First off I am not here to criticize those who eat meat and any that do make an argument for or against on that topic are simply disrespecting this website and what it?s here for.  I was a vegetarian for six years but then included fish in my diet for the following 11 which brings me to today.

Point being is that tonight I had yet another takeaway prawn masala after making many personal attempts at masala/vindaloo/phall which is supposedly simpler than other BIR dishes. I have watched videos referenced from here, read almost all posts now and kept a wide open mind on why restaurant flavour is generally better and now I am sure I know.

When you stop eating meat a few things happen, firstly you fart more (yes really,) but aside the various other non-relevant differences you  1. Need considerably less salt and 2. Very much notice the difference between a meat and a non-meat product.
Hence I just had a moment of clarity regarding the base sauce and that is I have been stupidly naive by crediting this hard to master cocktail possible by using vegetables alone.

Any flavour this resonant has to be meat influenced and is most probably some kind of chicken stock as suspected in several posts. Meat eaters won?t see this anywhere near as easily and although many may argue the point you simply won?t understand unless you cease all meat consumption for about 3 months.)

Therefore I will now stop beating myself up over apparent failures as the answer was there all along, the hard-core members here always claim to be so close yet so far, the restaurants never want to give you the "curry gravy" and never show you the basic basics because although they aren't worried about you starting your own curry house they are very worried they will get fined over using meat additives in non-meat dishes.
I am sitting here smelling the after effects of my prawn masala and realising I just didn?t want to admit that its red meat/poultry based to myself because that of course means I won?t be ordering any more

Hi Guys

Great discussion points

Have myself recently started adding 3 of these stock cubes to a standard size (but slightly modified CA base):



For me, the results have been superb. This takes my previous very good Madras dishes to a new level of 'moorishness' (is that a real word?) never previously attained.

Will continue to use stock from now on. I am a believer! as also mentioned in this thread where I got some base gravy from my local TA, their sauce had almost certainly been stocked with what I believed to be Chicken (https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4851.0).

Cheers all

Great post Prawnsalad, I too have been on and off vegetarian including no fish. For the last four months I returned to non meat eating. It certainly limits the range of dishes but not the ultimate flavours IMHO. I have to say too that all my comments recognise regional variation but I disagree about the addition of meat based stocks. I know many will not be convinced but when I visited The Ashoka I witnessed the entire process of the base sauce being cooked then used in dishes. At no time was any stock or meat added. When folks here still feel they are short on BIR standard I have to wonder if they have used as per the recipes both the Pre cooked G/G Paste and Bunjarra. These two breakthroughs deliver consistently the missing piece for me after over 30 years of searching. I also agree that you don't need salt once you become veggie and your palet adjusts. For what it is worth though sticking in meat pieces to pre cook while the base sauce is being made is something I have done just to save time and space on the cooker but I don't feel it adds anything significant to the flavour. Hope the debate continues once again great post,thanks PP

My own take on this is I believe that if BIRs were regularly using chicken stock in their bases we'd have heard about it by now. That's not to say that some don't as I don't think any individual can evidence this one way or the other, so I have to be open to the possibility that some do. But in doing so I would have the view that it represents a variations in ingerdients between establishments.

As Panpot knows I have been a supporter of the "trilogy" of recipes that make up the Ashoka approach ever since he made what I consider to be ground breaking progress on behalf of this forum. Yes being Scottish and familiar with Ashoka style curries has something to do with it, but it also because I have followed his recipes and in my opinion they produce excellent curries, without the help of Knorr.

I also think that some BIRs do use meat stock and some probably don't. Not good news for vegetarians I know! Some BIRs probably also use oil that has been used to pre-cook chicken and then reuse this oil in their base sauces.

I'm prepared to give it a go personally as my curries have already improved over the last few months particularly through the use of spiced oil and onion paste.

I also really must try the Ashoka combination as well. It is just the thought of spending at least 45 mins or an hour getting those onions nicely browned that has put me off so far.

Cheers,

Paul