's madras chicken :
https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3830.0

However, I did it with lamb meat and ghee. I tend to do 50% ghee and 50% spiced oil.
Actually, I'm a bit surprised that Ghee is left out on many many recipes on this forum. Ghee is just
something that also adds a lot of flavour to the final product.

[mydigitalvoid]

Hello Chewy,

I just made this over the weekend and I think I did pretty okay (I'm still new to cooking Indian food).  I actually think I made it a bit thick, but I used it for the Aloo and it came out really nicely.  I ended up doing the first cook for about 2 hours and the second cook for about 1.5 hours.  One question I do have though is about the onions.  What type does people use?  I couldn't find any mention of specific types, but they look like Medium Sweet Onions, so that's what I ended up using.

Thanks again!

Dv

[chef888]

Hi All
I usually do my 1hr pressure cooker base, which is here
https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5606.0
But for people without a pressure cooker, here's the 3hr version.

"http://player.vimeo.com/video/21104829"

just joined as a new member yours is the 1st vid and recipe i have viewd looks a great base sauce m8 think i,ll give that ago my self ty

[chewytikka]

Hi Dv
Sorry I missed your post and welcome to cR0.
With regard to the onions, I buy a sack at the Asian store, always the cheapest.
No idea where they come from but probably Dutch or British.
Have used all kinds of onions in the past, some are sweeter than others, but these
recipes/methods produce consistant results, whichever I use.

chef888
Welcome to the forum, hope you enjoy the recipes.

cheers Chewy

[gary]

Hi Chewy,

I've made this base and followed everything as closely as possible i.e. no additions or things left out.

I was wondering about the oil separation part - I've boiled and boiled, in the end for about 2 hours after blending/sieving, and all I get is a sheen of minute oily droplets on top, not the pooling of oil you have on the video.

Have you (or anyone else who's made the base) experienced this?

I know there are threads on oil separation, but I wondered how it might affect this particular base and the dishes created form it, if you cant achieve that pooling oil separation?

I don't want to boil it any more as it's going to end up as a puree, unless i keep topping up with water

Ta

Gary

[CardiffCurrylad]

Hi chewy, I made your base a couple of weeks ago and it was fantastic I also froze enough to make 4 other dishes which I knocked up on Saturday which were Madras, bhuna, jalfrezi & rogan josh. When I work out how to download the pic's to this site I will inbox you, Rob.

[bmouthboyo]

OK so about to know one of these highly recommended bases up and wanted to check I have wrote this recipe up so I can get as close to chewwies base as possible.

200ml       Vegetable oil
2 Kg      Onions
1       Medium carrot.
1       Large bulb of Garlic.
3 inch       Fresh ginger.
?       Medium white cabbage.
1      Medium green capsicum.
1tbsp       Salt.
3 litres       Water
Handful    Fresh coriander & stalks.
4 tbsp      Tomato paste or ? Chefs spoon.
3 tbsp      Spice Mix (for a stronger flavoured base)

Spice Mix
2 tsp       Madras Curry Powder
2 tsp       Turmeric Powder
1 tsp       Coriander Powder
1 tsp       Cumin Powder
1 tsp       Kashmiri Chilli Powder
? tsp       Garam Masala or Kitchen King

METHOD:
1.   Wash and coarsely chop all ingredients EXCEPT ONIONS.
2.   Place all ingredients (except the tomato paste and spice mix) in a large saucepan
3.   Cover the pan and bring to a medium simmer
4.   Simmer for 2 ?  hours (30 min if using pressure cooker)
5.   Add Spice mix and Tomato paste
6.   High Simmer for a further 10-15 minutes
7.   Blend to a soup-like consistency when sufficiently cool
8.   Sieve base
9.   Simmer for 20 minutes, adding water to make Passata consistency.
10.   Clear scum from surface

Sound right?

[PaulP]

Hi BMB,

That looks about right. Just one thing, I think this base needs a finished volume of about 5.5 to 6 litres to get the consistency right. Just make sure you have a big enough stock pot. And it can get a bit messy forcing it through a sieve into a second pot.

IMO this is a very good base recipe and I believe the sieving improves the base a lot despite the mess and effort.

Cheers,

Paul