Topic: Hi - Newbie here!!

[LouiseR]

Hi everyone, I've been reading this forum for the past day or two and I'm very excited to be trying a couple of the recipes tonight.

I live in Australia (originally from UK) and haven't had a decent curry in 3 years They just don't "get it" here.

Will be trying the Taz Base mix along with a Jalfrezi recipe. Struggling to find a recipe for the pre cooked chicken so if anyone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

Thanks Louise

[loveitspicy]

Hi Louise
its a great site for recipes or tweeking your own -
I have just made a Jalfrezi with Abduls base - very nice!
best, Rich

[Razor]

Hi Louise and a warm welcome to cr0.

This is one of the recipes I use for pre-cooked chicken http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4293.0

Make sure that you pick up on my comments at the end of the recipe with regards to the length of cooking.

Good luck and be sure to let us know how you get on.  Any help or advice needed, just give us a shout, we're usually a friendly lot :

Ray

[Ramirez]

Welcome to the forum, Louise.

It's worth pointing out that pre-cooked chicken is not something that I would consider essential. You're obviously going to get different (arguably better) results with pre-cooked chicken, but you can cook many of the dishes on here using raw chicken with perfectly acceptable results (I have done many times).

In addition to Ray's link above, I would also the Ashoka pre-cooked chicken: http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3916.0

Let us know how you get on.

[LouiseR]

Thanks for the welcomes guys!

I will be sure to post how I got on, I feel like I've been cooking for hours! But I suppose once I've got the base sauce down pat it will make the process so much easier.

Loving the site and Razor your posts and pictures are very very helpful so thank you. Also my husband's nickname is Razor and he's a Man Utd fan too... weird!  ;D

And with the precooked chicken, raw is fine for me but the husband is very picky with chicken and finds using raw chicken bland so I often pre cook or marinade over night. Am using the recipe you gave the link to Razor. Hope it's good, will be tucking into it in about an hour... it is Saturday night in Australia after all 

[curryhell]

Welcome Louise.  God, no decent curry for 3 years   . Now that is pretty damn serious.  It is probably the greatest incentive of them all to get stuck in to the content of this site and start producing quality BIR dishes.  Good luck and enjoy your results.  Keep us posted on how things are going.

[Peripatetic Phil]

And with the precooked chicken, raw is fine for me but the husband is very picky with chicken and finds using raw chicken bland so I often pre cook or marinade over night.

I'm with your husband here : the pre-cooking phase can add a whole extra level of flavour to the final dish, and I find that if it is omitted the end results can leave a lot to be desired.

** Phil.

P.S. Welcome to CR0 :-)

[natterjak]

I've found marinading but not pre-cooking, just cooking from raw within the final curry gives a much better texture, tender and juicy chicken instead of dry and overcooked as per standard BIR fare.

Ps welcome to the forum! 

[Peripatetic Phil]

I've found marinading but not pre-cooking, just cooking from raw within the final curry gives a much better texture, tender and juicy chicken instead of dry and overcooked as per standard BIR fare.

That is an interesting approach, NJ : can you tell us in what you marinade your chicken, and for how long ?  For myself, one additional benefit of pre-cooking is that I can then safely leave the pre-cooked chicken in the 'fridge for several days; if I were to marinade, I would probably then have to freeze the chicken, which may then not retain its texture as well.

** Phil.

[natterjak]

I marinade 1 kg of chicken at a time and keep it in the fridge, it's enough for several days and won't go off in that time. The marinade mix is below, I think it's either the same or closely related to the Ashoka marinade. Marinade for 24hrs +

4tsp garlic and ginger paste
1tsp salt
1 tsp haldi
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp mix powder
1 tbs tomato puree.

This recipe is via CR0 user chinois chef. In this method you would add the chicken directly after you add spices and tomato puree at the start of the final curry prep. It's probably less convenient than using pre cooked chicken because you have to then cook the dish for long enough to cook the chicken through but the results are far superior to using pre cooked meat IMHO.