emin-j i agree totally. its about time we worked a little more as a group. Nothing to strict mind !  ;D  how about striving towards a single base and a madras recipe to go with it?  surely we could all agree on a base thats very suited to only madras. then work together to find a decent madras recipe.  what do other members think on this.  with all our experience we must be able to improve on what we individually know.

Whats the general concensus on how things will progress on this forum. Thought it would be interesting to hear other members views on  1) if future breakthroughs will come from some improved final curry recipies, or 2) improvements in the base, or 3) a combination of  both 1 and 2.   

    I feel i need to understand the base a bit better, and then tweak my recipies to get where i want to be. 
  What do other members think ?

phil i would try a little more oil in the base, and a few tbs more in the curry . for example i use 300 ml of base with between 6 - 9 tbs of oil, per curry. i make base with 3 kg of onion and 3/4 pints of oil at least. 

its a myth that more oil = stronger bir flavour. I spent months working out the optimal oil level and concluded that if the oil to base and spice ratio is to high, the curry soon starts to taste far less moorish. Too much oil begins to dominate the flavour of the curry, so dont over do it.
    The amount of oil you use in the base, has a big impact on the amount of oil  you need when doing the curry.  If your base is loaded with oil , then perhaps only 4 tbs of oil are necasary when making the curry.
     Dont make the mistake i once made, of thinking adding lots more oil improves the flavour. Its simply not the case. If you want to improve your curries ,concentrate on making sensible changes to your base, and then concentrate on the recipies for the curry. If your curry lacks morrishness, its usually because the overall recipe is just not that good. The moorish taste comes from a good balance of spice, a nicely prepared base, good technique , and a certain amount of experience at playing around with different spice mixes. The oil soaks up the flavours of the recipe. But dont use to much oil or it turns into a greasy spoon curry! 

This has much of the taste of bir jalfrezzi. The dish can be cooked quickly, but i found a slow boat method worked well during trials. 

Guys try my jalfrezzi post for kd1 base. I would advise any member who uses kd1 base to try this, its very tasty and i make it often.  I posted it in main dishes section under jalfrezi (obviously !!) cheers DD

Jalfrezi  with kd1 base 

(note i recomend making kd1 base with half the ginger in original recipe, and reducing
the onion by 10 percent and replacing with 1 or 2 green peppers. Also add lots more oil, approx 3/4 of a cup of veg oil.

------------------------------------------------------
I had some good results with kd 1 base for madras and jalfrezzi, here is my recipe
developed over 4 months of extensive use of the kd1 base.

---------------DD Jalfrezi-----------------------
Ingredients...

medium amount of oil - between 6 and 9 tbs sunflower oil

half red pepper finely chopped -

10 chunks green pepper  (fry at high heat)

half onion quickly fried at high heat at start

quarter of a tomato

2 green chillies halved

1.5 tsp chilly powder

1.5  tsp garlic paste high heat burnt/browned slightly

1 tsp salt

0.5  tsp methi

pinch cumin seed

1.5 star anise

1 rounded tsp DD spice mix  (see below for spice mix recipe)

tandorri masalla (trs or rajver brand)  1/5th tsp only

lamb stock 2 -3 tbs (optionAL)

5 tbs chopped coriander  leaf

6 mushrooms (optional)


3 ladels of base -  1.5  ladels of water 



1) quickly cook the onion and green pepper and red pepper at high heat

2) add green chillies and star anise, add methi

3) add garlic paste and fry until browning slightly

4) add spice mix + other spices for 30 secs, add salt

5) gradually add the base and water for a medium slow cook

add the quarter tomato chunk

6) add mushrooms and stock (optional)

7) add coriander leaf after 10  minutes of cooking time


by the end aim to dry out , dont stir

COOK SLOWLY ON MEDIUM HEAT for  17 minutes

Dont allow to brown/burn  (this all takes some practice )
-----------------------------------
DD spice mix

coriander 2 tsp

cumin 1 tsp

paprika  2 tsp

cury powder 3 tsp  (any mild one will do, swartz mild curry powder is good, or rahjver mild madras powder work well )

tumeric  4 tsp

Paul i totally agree with your comments on the predominent spices for bir cookery. garam masalla is just not that key to bir cooking. In fact i think i could happliy produce most of my favourite bir dishes with virtually none of the garam spices if i was forced to.
   thats not to say i dont use cardoman, clove, cinemon, dried mint, and other garam masalla spices, but i use up far less of these than i do tumeric, cumin, coriender, paprika, etc. 

I watched a bir chef produce around 50 dishes over a few weeks of obsrvations. Basically i noticed tumeric is used more than we realise in many dishes. they use huge amounts of spice mix as well (tumeric, coriander, cumin paprika ). but gm was only used in veg dishes. 
The kris dillon gm isnt even that great. i prefer the pat chapman gm anyday. that works so well in ashoka pre cooked lamb. you guys should try it

 

Phil i really have to disagree. i purchased her original book and made many curries, none came close to bir. in fact they tasted rather odd. When i compared them to some of the wonderful traditional indian recipes i was making at the time (from other books) i concluded kris dillon had no real mastery of the art of bir cooking. If someone writes a book on a subject and it does not deliver the goods, it is a strong indication that their underlying knowledge is lacking. Surely someone with a long heritage behind them would have no problem writing a book which at least manages to replicate a few key bir dishes eg madras, or rogan josh or tikka masalla. all of these recipes from the original book were nothing like a real bir dish. So i am unclear why you feel she has some long heritage of bir cookery knowledge. I am of the opinion kris is more of a business women/author/casual cook, with links in the cookery business. The kd books are a clever money spinner, but i see little evidence of a wealth of heritage and cooking knowledge passed through generations. Even the kd base needs modifying to become acceptable.  I would be more forgiving if just one recipe in that book stood the test of time. but alas on closer inspection none of those recipes are special , and part of my favourite repetoire.  Explain what you mean by punjabi heritage? do you mean cooking knowlege ? where is the evidence of this cookery knowledge kris has from this heritage?

glad to be of help phil . if you dont yet feel cr0 offers more info than a kd book, i think you have not dug deep enough into cr0 huge library of info. I must admit its overwhelming , but collectively there is enough info here to produce curries 3 times as good as any found in the pages of a kd book. or any bir cookery book i know of. The members on this forum go into a much finer detail of the art of bir cookery. KD books are not aimed at this type of audience. they are really for novices. for that purpose they are good books well worth buying.