Topic: My 1st post

[d14ryl]

Hi all.

This is the first time i have posted on the site although i have been browsing it for a couple of months or so. My aim at the end of the day is like most people to re-create BIR style curries (madras and vindaloo minus the potato). I am going to need support in reaching my goal as i am novice in the kitchen. I am 22 and haven't gained any skills at cooking from scratch throughout my life so this will be an achievement if i get it right. I'll probably post again in the next few days or so when i get all my ingredients together to ask for some advice if thats ok. Thins that are a pain for me is that my mum also doesn't cook from scratch a lot so we are missing equipment such as a blender.....will this make the job of making a BIR style curry extremely difficult when it comes to making a base sauce for example? For now i thought i would attach a pic of a curry (ch. vindaloo) that i had tonight from a restaurant in Edinburgh. As a lot of people have experienced, the vindaloo i had tonight was different from that served on other occasions, this one tasted like it had a lot more garlic through it than usual and was ever so slightly milder. Hopefully i can get mine looking something like this

[DeeDee]

Hello and welcome fellow newbie!

Apart from a cheery hello all I was going to say is that I'd be sunk without the blender.  The "wise ones" may know better than me but I think it's a "must have item".

Cheers!

DeeDee

[Mark J]

Hi Folks,

You must have some method of pureeing the base sauce to achieve the texture, be it a blender (hand will do) or food processor. You can get a hand blender for ?5 from argos these days and it will suffice (I use a full size blender which cost me around ?60 as I recall and it purees like nobodys business  ;D)

[Yellow Fingers]

Hi d14ryl

Always nice to see new people posting, especially when they include photos!? ?

What are those black bits in the vindaloo?

For blending the base sauce, which is a must to achieve the restaurant style smoothness, your best bet is a hand blender. Like MarkJ said, they are really cheap. They are best for this bit because you can blend immediately in the pot you made the base in if you want to, while it's still hot. To do this in a jug blender is a nightmare. You risk blatting the contents all over yourself and the jug blenders can't blend all the base in one go, so it's a complete faff.

If you get one that comes with a matching 'beaker' you can also blend relatively small amounts of garlic/ginger with a bit of water to a puree. Obviously you can also blend canned toms and the like with it too. For starting out a hand blender is pretty much all you need and they're dirt cheap. Get a jug blender/food processor when you've progressed a bit in your cooking, because a decent one is fairly expensive.

[Mark J]

YF, I must say I prefer my full size blender at the moment, its got a huge capacity (1.5 litres) and it gets the base sauce smoother than my hand blender, also my latest base only makes about 600ml in one go anyway 

[DARTHPHALL]

I go for a cheep Frigidaire hand blender (?5.99 at Curry`s, no pun intended  ) & see how you go (mines lasted 3 years so far  ).
DARTHPHALL..... .....

[raygraham]

Hi All,

My local take-away use a massive hand blender which is about as big as an outboard motor and sounds like Concorde taking off. They make short work of the 20 gallons they seem to make at any one time.
I use a full size blender when I feel lazy and a hand blender from Netto (?6) when I want to take my frustrations out on something. I usually end up with half of it down my shirt!

Ray

[d14ryl]

thanks for the replies. ok, i have got myself a cheapo Cookworks hand blender from Argos for ?4.99 (cheers Mark J) which i thought, is a fair price for anything these days. i ain't used it yet as i don't have all the ingrdients i need although as soon as i am confident i will go out and get em.

i got a few questions regarding the base sauce. is the same base sauce used for all curries...ie. does a chef use the same base in a korma as in a vindaloo? i don't really understand why a base is used as i would have thought it just dried up in cooking. i think the base i shall be attempting is the kris dhillon version....here is stage two from the process that i think pete may have posted.

Once cooled, pour half the boiled onion mixture into a blender and blend until perfectly smooth. Absolute smoothness is essential. To be certain, blend for at least two minutes. Pour the blended onion mixture into a clean pan or bowl and repeat with the other half of the boiled onion mixture.
Wash and dry the saucepan. Reserve about four tablespoons of the sauce at this stage to use in cooking the chicken and lamb.
Freezing. Freezing is best done at this stage.

can someone explain to me why four tablespoons would be reserved please....is it solely for pre-cooking the chicken or is it for use when i go to producing the actual curry?? ?with regards to the freezing stage....i feel stupid but i don't know why you would freeze at this point when u still have stage 3 to go?? i hope my questions make sense?

YellowFingers: The black bits in the curry are more like dark green shreds of something that i have seen used in curries before but i have not a clue what it is. I would have thought they were Fenugreek leaves but since i have never even seen them before that was a wild guess!? btw, why do all the major supermarkets not stock Fenugreek/Methi?

cheers guys n gals
 

[Mark J]

Hi Mate

i got a few questions regarding the base sauce. is the same base sauce used for all curries...ie. does a chef use the same base in a korma as in a vindaloo? i don't really understand why a base is used as i would have thought it just dried up in cooking. i think the base i shall be attempting is the kris dhillon version....here is stage two from the process that i think pete may have posted.

Generally they have 1 base for the onion dishes (dopiaza, balti, madras, vindaloo etc) and one base for the creamy dishes (korma, pasanda etc), they do this as it makes cooking the final dishes very quick

can someone explain to me why four tablespoons would be reserved please....is it solely for pre-cooking the chicken or is it for use when i go to producing the actual curry?   with regards to the freezing stage....i feel stupid but i don't know why you would freeze at this point when u still have stage 3 to go?  i hope my questions make sense 

Its because the meat pre cook method uses some of this sauce, so yes purely for the pre cook meat
Freezing - I agree waste of time, do the final stage and then freeze, Ive done this with no ill effects

YellowFingers: The black bits in the curry are more like dark green shreds of something that i have seen used in curries before but i have not a clue what it is. I would have thought they were Fenugreek leaves but since i have never even seen them before that was a wild guess!  btw, why do all the major supermarkets not stock Fenugreek/Methi?

Either coriander, methi leaves (most likely) or mint (unlikely). Methi is hard to get outside of asian grocers, plenty of online places sell it though

[Yellow Fingers]

does a chef use the same base in a korma as in a vindaloo?

Until today I would have said yes, but I've just got the Kushi balti book which uses a separate base sauce. The same base is used for every other curry though. George, who posts here, claims to have made a passable restaurant style korma with standard base sauce though. I'd refer you to the thread but I can't find it.

i don't really understand why a base is used as i would have thought it just dried up in cooking

Don't really understand what your saying there. The base provides most of the liquid in the curry, it does reduce while your cooking but it doesn't dry up.

can someone explain to me why four tablespoons would be reserved please

It's meant to be just for pre-cooking the meat, but don't waste it, just pop what's left after you remove the meat back into the base sauce pot, assuming you're not feeding vegetarians that is.


The freezing is suggested at stage three because the spices are added after this and if you loose anything in the freezing process it will be the strength and potency of these. As I've said before I've frozen the finished base and it doesn't seem to lose all that much even after a couple of months.

I think you're right about the methi in the vindaloo. It must have been put in whole, very unusual!