Quote from: DARTHPHALL on January 02, 2006, 08:07 PM
Nice one Gary !!!!!!!!!!!!?

No probs guv'

On the Secret Ingredient subject: the only thing I can think of is Alcohol? Maybe this would explain why the predominantly Muslim Bengali restaurant workers won't eat the very food they'd cooked themselves?

Seriously, I added the remnants of a homemade French Onion Soup to my curry base this week (very reduced, & with all the alcohol burnt off) and boy did it taste smokey, sweet, & savoury! 

Who knows! 

I've heard a few people mention how it would be good to get hold of a sample of pure curry base, and the fact that it's actually d*amned hard to get a takeaway to give/sell you some.

Has anyone tried this: go into a takeaway and ask for chips and curry! I remember doing this quite a few times when I was younger (a long time ago!) and the curry sauce we used to get was a dark, savoury but sweet, oniony affair, fairly lacking in any real curry smell - my guess is that this was just some curry gravy fried off with some added chilli powder, and quite unlike your regular mild/medium curry sauces.

Curry sauce was never a menu option at these places (typically Pakistani kebab/pizza/curry shops) but they were always willing to rustle up a quick 'make do' curry sauce for you if you asked.

Just a thought, could help in 'The Quest' I suppose

Gary

Hi all, new to the forum - & very good it is too. My missus has been perplexed by my obsession to acheive the perfect curry base for about ten years now, so it's nice to see some fellow obsessives 

Anyway, I picked up a small jar of 'curry base' from the local Morrisons (Blackburn) a couple of months back, can't remember the manufacturer, but it wasn't Patak's or Nasir's.

Had pretty good results with it - no secret ingredients: just fried onions, toms, garlic & ginger - no spices, (according to the jar) but it had that lovely sweet smell!

Anyone else tried it?

Kind Regards,

Gary