Before you dismiss this out of hand, I know you are probably all sighing at yet another base recipe to appear, with nothing that unique in the ingredients, but have you tried this combination and method?  I urge you give it a go.

This base gives a good balanced full flavour, nothing is overpowering yet the aroma is wonderful. It has few ingredients and takes no more than two hours to make. The addition of the water at the second stage gives a good consistency and texture to the gravy.


New Base

3 large onions
4 fresh tomatoes quartered or 200 g tinned
2 medium sized potatoes quartered
3 carrots chopped
1 small green pepper chopped
1 small red pepper chopped
6 broccoli florets
6 cauliflower florets
2 dessertspoons Kasoori Methi
Small bunch fresh coriander
1 dessertspoon ginger garlic paste
2 dessertspoons Rajah mild madras curry powder
1 teaspoon Turmeric
2 teaspoons salt
1 dessertspoon sugar
1 pint oil
2 cups water
3 pints of water for second stage

Put everything in a large saucepan or stockpot and bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 30 minutes without stirring. Allow this to cool and blend to absolute smoothness.

Second stage

Return to the saucepan and add 3 pints of water, simmer for 40 minutes, don?t remove the froth.
Allow to cool and refrigerate overnight.

Hello everyone, I know I don't post that often but I must share this, I think I have twice now re-created the smell and tast of a BIR base and curry.

The recipe for the base and curry is below, I would love someone to try this, I am sure it's right there??

Oil
3 Onions
5 Fat cloves of garlic
2 Carrots
3 Fresh Tomatoes
4 New potatoes
3 Cauliflower florets
1.5 Tablespoons Kasoori  Methi
10 Sprigs of coriander including the stalks
0.5 Teaspoon of Turmeric
0.5 teaspoon Cumin
1 Teaspoon sugar
0.5 Teaspoon salt

Method:

Place into a saucepan, 5 tablespoons oil, 1 chopped onion, chopped carrots, tomatoes quartered,  new potatoes quartered, cauliflower, Methi, coriander,turmeric, cumin,sugar, salt and enough water just to cover.

Bring the vegetables to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for twenty minutes, remove from the heat and allow to cool a little then blend with a stick blender.

The important bit!

Into a blender place the remaining 2 onions chopped, garlic and a little water, blend this until smooth.

In a wok add 1 cup of oil and put it on a medium heat, add the blended onion and garlic mixture and 0.5 teaspoon of salt, cook this until the onions are starting to colour. Keep stirring this mixture, and keep tasting, do not over or under cook this.

Return the blended vegetables to the heat and add the blended onion garlic and stir it in, allow this simmer for 40 minutes.

Allow the base to cool, leave the base overnight in the fridge.

Base done!


King Prawn Madras with this base.

2 or 3 tablespoons oil
4 Raw king prawns sliced in half lengthways.
1 or more Teaspoons Pure chilli powder ( just chilli and nothing else)
0.75 Teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon paprika
1 Tablespoon Tomato puree thinned with a little water ( Ketchup consistency)
Juice of 0.5 medium lemon.
Salt

Heat the pan add the oil, add the tomato puree, add 1 ladle of base, cook for 30 or 40 seconds, add 1 ladle of base, prawns, chilli powder , paprika, salt and cumin, cook for 1 minute add another ladle of base, add the lemon juice and some coriander, cook this until the consistency you want is achieved.

Hi all,

I recently went on to the spices of india website to order some stuff, I noticed some nice recipes there and had a look. Among the ingredients were Mr Hudas basic curry paste and the recipe for the base was very simple, soooo I ordered some and made a Chicken Dhansak and a Chicken Bhuna following the recipe exactly.
I am not one for using bought paste but it sounded good. The results were the best curries I have ever made, in my opinion BIR standard, good smell good taste, without doubt worth a go.

Has anyone else tried it?

Onion

As the subject title suggests, I have a question to pose. From Lands End to John O Groats there must be thousands of BIR?s; most producing the taste and smell we are all striving for.

If the ?secret? is secret, where then do all these chefs get their recipes from, they surly are not all related and have the secrets passed down the family. The competition in Birmingham, for example, must be tremendous, no one giving any information to anyone else yet the taste and smell are all very similar.

I have not posted for a while because I am working my way through the index of base recipes; I have made 10 of them to date, all giving quite different but pleasing results, so far, Darths has been the closest to the smell I am familiar with.

So back to my question, where do the chefs go to learn their trade? Any chef who has the recipe for base sauces would not hand it over to another who could potentially open a restaurant in competition next door.

Any thoughts anyone? 

Onion

Hello all

Now you may find this interesting, last night I had a takeaway, nothing amazing there, however along with my usual Madras I also asked them for some plain mild curry sauce, with nothing in it.
I assumed this may be basically just their base sauce largely unadulterated by other ingredients.

I have spent quite some time sniffing it this morning, much to the amusement of my family who arrived in the kitchen to see my face buried in a foil container muttering to myself, we?ve all done it!

It smells and tastes very much like the sauce that is in the vegetable dish that accompanies a Biriani, anyway, I then had a sniff of the Madras sauce, stop laughing. The Madras had undertones of the same smell; it leads me to believe that indeed the plain sauce is mostly base sauce.

You could pick out several different but distinct aromas, quite veggie! I would be interested in any comments you may have about this, or perhaps next time you have a takeaway, try it.

In conclusion, I am going to try a few experiments, I have frozen the plain sauce in small amounts so I can refer to it when I am making base.

Thank you for reading my ramblings, I always get a bit daft after a curry fix. ;D

Onion

Hi everyone
I just thought I would post a couple of pics of a King prawn Madras and special fried rice, made with my base sauce recipe.

The recipe is as follows:

1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon madras curry powder
1 Teaspoon chilli powder
Juice of ? a lemon
? Teaspoon salt
Raw king Prawns (as many as you want)
4 tablespoons oil
Chopped coriander
Some base sauce (recipe for my base is on a previous post)


Mix together the spices in water until it quite loose.
Heat a wide bottomed pan and add the oil, not too hot at this stage.
Add the spice mix and very gently fry for a few minutes.
Add the prawns, raise the heat and fry until they just change colour.
Add the lemon juice and stir.
Add the base sauce and heat rapidly for a few minutes.
Add the coriander, reduce the heat and simmer gently for another few minutes until the oil come to the top.

For the rice:

In a saucepan of boiling water place 1? teaspoons salt, 5 cardamoms, 3 dried bay leaves, 4 whole cloves, and 1 piece of cassia bark.

Let this simmer for about twenty minutes.
Remove the bits and pieces from the water.
Add the basmati rice; simmer gently until the rice is a little under done.
Strain off the rice and rinse with boiling water.
Allow this to go cold; you can then splash a bit of colour around if you want.

In a wok heat a nice chunk of ghee until it is very hot.
Add a couple of large spoons of the curry base sauce.
Add the basmati rice and fry over a high heat.

Hi all
This is my first post here, it is a recipe I have developed over a period of time, I use it as base sauce, some of my friends I make this for use it as is. I hope you give it a try.

You must follow these instructions to the letter, do not deviate. If you do not follow this list or method the result will not be anywhere as good.
It takes some time to do but you get quite a lot of sauce to freeze.
While you are cooking this, make sure you stir regularly.
Yes I know it sounds odd to use tomato soup, but, you know when you attempt to replicate the restaurant style, it looks right, it smells ok, but there is something missing!! A secret ingredient perhaps! Whatever, don?t leave it out. Trust me.
Some onions contain more liquid than others, depending on how long the retailer has stored them, should the base be a little thick after blending, just thin it with a little water.
The end result is a smooth very tasty sauce that you can use as is, or you can develop your own curries.

Curry sauce

Ingredients

? pint oil
5-6 Lbs of onions (not the large Spanish ones)(It looks a lot but they reduce down)
3 green peppers
2 inches of fresh ginger
6 cloves of garlic
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 ? tins Heinz tomato soup (220gm or 1 x 400gm tin)
3 heaped teaspoons of a good quality madras curry powder. (www.Kohinoorfoods.co.uk)
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
? teaspoon chilli powder
1 ? teaspoons salt
1 desert spoon sugar

Mix the spices into a loose paste using cold water and set aside.

Chop the ginger and garlic very finely and set aside.

Chop the green peppers into 1 inch pieces and set aside.

Save about 6 onions cut them in half and slice thinly set aside.

Chop the onions coarsely and place in the hot oil, add the salt, cook the onions over a medium heat until they are reduced, soft and slightly brown. Do not allow them to burn.

Reduce the heat a bit and add the garlic and ginger, do not allow the garlic and ginger to burn. Cook this for about 20 minutes.

Add to this the spice paste you made earlier, cook this gently for twenty minutes.

Add the tinned tomatoes and continue to cook gently for 10 minutes.

Add the tomato soup and stir in.

Add the chopped peppers.

Add the sugar.

Cover and cook this gently for about 1 ? hours, a good test is when the peppers are very soft, the oil will have come to the surface. Do not be tempted to skim any off.
Whilst this is cooking, gently fry the thinly sliced onions you saved, use a wide pan and fry them until they are deeply coloured but not burnt, it is important cook them slowly to not burn them or they will impart a bitter taste to your sauce. It can take up to an hour to achieve this.
When the onions are ready, stir them into the sauce and continue to cook gently, they will impart a delicious flavour to the finished sauce.
Remove from the heat and allow this to cool for a few minutes, using a stick blender only, keep the blender below the surface do not allow the blender to suck in air. Blend this into a smooth sauce. Any other blender will add too much air into the sauce.

Your base is now ready to be used or frozen in batches, it is very nice as is, but you can add your own spices for your finished dishes according to taste.

For example, a king prawn madras, use raw king prawns, juice from ? a lemon, get the pan hot, add some oil, quickly fry the prawns until they just change colour, add some of the base sauce and heat rapidly, put in the lemon juice, stir in the chopped coriander. If you want it hotter add more chilli powder.

If you have tried this and enjoy it or there is anything you don?t understand please let me know.

Hello everyone,
I am new here, I have read most of the posts and I thought I would join and offer a few recipes.
I have been cooking curries for a number of years now and most of my friends have enjoyed them so much I wanted to share them with others, I do hope you will give them a try.

Onion