Topic: Succesful experiment based on Muttley's base & spiced water

[John]

I had a play at the weekend too with muttleys base, only i changed the quantity's right down to the minimum and modified,  it turned out pretty good, infact it tasted exactly the same as the base sauce that i got from a takeaway in December.
Ingredients:
1 Large Onion, 300gr unpeeled weight, peel and dice
50ml vegetable Oil
aesofetida - i tried this but it left an odd taste at back of throat (will leave out next time)
half tsp Turmeric
1 Black Caramoms
2 green Cardamoms
5 stalks of coriander - the leaves were used for the main dish
4 clove garlic - sliced thinly
1/4 of medium carrot sliced
1 small potato - sliced,  must be of the floury type, eg i used Maris Piper, wax type dont work to well, eg new potato
Method:
add oil to pan and fry black cardamom and green cardamom on low for 5mins, then add onions and turn up heat to low/medium and leave to fry for 15mins, then stir in the turmeric and add garlic,carrot,potato and coriander stalks and leave for another 10 mins, then add some water from your boiling kettle to make the mixture quite thin, then remove only the "black cardamom" and blend.
* - You will notice that the blended sauce is quite thick, this is caused by the potato and it should be watered down to make it
runny. But you will also notice that the sauce consistency is very similar to what you get at the restaurant-thick and gloopy but still runny, the only thing i can say about this recipe is that i should have used a smaller potato for the quantities, i think an inch sq potato would have been perfect.
I then used this sauce to make a madras curry with darths pre-cooked chicken, bruces spice mixture and a tsp of chilli powder.
This curry turned out realy well and the only thing i can find missing is the pre-cooked spiced onions that adds that special taste!
Thats where im looking next.....with help from my not so local takeaway and all you lot too!
Regards
John

[pete]

After watering down - how much did you get? How many meals will it make? I'm thinking of doubling up the quantities as I have large dishes.
Thanks,
CashNCurry

After watering I made five curries
Of course you need the precooked chicken,veg or prawns to go in the sauce
The lovely thing was that the sauce was so good
I think it's the combination of the long boiled sauce with the newly pureed tinned tomatoes.
I am sure you could use passata if you wanted
Several people on this site have seen this used in takeaways
Darth uses it in his recipes
I'll be doing this recipe again at the weekend

Hi John
          You're having some success too!
Something around this general recipe is right
It sounds silly, but this is such a delicate taste it is very easy to ruin with spices
Any changes I make will be subtle

[John]

After watering down - how much did you get? How many meals will it make? I'm thinking of doubling up the quantities as I have large dishes.

Pete, this made enough sauce for 2 seperate curry portions of the bir size.
----- i forgot to say that i did add tomato puree to the madras, but i felt if would be better if pureed tomatoes or passata were added instead. I have another mini base on the go as we speak, left on low simmer so i'll try more experiments tomorrow.
John

[Mark J]

Pasata rocks IMHO, all it is is pureed tomatoes with all the bits taken out (pips, pith)

[CashNCurry]

Pete, thanks for your response above. I'm going to give it a try tomorrow.

Regards,

CashNCurry

[CashNCurry]

Pete, thanks for posting your variation of the gravy above, and sorry for not getting back earlier. I did follow this recipe to the letter where possible.
I also made a Chicken Dansak, and a Chicken Korma. Basically to check the depth of quality in the sauce.

Before I give you the results. I only use Natco products. I used a very large covered Saucepan, the type you get in good Asian grocers.

Right here we go.........
First thing, I noticed after I pureed down the sauce (when luke warm), added a little more water. I noticed that it was a good colour (Orangee brown) and looked the part. It didn't have a strong aromer (which I was not expecting). However, I was more interested in the flavour.
I did not think the sauce itself is as good as my normal one, but it did produce 1 good curry.
I am off the opinion and some may argue this, that if the sauce tastes good on its own before spicing, then it is good. It should not be spicy hot and have a lot of body, and good taste, before adding to the main meals. I don't like KDs sauce because of this. I don't think it has flavour on its own. All gravy's should taste good, but not be a meal on it's own - if you get what I mean.......one sauce for all meals BIR style!

I would say your sauce fits the word quality, but lacked something. Maybe coriander or something.

I cooked a chicken Dansak (recipe on this forum) and Ghanna's Korma - both excellent in my opinion.

The chicken Dansak came out almost as good as my normal standard (I make my sauce similar to markJs) but it lack a level of spicyness. I did not want to change the recipe as I was testing your sauce. Overall it was OK.....Pete I have pictures. Email me.

The chicken Korma was not as good. I don't normally cook Korma's as they are not my ball, but I wanted to see how the sauce coped. We all know that the korma is a simple dish that is not spiced in general. The flavour being more dependent on the gravy. After adding the ingredients the Korma looked nice, because I felt it was bland, the coconut and Condensed milk overpowered the meal. Again I did not want to change the quantities.

This I think proved to me that the sauce lacked something, The dansak was powerful enough to be good with the existing spices. However, the korma was exposed and was too creamy and sweeter than normal. Almost custard like to be honest.

Using my normal sauce the balance is about right - again I don't like Korma's in general but I know what they should be like!

Pete, I think it's a good effort on your part. I might play with the sauce next time and report back. I have pictures of the meals cooked with this sauce.

Email me and I'll send you the pictures.........

Regards,

CashNCurry

? ?

 
 

[pete]

Thanks for trying it
I'm glad you had some success and avoided the temptation to change it, before an initial test.
I think it does lack a little something
Frying some garlic ginger till brown, and adding at the start might do it
I am sure that somewhere, around this recipe, is right
I have revised my thinking of BIR cooking since tasting genuine restaurant gravy
It is very nice
I wasn't expecting that
It has a subtle spiced taste with a lovely flavoured oil
Nearly everything I liked about curries (except the heat) was already there
My goal is to reproduce that base
I recently got a tip to fry a few cloves with garlic ginger, at the start of the cooking
This is never going to end, is it?
We all keep trying

[CashNCurry]

Pete,
I really think that this 3 onion version you put together worked quite well. It just seems to tell me again that it's about getting the balance and timing right, along with the heat. Adding a bit more Garlic and ginger, and maybe a touch of Coriander would help. For a scaled down quick gravy you can't go wrong, and in you case the family are happy because the smell is minimal with the casserole dish being used.

Few cloves and ginger at the start is interesting?.....do you mean at the start of the meal Or the start of the Gravy cooking?

Thanks Pete,

CashNCurry? ?

[pete]

At the start of the gravy cooking
I've not tried it yet, but will

[Mark J]

Ive tried this base and thought it was good, I did fry ginger garlic at the start until golden, I would have thought fresh coriander and a green chilli would be a good addition to the base which I will try next time I make it