Thank's Guys, yes will use my spice ball next time  : thinking about this base this morning and reckon it was missing a little something (and too much of another  :) and remembered my best effort included star anice so put a couple in 500ml of water (in my spice ball   ;D) and boiled for about 15 mins then added the flavoured water to the base,the base now tastes bloody lovely  with the cardamom now taking a back seat and just a hint of aniseed,this now tastes more like a curry !
Also when I added the flavoured water I reheated the base to stir it all in and forgot that I had left it on (minimum setting on hob), an hour or so later realised and when I looked under the lid the top of the base was completely covered with oil  whether this has improved the base I don't know but cant wait to make my next curry 

Thought I would try the Zaal Base today,like the idea of the whole spices plus wanted to give the veg ghee a go to see if it made any noticeable difference 

3 kg Onions plus green pepper,carrot,potato,garlic/ginger,salt,2ltrs of water.



Whole Spices,decided to put the lot in with the veg and blend in ( not a good idea  )



Ready to boil up -



Veg Ghee,blended Tomato (passata),spice mix,chili,turmeric and garlic and ginger



Base after 1hour 15mins.



Base after blending and sieving to remove all the black bits from the whole spices  ::)wont do that again !



Base after adding Veg Ghee etc. ( looking better  )



Finished Base after final simmer,oil just appearing on top.



Finished Madras Curry - very nice  ;D



The base is sweeter than any previous base I have made and I think I overdid the cardamom a bit as the aroma was cardamom at every stage  the finished dish had a definite cardamom edge to it which I don't mind but the wife thought it was a little too much,next time I'll use a little less also I will probably put the whole spices in the pot for the final simmer and then put the base through a strainer to remove them.
All in all a very nice base,the curry, very nice and as good as any BIR around here other than the slightly ott cardamom  ::)very smooth almost as good as my best effort a few weeks ago and a base I will use again.
There was nothing obvious in the base from the veg ghee,whether the cardamom had anything to do with that I don't know  I did add quite a lot of water at various stages of cooking the base probably another 2ltrs and the finish amount of base was 5.5 ltrs could be watered down probably at least to 6 ltrs no prob.

Quote from: haldi on April 11, 2012, 06:57 PM

QuoteHas anyone made the base with seasoned oil

I know Curryhell and myself didn't, but Julian emphasises it's importance
The trouble is the number of onion bhajees that have to go through the oil first
I mean, who could possibly, eat that many?
Is this why you can't make BIR curries at home?

Yes Haldi, I made the c2go base as per video with the seasoned oil also from memory the base had 'chef spoons' of ground spices and my chef spoon I think is bigger than Julians and it was the most ground spices I have ever used in a base gravy  ,used the last of my c2go base on Monday along with Julians spice mix and although an OK curry nothing special  will be making the Zaal next I like the spiced water instead of 1/2 ltr of oil !plus I will be using a chef's spoon of veg ghee in the base just to try.probably worse for my health than the 1/2 ltr of oil 

CH,just trying to work out what could be wrong with the base and wonder if it could have been a lack of water as when you cook down the base in the final dish it's the water in the base that is being 'cooked out' and if there wasn't enough water this might explain why you had so much oil coming to the surface,dunno  just a thought.

I don't know whether removing the fibrous stuff from the base is a good idea,there could be flavour in it and you would be removing it  you wouldn't notice this stuff in a final curry and I cant imagine many BIR's sieving their giant pots of base,just my opinion 

Quote from: Whandsy on April 09, 2012, 10:09 PM

Quote from: emin-j on April 09, 2012, 09:39 PM


Hi nj, yes tried all levels of frying including burning  : could be cooking down the curry's too much I suppose but still need a fair bit of mix to produce a reasonable flavour, the c2go base is quite highly spiced but I still need a fair amount of c2go mix powder for the flavour.

Just wondering emin-j are you making his base as per the ebook, or as per his youtube video?

The reason i ask is i thought the youtube video whilst very good, is a bit vague on some elements, eg pot size and spicing, whereas the ebook is more in depth regards quantities and consistency (indeed i thought my 1st batch as per video was well overspiced, but not so when following the ebook). Also, the last batch of base i made was much more thinned down than i would have thought to be correct, but the resultant curry was delicious! and consistency spot on.

W

Hi Whandsy, yes from the video matey 

Quote from: natterjak on April 09, 2012, 08:55 PM
Hi emin-j - are you sure you're frying your spices thoroughly enough to bring out their flavour, you should really only need 1 tsp or 2tsp mix powder tops. I really don't think the base gravy needs to be heavily spiced.

Hi nj, yes tried all levels of frying including burning  : could be cooking down the curry's too much I suppose but still need a fair bit of mix to produce a reasonable flavour, the c2go base is quite highly spiced but I still need a fair amount of c2go mix powder for the flavour.

 Made a couple of madras curry's for the Mrs and me tonight and very tasty too  but they were a little on the thick side really but I am finding I have to use the best part of a tablespoon of spice mix plus 1 - 2 teaspoons of kashmiri chili to reach an acceptable flavour but this leads to being quite a thick paste mopping all the oil up in the pan  ::)The local BIR's curry's seem to be a thinner consistency but retain that lovely savoury flavour (not always though  :)This got me thinking that if the base was quite heavily spiced I wouldn't need to add so much spice to the finished dish and so might not end up with such a heavy sauce  On the other hand I am using curry2go's base and spice mix at the moment and the base is quite heavily spiced but still need a fair amount of spice mix for a decent flavour,I could add water in the final dish to give a thinner consistency but this tends to weaken the flavour.

Just used my last two portions of c2go base that I made from Julian's video a month or so ago,there is a definite smell from this base that I haven't noticed with any other base I have made but I would describe it as ' peppery' type of smell.
Also using Julian's spice mix and although a very nice curry no 'eureka' moment I'm afraid 

Quote from: curryhell on April 08, 2012, 12:49 AM

Quote from: emin-j on April 07, 2012, 11:54 PM
Spiced oil or spiced water the oil or water is the carrier of the spices/flavour

QuoteYou don't say  ;D Touche I think.

Ya got me there CH 

I totally agree.  Yesterday whilst i was cooking Julian's base i prepared some chicken using Ifindforu's method.  The chicken was excellent as per the last time i cooked it.  But what was left in the pan afterwards was the dog's bollocks.  I added no water during the cooking process, working on the assumption that enough water would come out of the meat.  The smell and the taste of the melting onions flavoured with cardamon, cassia and asian bay was not just BIR, it had the smell and the taste to the extent i just couldn't stop myself from tasting it.  I just could not stop myself from having several teaspoons and saying YES, this is it.  This needs to be replicated in the base sauce.  It was all i could do to stop myself from throwing it in Julian's base.  But i resisted and have now frozen it.  This little pot is a gem.  All i need now to do is get the flavour in the same proportion into my base, and i will have cracked it.  Six cardamons, 4 asian bay and 2 x 2 inch cassia sticks per 50 ml of oil by my reckoning.  Hope this helps.  Between the two of us maybe we can come up with just the right balance.  What a breakthrough that would be.  The "ackni" stock at Zaal was good, but being stock the intensity of the flavour was lost in the base.  By using Julian's method of frying the oninon plus the correct proportion of whole spice, i think we may be onto something big emin-j??

CH,as you say, the flavour from the whole spice is amazing ,from memory in my 600ml of base (c2go) it was 6 cardamom,4Asian bay,2cloves,2"cinnamon,1star anice and some how Ive got to work out a starting point for 6ltrs  If I pro-rata it it's gonna be loads 
Just to make you smile I bought a coffee machine yesterday and had a couple of brews to try it out,last one was about 11.30pm and now I cant sleep  typing this at 02.33 am and wide awake  ) atb.