Topic: Base sauce and Chicken Jalfrezi

[jimmyja]

Base Sauce

Many thanks to Darth, Ray Graham and all who post on this web site. This base is cross between Darth?s base and the ?Balti kitchen? base.

I have documented my curry cooking events from Saturday the 11th February until Monday the 13th.
I made this base on Saturday afternoon. I cooked a korma and Jalfrezi on Sunday night; I was very hung-over on Sunday! I froze the rest bar enough base sauce for one portion. Both curries on Sunday tasted very good but both did not have the taste or smell. I did not add any fenugreek to Sundays Jalfrezi.

Monday lunchtime. I made Chicken Jalfrezi. Wow! Fantastic, it had the taste, the smell everything. I wish I had used tikka but couldn?t be bothered to make any on Saturday or Sunday.

I am so thankful to everyone on this site, without your ideas and knowledge I don?t think I could have created what I would class as a true restaurant curry in my own home. (I could make a curry but never attempted restaurant curries until November 05)

I have been a keen cook for a number of years. Over this time I have realized that control of the stove is perhaps one of the key factors whilst cooking. For example knowing exactly when to increase or to decrease the heat. When to move pans away from the heat all together and when to return. When you add spices the pan is very hot. I would quickly take the pan away from the heat stir them in and then return. I guess we all do this? Trying to document exactly what we do is difficult however I have tried my very best.   
The question I must ask myself is will it work again? On the following pages I have documented my efforts.

Base sauce Stage 1

2 ? pound?s of onion peeled and roughly chopped.
1 Bulb of garlic.
2 Ounces of ginger.
2 Green Peppers de-seeded and roughly chopped.
2 Carrots roughly chopped.
3 sticks of celery
125ml of vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon of salt.
1 Bunch of fresh coriander. Save some for final curry.
2 litres of water (Next time I will only use 1.5 litres of water) I blended all the mix however felt there was too much liquid left so chucked about a pint.

1. Blend garlic and ginger together with some of the water.

2. Add chopped onion, carrot and celery to a large pan.

3. Add blended garlic & ginger mixture, oil salt and remainder of water to pan. (Shown below)

[jimmyja]

4. Bring to the boil then simmer for a total of 1 hour 20 minutes stirring occasionally.

5. Cool then blend to smooth liquid/puree. (Shown below)

[jimmyja]

Stage 2

1. Blend half a can of tomatoes till smooth (or use a small can)

2. Add blended tomatoes to blended onion and vegetable mix.

3. Add 62.5 ml of oil.
4. Begin to heat and add 2 table spoons of tomato puree.

5. Add 1 to 2 table spoon of turmeric. I think I added two? (Shown below)

[jimmyja]

6. Bring the base sauce to a boil.

7. When boiling turn down heat to simmer and add the following.

2 desert spoon of paprika.
2 desert spoon garam-massala.
1 tea spoon of ground black pepper.

Stir and simmer for 20 minutes and switch off heat. (Shown below after the 20 minutes) I left this until Sunday night.

[jimmyja]

Chicken Jalfrezi

Method

1. Heat 4 table spoons of oil

2. Then add 5 green split chilies (I used green pickled birds eye) fry for about 30 seconds.

3. Add half a chopped onion (I sprinkled some salt to the onion while it was waiting to be cooked) and about 5 pieces of green pepper. Then when the onion and pepper had taken some heat away I added two cloves of garlic puree with some salt (this was added when pureeing the garlic) so not to burn the garlic.

4. Keep an eye on the heat to make sure it doesn?t catch and burn; keep stirring for about 2 minutes.

5. Add 1 teaspoon of special spice mix and 1 teaspoon of chili powder. (I mix the special spice mix and chili together before I start and place this on some folded paper. At this stage I have it to hand so I can through it straight in)

Special Spice mix (I found this inside a PDF on this forum)

4 Tablespoons ground coriander.
3 ? tablespoons of turmeric.
2 ? tablespoons of ground cumin.
1 Tablespoon of Paprika.
2 Tablespoons of curry powder. It said eastern star (I used what I had and it is labeled mild curry powder.

Special spice mixture, I made this up on Saturday however I only made half of the quantity. (Shown above)

[jimmyja]

I quickly moved this from the heat and stirred in the spice mix and chili. I returned the pan to a medium heat then increasing to full. Reduce heat if too hot ensuring it doesn?t catch or burn and fry for about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

6. Add about 3-4 ladle?s of base sauce and stir together. (I had the base sauce in another pan simmering) I also added about two ladles of the chicken stock.

7. At this stage I added the chicken it was cut into about 5 pieces. The chicken had been poached and was still warm. I then cooked on medium heat for about this for about 1 minute.
8. Add 1 small quartered de seeded tomato and some chopped coriander leaf. Stir gently so not to break up the tomato and simmer for another minute.

9. I then added 2 good pinchers of fenugreek, roughly scrunched together (next time I will powder) and gently stirred through for one more minute.

10. I then poured this into a serving dish and left it for about two minutes.

Result

I was going to serve this with nan bread however at stage 7 I placed it under the grill. As I was so enthralled in cooking my curry I left it under the grill with the oven door shut. I remembered this just as I poured my curry into the serving dish. Quickly switching the grill off I refused to open the door so I could smell my curry. (The smell was there)

I then opened the oven door, thick smoke and a nice burnt nan! I did manage to salvage some of the nan from the under side!

Chicken Jalfrezi (Next time I will use tikka)

[jimmyja]

I had this in a nice word document but cant post it! I have some better pictures but they are over 500kb

Hope you enjoy.

Rgds,

Jimmy

[Mark J]

Superb post, nice one Jimmy!

[micky2]

After emailing you I have just found your recipe again. Excellent , will definitley try tikka next time. thanks again
mick

[King Prawn]

What are the photos trying to show? I think you need to read the section on posting photos and try again. 

KP(V)