Quote from: Secret Santa on September 04, 2014, 10:54 PM
Personally I'd be less worried about the fact that only half of it is garlic and more worried about the fact that the other half isn't! 

Agreed, bin it  & buy frozen blocks at least

Kids who's parent/s received benefits, seated last & the caramel cake, which I still like today. At the very least the food was cooked fresh, then delivered due to lack of  space & there wasn't a strategically located brand name in sight 

I'm typing on a kindle greencoburn, so posting links is difficult when you have fingers like yum yums . Ashoka / forum member mick Crawford (currybarkingmad) & another paste from way back have been posted on here. Ashoka is probably the most complex, but it's just an alternative to a mix powder.
Vegetable oil industrial size will likely be what you've been eating from your usual p l ace
Regards
Elw

Quote from: Garp on August 31, 2014, 09:07 PM
I sometimes wonder why people get so hung up on bases....add a little this....a little that....maybe a parsnip....boil it for an hour....three hours....oops! don't forget half a carrot..... A base is a base; and should provide texture and a background flavour. No more and no less. Lots of onions and some light spicing is the trick.

All good up to to this point Garp

Quote
As Andrew says, most of the flavour in a finished curry will come from the final spicing, and reduction, in my humble opinion.

There loads of ways of doing this which is why every restaurant tastes different & it's not all on here.
But the gravy makes it different from cookbook curries & is crucial regardless of ingredients in terms of ingredients.
jb again reported
On his  latest base being unusable if it's not cooked correctly

Regards
Elw

Definitely over critical, but my senses & appetite are also normally shot after too long in the kitchen

Regards
ELW

Quote from: greencoburn on August 29, 2014, 05:44 PM
Thanks.

I'm surprised, because I always considered the carmelized onions as vital to THE curry taste.
Do people make a seperate paste (bunjarra?) of carmelized brown onions and add this?
I can see the benifit of adding the desired amount of carmelized onion paste+base as opposed to a base that has the carmelized onion already in it.

The gravy is just a boiled onion puree Greencoburn. Think the onion paste from Ashoka was misheard as bunjarra.
Have heard of a couple of dishes with banjara in the name. Its just another way of adding slower cooked spice/onion/ extra flavour to the dishes
in place of quick fried powders. I think the emphasis on caramelisation when making this paste was probably more by forum members more than the chef/cook who made it or described it.
Whenever I make it I just brown the onions without burning, don't hang about the pan watching it too closely.
It only adds something to the dish if your gravy has been made correctly, otherwise its overpowered by it.

Looking forward to reading the verdict on those jb. 

Hi greencoburn, just boil the onions. I've tried it once & found it a complete waste of time. I'll give it a couple of hours initial boil for around 3kg chopped onion on a typical home hob.
Some people fry their spices/garlic/ginger/tomatoes(puree) in oil before adding to the gravy which again I don't bother with.
Im going to try a around 2 kg version of jb's base today because I'm familiar with his posts over the years, but normally I make base gravies up as I go along. I don't measure anything anymore when doing this
Regards
ELW

any mild madras curry powder will do. White pepper adds loads of heat. Malaysian curry powder for curry paste to  make a sauce. Yeo's 50gm is smallest I can find

I've been in tayyabs a few times but never tried the dry meat curry.
Lamb chops are good , food is pretty decent . always very busy when I've been in, with no space
to eat properly . they plonk your whole order down in one go
along with the people's order who might be sitting next to you, when they're busy.
Not the most pleasant place to eat when its packed out.
I will try the dry meat also next time I'm there though
Regards
ELW