Topic: Base from Zaal Restaurant in Fleet

[PaulP]

Looking great there Gary. What's the secret - that you are a vegetarian or that you only eat hard boiled egg curries?  The colour looks great compared to my brown curries but I guess that's due to the phal levels of chilli powder.

I've had some delicious curries (about 30 years ago) served with half a boiled egg and it goes quite well with a curry sauce.

Cheers,

Paul

[Salvador Dhali]

Gary

I have to say that looks utterly fantastic. The sauce really does looks perfect.

How do you feel your your first Zaal dish measures up to your favourite restaurant?

Thanks

You're too kind, Solarsplace. It's far from perfect as it was all thrown together in a hurry, and I didn't reduce the sauce down enough (and had to use frozen instead of fresh coriander), but the flavour was (if I say so myself), superb.

As to how it measures up to my favourite restaurant, well that's up in Scotland (more than one, favourite, too) and I've yet to find (or make) anything that compares, but it's at least as good as the BIRs I use down south. And I'm hoping tonights more carefully constructed super-singed meat vindaloo will be better!

Looking great there Gary. What's the secret - that you are a vegetarian or that you only eat hard boiled egg curries?  The colour looks great compared to my brown curries but I guess that's due to the phal levels of chilli powder.

I've had some delicious curries (about 30 years ago) served with half a boiled egg and it goes quite well with a curry sauce.

Cheers,

Paul

I was a vegetarian between the age of 14 and 20, Paul, but haven't been for the last 34 years. That said I LOVE southern Indian vegetarian cuisine. Some of it can be incendiary hot though (I remember one dish that used 30 whole green chillies... )

Although there's a chef's spoon (2 tbsp in the case of my spoon) of deggi mirch in that sauce, a good portion of the colour is down to the levels of tomato paste (a generous chef's spoon, or 2.5 - 3tbsp, diluted approx. 1:4)...

Nice lookin curry. Looks like my madras i made the other day  ;D

Cant beat an egg curry 

Thanks, DalPuri. Great to find another afficiando of the egg curry!

[curryhell]

Okay, to get this back on topic, here's my attempt at the Zaal base in the final stages (before oil separation - I couldn't wait...).

All is currently promising. It has a good level of sweetness, is mildly spiced, and is what I'd call a well balanced base.

Tonight I shall attempt to out-singe Solarsplace in the vindaloo stakes!

[

Base looks spot on mate.  Doubt whether you'll out-singe Solarsplace though.  Glad to hear about the level of sweetness because our base at Zaals definitely had that ;D

[curryhell]

Well, it's my turn to have a crack at Az's base.  Did the ginger garlic mix and garam masala last night and made up  the mix powder this morning.  Think i've now got enough mix powder for the next month at least ;D.  Got to say the garam smells good and the mp divine :  The big pot is on the stove as i type and with the little one of bay, cassia and cardamons bubbling away.   I will update the post as things progress

[ELW]

Just made a 5 ltr version minus the ghee as i had none. gave the spices the treatment before adding the blended tomatoes. Similar to Kushi base method, but I prefer this due to the higher GG. 3rd time using the same batch of whole spices, (new bay as I have plenty), with little or no loss in flavour. House smells great for a change  ;D

ELW

[curryhell]

Just made a 5 ltr version minus the ghee as i had none. gave the spices the treatment before adding the blended tomatoes. Similar to Kushi base method, but I prefer this due to the higher GG. 3rd time using the same batch of whole spices, (new bay as I have plenty), with little or no loss in flavour. House smells great for a change  ;D

ELW

Nice one ELW.  Looking forward to using this later with a nice phall.  Will be interesting to see how it compares to what i cooked at Az's since everything is as close as i can get it to spec, no exceptions other than having the master here supervising proceedings ;D.  Hopefully, it'll be nearly as good  if not the same .  And that little pot is creating such a lovely smell in the kitchen and i'm sure it will add a lovely fragrance to the gravy when added.

[Salvador Dhali]

Just made a 5 ltr version minus the ghee as i had none. gave the spices the treatment before adding the blended tomatoes. Similar to Kushi base method, but I prefer this due to the higher GG. 3rd time using the same batch of whole spices, (new bay as I have plenty), with little or no loss in flavour. House smells great for a change  ;D

ELW

Nice one ELW.  Looking forward to using this later with a nice phall.  Will be interesting to see how it compares to what i cooked at Az's since everything is as close as i can get it to spec, no exceptions other than having the master here supervising proceedings ;D.  Hopefully, it'll be nearly as good  if not the same .  And that little pot is creating such a lovely smell in the kitchen and i'm sure it will add a lovely fragrance to the gravy when added.

Be interesting to hear how you chaps get on with it. Having cooked with it solidly for the last 10 days or so I now rank it among my favourite bases. So much so that I've just made another batch (albeit a slightly scaled down version).

With this one when it came to stage two I made sure there was some nice colour to the garlic, then essentially replicated the singe process used when making a curry (though not quite as hard) with the spices and blended tomato, followed by a good 10 minute simmer before adding to the pan and blending the whole.

I've just had a taste, and even though I say so myself it's bloody gorgeous. I could cheerfully eat a bowl of it on its own as a soup.

 

[curryhell]

I'm hoping mine turns out just as good SD.  How you describe stage 2 is exactly how we did it at Zaal.  The ginger/garlic had a good colour and yet again the spices were singed and when the pureed tomatoes were added to quench everything and given a good stiring i had a very good pan of flames ;D which was cooked for about 5 mins before being added to the other pot.  Not sure if Solarsplace got this flaming pan on vid or not :

[ELW]

I've just had a taste, and even though I say so myself it's bloody gorgeous. I could cheerfully eat a bowl of it on its own as a soup.

It tastes great on it's own, I was thinking  Mothers Pride outsiders would go down well with this little batch & make some curries other day.  I can't walk past the pot without havin a final taste check & nod of the head!

ELW

[curryhell]

  they still do Mother's Pride ;D.  Just blended the onions etc.  Nice and sweet ;D  So far so good.  On with the singe and final bit