I gave this a shot at the weekend. Not my kind of curry by a long shot but the recipe is bang on the mark. The gf loved it   

Lol, well I try and try but they just keep coming out perfect   : I'm sure there will pictures coming this way!

It dawned on me last night when I removed a couple of overcooked bajis from the pile as I was getting out my camera. We only ever post pretty pictures of perfect curries and the like. Let's face it, they don't all look like CA's Vindaloo/Nan (which by the way, he obviously took in a restaurant  )

I think that this could be a big mistake, as I'm sure images of catastrophic curries and burnt bajis could help everyone find out what's going wrong and hence diagnose future curry related mishaps.

From now on, I for one am going to put my ego on hold and post the rubbish that comes out of my kitchen, along with quality BIR food - that's a call for cr0 to upgrade their hosting package btw

Lol, the sparkling water was for a tempura king prawn recipe I tried (sadly not from this site), which should have been soda water - I thought they were the same thing until I was corrected. Just to let you know, I would never, ever drink the stuff. 

The Bajis are about 8cm diameter. I chopped the onions too coarsely so I could not get the mix to bind together properly. I got around this by making a ball like shape on a metal draining spoon, putting the head of the spoon into the oil for around 10 seconds until the mixture was firm, then scraping the uncooked baji off with a desert spoon and putting it back in the oil  Classy technique I know!  :

I have neither gas marks on the hob, nor a thermometer, so I'm estimating here but I would say I cooked them at 150 for about 5 or 6 minutes then up to around 170 for a minute or so to crisp them up. Other than one or two that I kept in a little long, they were all cooked on the inside and crisp on the outside.

The only criticisms I would have are that they were under-spiced and that the onion in the centre could have been softer. Now that they have cooled I soften them by popping them in the microwave for a minute or two. Next time I might try pre-fried onion in the batter, extra cumin seed, extra fresh coriander and extra Garam Masala.

That said, this is a great recipe and the results far exceeded my expectations.  ;D

 ;D Oh yeah! Tasty tasty bajis and really simple to make! Thanks CA, do these look about right?

Quote from: curryqueen on December 14, 2007, 06:14 PM
Hi Bobby Boy,

I have used the spiced oil for years now and have never turned back, as a matter of interest how much oil did you put into the base and how much did you get out of it? I got this method for oil and base from a restaurant in Brighton.  CQ

Hey Curry Queen,

thanks for your response to my PM about your use of spiced oil. I did find that it makes a significant positive difference to my curries. How much I get back depends upon the curry base that I use. I probably use about 1 cup of oil in the base and get back around half that if I'm lucky. I find that if I have time to cook the base on a very very low heat for an hour or even two, I can extract more oil.

Also, you know that scum like stuff you get after blending when you simmer? I have found that carefully spooning that off makes it easier to extract the oil.

 : Whoops, I'm guilty there aswell! Sorry KD!

Oh my! I'll bet that kept you busy! What gives me impression you like your curries hot?  :

 ;D After my lack of success at the weekend, I freestyled a curry last night using various influences, and tips from members in the "secret ingredient" thread. It was absolutely beautiful and reeked BIR  . I thought I'd share it and see what you think.

Base

I put a fair whack of veg oil in my stock pan and heated it until it was nearly smoking. I added a couple of bays leaves, a pinch of Mustard seed, black caromoms and about 5 or 6 green ones and stirred them around for a minute or two.

Then I added 4 small chopped white onions and fried them on the intense heat for about 10 minutes. I put in a good few teaspoons of garlic paste and about 1/2 of that of the ginger paste and cooked for a couple of minutes. I then added the can of chopped tomatoes and reduced the heat.

At this stage I added 2 tsp Paprika, 2 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp Madras curry powder 1 tsp ground cumin and 1 tsp ground coriander and a BIG pinch of methi (I read this suggested in the aforementioned thread) and mix it together. I then took it off the heat and removed the whole spices from earlier. I then blended, added some more oil (as I intended to reclaim it - again heard about spiced oil in the aforementioned thread) and some hot water, just to make it soup like. I then poured in about 1/3 tin of Sharwoods coconut milk. I cooked this slowly for an hour. The oil rose and I scooped it up into a bowl for the curry stage.

Chicken

I used darths method of covering it with boiling water until cooked. I kept the chicken water and reduced it right down. I then put it in a bowl.

Curry

I heated up the spiced oil until it nearly smoked. I then put 1 small finely chopped onion in and 2 finely chopped small chillies. I fried that for a couple of minutes. I added 1tsp ground coriander, 1tsp ground cumin, 1/3 tsp of ground fenugreek, 1.5 tsp garam masala, 0.5 tsp tandoori masala and 1 tsp chili powder and stirred for a minute. Then I added 1 tsp of garlic paste and 1/2 tsp of ginger paste. I stirred that and added the cooked chicken. After a couple of minutes of stirring the chicken in the oily mix I added the base bit by bit. Once I had added enough I added the reduced chicken water. I stirred it all up and reduced it to the right consistency. Just before serving I crumbled a fair pinch of methi in. It tasted fantastic.  ;D

I'm a bit down about my curry yesterday. I used the darthphall base / madras recipe and was not so pleased with the results. Not Bir like at all compared to my usual attempts. I was even using spiced oil for the curry, that I had used before to make popodums, then the base sauce. I don't know what went wrong.

Passata is mentioned on the ingredients list but not in the instructions, so realising this when I was nearing the end and still had a carton of tomatoes, I added it into the curry instead of the base. I think this really lost it for me, with all that non flavour-infused tomato added to the curry.

Still, The base didn't smell right to me... It's missing something... Maybe it was because I was using schwarz curry powder instead of darths recommended one. Or maybe it was because I used pre ground since I was at my gfs and had no access to whole.

All said and done, I have to blame myself for not implementing the recipe correctly.  I am one disappointed Bobby Bhuna.