Hullo!

Having made a few curry bases from the site, knowing what's in them, and seeing the directions usually specify the taste as something like a mildly spiced soup (and consistency not far off a perhaps more watery soup), I was just wondering if, at a push, any of you would consider knocking up a quick curry base by lightly spicing a can of soup, watering it down a bit and liquidizing? Haven't tried it myself. Just looked on Heinz web site briefly to see if I could find one that had roughly the right ingredients in roughly the right quantities (couldn't see one). Anyway, in theory, what do you think?  :-)  Obviously we're not going for BIR authenticity here, just perhaps in a rush, but wanting to use BIR recipes without making a big base type scenario.


Richard.

From reading many of the posts on the forum, I get the impression that perhaps the majority of the posters use bought garam masala instead of making their own? Just wondering what the most popular types are, or from the people who make their own what recipes they use.

Garam Masala was probably the first Indian spice I bought, before I actually got into cooking curries, just to see what it was like because I knew the name, but when I got into cooking, my first book was a Pat Chapman one which recommended making your own GM, which I duly did, expanding my spice rack about fifteenfold in the process. I'm thinking about chucking what's left of it now and making some fresh stuff, as I've been using it for a good few months and there's still a fair bit left, and I'd like to try something else and make use of some more of the whole spices I bought previously before they get too old.

Something that's interested me when reading GM recipes though is whether or not to leave the cardamom pods in when grinding the ingredients up. Some recipes have said to leave the pods in, but most have said just use the seeds.

I was thinking about trying the GM recipe from the Shish Mahal cook book, which is quite a simple one (only four or five spices I think).

Cheers,


Richard.

I seem to remember reading somewhere in the recesses of the forum about folk extolling the virtues of pre-cooking onions, I think for use in the actual curry cooking process (can't quite remember). Any thoughts on this?

Richard.