you are not allowed to crack it !  cr0 members would have nothing to moan and rant about for one thing !  lol   ;D   

I have used the 50 great curries book alot. and made some of the recipies 6  or 7 times. I was initially blown away by this book. however on closer inspection i would say there are better recipies on this site. The recipies in that book dont stand the test of time. You can learn alot from that book, and its helped me along the road. But I still prefer real bir base cooking any day.

Interesting thread. I totally agree with your comments haldi. vindaloo, and madras are the simplest bir dishes i have seen a bir chef make. As haldi points out it shows the true measure of your skills, (or lack in my case ! )  I always remember the chef at my local said bir chefs must learn madras first, as all other recipies derive from this. perhaps we should all go back to basics and master madras. Its a shame the chef from jbs lessons did not focus more on madras. I think that would have been very useful.

MY biggest mistake was using other chefs spice mixes for 3 years. yes it works, but it wont teach you how to REALLY cook bir dishes. Each restaurant chef develops his own approach to spicing the curry and the base. They dont just blindly copy another persons  spice mix , and stick to it.  Its important to some times cook using your own spice mixes. this is how you learn and improve. I learnt lots more when I stopped using typical spice mixes . I would highly recomend breaking away from just copying every one elses spice mixes. At least some of the time, if not all the time. Just my opinion, after 3 years of using the bir spice mix from the chef at my local.  For the record i do recomend adding good tandorri masalla to each curry. this really compliments cr0 spice mixes. garam masalla is not something that ever brings me closer to bir taste. other members may disagree?

society worries too much about oil and salt and the like. dont believe the scare mongers. If you exercise , and always be moderate, the odd 1 or 2 un healthy curries each week is not so bad. When I cook curry i always leave my sensible half a sleep in front of the telly  ;D   the wicked half always cooks the tastiest food! 

I have tried chicken stock many times, and its not straight forward. Basically you get a lot of red oil, and a rich chicken stock taste if you simply boil the chicken and add the stock. The taste is nice but far to strong to compare to bir cooking. The chef at my local said he uses chicken stock . however he dried up quickly when i asked him how. he said they add some to the base from pre cooking chicken. he did not explain how. I suspect its a key secret. Its not as simple as just adding a carcus, i have tried and its just not bir taste. its a lot more subtle than this. Part of the by product of pre cooking chicken is a stock that is added to the base.  However i am confident this is made with considerable skill. If possible quiz this chef on the whole process. starting with pre cooking the chicken, and then the way they arrive at the stock. Basically we need a real bir method to make decent chicken stock.  I have tried the obvious ideas of adding a carcus, or adding a ladel of stock from boiling a chicken, and its just not bir taste. If the chef can help us with this one thing (making a good chicken stock) i believe we will all benifit hugely.

Hi Secret Santa , basically I stumbled across this technique by accident, and was experimenting with 3 things,  1) high heat during cooking, 2) adding water to thin the base during cooking. 3) longer evaporation of the base. This technique I use with bhuna is basically using high heat, with the addition of water to stop the tom puree and the base going brown during cooking. I noticed years ago that if the tom puree and base goes to dark it ruins the curry. I now believe this can be stopped if the base is very very watery, or you add a little water at the right time during cooking.  Its essential  to evaporate off the water, and aim to end with a dry curry. I had some good results with this technique, and believe its very similar to the way the chef at my local cooks bhuna. He adds a little ghee which is also good for high heat cooking. Using 2 pans was also a technique he used for my curry, presumably it improves heat distribution, and evaporation. He then tipped the contents of both pans into 1 silver TA container. it was the best bhuna he ever made me. I still remember it well !   ;D   

The garlic in my recipe  is garlic paste , in case anyone is wondering. !   

PanPot, this was my bhuna from 6 months ago. hope you like it !

Bhuna to go with original KD base  (not the newer version KD base)

Any light watery base made from mostly onion would do.

Ingredients
----------------------------

5 tbs very finely chopped red pepper

5 chunks green pepper

mix 2 tbs tom puree with 1/5th tsp pataks kashmiri masalla and a little water.

half a  tomato chopped into 2 pieces.

3/4 onion (finely chopped)

5 tbs finely chopped coriander leaf

spring onions to garnish

small pinch of methi at start

3 OR 4 ladel base + water 
-----------------------------------------------------
spice mix

0.25 tsp rahjver tandorri masalla

3 quarters of a  tsp of salt

2 pinch poppy seeds

1/6th tsp cumin

half a tsp coriander powder

1/6th tsp paprika

1/5th tsp mild curry powder

1 tsp chilly powder


----------------------------------------

COOKING TIME !
----------------------
add veg ghee and lots of sunflower oil to pan (approx 6 or 7  tbs of sunflower oil, + 2 tbs veg ghee)

Add pinch methi leaf

Add onion and chopped pepper (high heat) . fry until onion browns a bit. approx 4 mins

Add 3/4 tsp garlic and brown off - high heat

lower heat

add tom puree

add spice mix

30 secs

Add ladel of base - stir

back to high heat

add 2 more ladels base

add meat

add tbs of lamb stock (from pre cooking the lamb)

add tomato

Dont allow the base to brown (burn). add a bit of water to stop this.

add rest of base -

Add coriander leaf

Allow to dry right out - dont stir - plenty of evaporation of the base.

keep adding a little water to prevent base going brown. This takes practice
and gives the right taste. Aim to add 1 ladel of water maximum, possibly less.
It depends how watery your base is. This takes practice to get the right taste, but I
got some great results with this recipe when my technique was right. Any feedback welcome. The base is very important with this recipe, and must be the right consistency. I used the old KD base, and made it watery, with much less ginger than her recipe.

Hi  Panpot, the best bhuna is your ashoka korai bhuna. I do have another slightly different bhuna recipe based on observations from the bir chef at my local. It uses a different base than the ashoka base, namely the safron style or CA type of base. The bhuna recipe also has veg ghee in it, which i copied from the chef at my local. He always uses veg ghee in bhuna to make it rich(also some oil). I will try and find the recipe and post it, i used to make it alot , and it makes a nice chnage to the ashoka bhuna. I will search for it later. Cheers DD.