Apparently my small house stinks of curry although I only notice in kitchen!

Had some visitors at the door asking if I've been cooking curry, although might have been 3-4 days since!

I can't smell it but daughter complaining that her clothes smell.

Anyway to the point; any recommendations to eliminate/minimise the curry smell?

Got 3 x plug in air fresheners throughout the house but obviously not working well enough.

Apologies if this has been posted previously but couldn't find it via search.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Curry

Some funny ones 

Had a crack at this last night.  I've not got round to making CBM's mix powder and gravy yet so used up last of CA's (new) combination.  Not got butter ghee yet.

Very nice too accompanied by CA's naan and pilau.

I'm out of tomato paste and want to use up some tins of tomatoes, so thought I'd switch them for as an experiment.

Do you think I'd need to water the blended tomatoes down, as recommended when using tomato paste/puree?

I've had all sorts of trouble making decent naan breads but finally I achieved it.

I used CA's (new) recipe.

A few weeks back I made a rather hot curry, with about 3 hpd tsps of chilli powder in.  It was particularly nice and flavoursome but not blisteringly hot.

The next day I suffered all morning with the dreaded ROF and some stomach cramps.

Is that telling me such a hot curry doesn't suit me or is it indicative of not cooking it properly?  It didn't taste bitter at all and as I said it was nice, and one of my better efforts.

I don't recall suffering to the same degree with previous efforts or after a takeaway although heartburn is a common side-effect for me; although not present after this one.

For those that dice/chop chicken breast fillets for their curries, do you use the tenderloins as well?  If so do you leave the tendon in?

I normally try to remove the tendon, albeit not very effectively and it normally leaves a thin, stringy, unappetising piece of chicken.  Never sure whether to use or not.

Recent attempt at CA's Jalfrezi which turned out very good!

Overdid the food colouring a tad.

Messed up naan by rolling too thin.

http://groceries.asda.com/asda-estore/search/searchcontainer.jsp?trailSize=1&searchString=curry+oil&domainName=Products&headerVersion=v1&_requestid=269194

Anyone tried something like this in lieu of regular vegetable oil?

Might be worth a punt.

http://www.pataks.co.uk/recipes/chicken-chilli-masala.aspx

I used to make this before I joined the forum and I knew no better!!  To my untrained palette it was perfectly edible still expect to be so, although not as tasty as my efforts.

However, every time I open my fridge I see the hallf empty jars of Madras paste and tikka masala paste, so I'm determined to finish them off my making this dish a few more times.

If you were compelled to do likewise, what would you add to improve the dish?

I thought maybe tsp garlic/ginger, tsp mix powder and tsp of Mr Naga would enhance it.

Appreciate your thoughts.

OK Newbie alert!

How long do you typically boil your potatoes for when pre-cooking for a saag aloo or bombay potato?

Heard the expressions until 'just cooked through' and 'until tender' are they one and the same thing? 

Don't want to overcook them but do not want them too hard in final dish.

Anyone e tried the shop bought stuff?

Thought about trialling it in lieu of regular oil and garlic paste.

A few questions about this stuff!

When is it normally added to the curry?

Would it normally replace all or some of the chilli powder?

How much do people add?

I appreciate everyone will be different and have different tolerances but interested in how it is used.

I do like a hot curry but don't want to overdo it  ;D

Anyone recommend a site for buying some reasonable cases of white wines?

An awful lot offer 'discount' wines but so many to sift through so thought I'd ask in here.

I asked the question in another thread about the subject matter.

FWIW I have always pre-cooked as I got the impression when I started out recently that this needed to be done.

Now that is obviously not the case and is more of a personal preference.

When I see a method for pre-cooking it always asks to cook the chicken until (at least) just done.

Why is it necessary to fully cook the chicken when it is getting thrown in a subsequent curry and cooked/warmed again?

To avoid overcooking would it not make more sense to partially cook the chicken?

I've seen a few methods for handling this but wondered whether the type of dish ashould affect the chosen method for reheating.

Got some friends coming round so need to cook 4 curries.  I'm thinking of cooking and chilling a couple of jalfrezis containing onions, peppers, whole chillis and toms.  I might chill the day before or 6-8 hrs before reheating.

Inclined to reheat in oven on 140C (fan) in closed foil containers for maybe 20 mins until chicken is hot enough.  At same time I can be cooking the 2 other fresh CTMs and sorting other stuff out.

How would you guys go about this?

Dave

Got myself some Rajah Crushed Red Chillis.  The packet doesn't indicate the strength of the chillis so I assume they must be medium.

Are these normally used for extra heat or as a replacement for chilli powder?

When are they normally added to a dish or does it not matter?

What sort of quantity is typically used? For example would I see much of a kick if I added 1tbsp to a madras for example?

Thanks.

Dave

Am I right in thinking these are considered the same.  I've been using double concentrate supermarket puree, but nearly all recipes call for tomato paste.

If a recipe calls for 2tbsp of tomato paste for example does that include  the water added to dilute the paste or not? Confusing to me as some suggest anywhere from 1:1 to 1:4 mix.

Obviously the following is crystal clear but not all instructions are :-

Quote2 tablespoons of tomato paste (diluted by adding 4 tablespoons of water to it)

Is it ok to reheat from frozen in a saucepan without defrosting in a fridge overnight?

Sometimes I forget to take it out the freezer the day before!

When I started on my BIR a few weeks ago, I used the following Mix Powder, all from 'Rajah'.

8 tsp of turmeric powder
6 tsp of (mild) curry powder
5 tsp of coriander powder
4 tsp of cumin powder
2 tsp of garlic powder
2 tsp of garam masala
1 tsp of ginger powder

I have a huge container of this stuff I want to use up, so I want to know whether this Mix Powder will work (reasonably) well with any particular recipes/base gravys on this site.  I need to do a new batch of base gravy soon but have not yet decided on which one to try.  This will probably depend on advice I get here!

Thanks in advance.