The night went really well, sold 35 portions (only veggie madras left). Lots of compliments about the food.  Lots of washing up to do and poppadom crumbs to sweep up

Hi all, sorry for absence - not been cooking many curries lately as have been mostly making jumbo scotch eggs!

However by popular demand it's curry night in my pub tomorrow night and I have cooked up an uber batch of Pathia and Madras.  I based the Pathia recipe on Stephen L's and Curry Barking Mads and the Madras is a basic hotchpotch of Zeera and off the top of my head.

I cooked the curries the day before as I have found that I can't approach the BIR flavour I am looking for, in bulk cooking, without re-heating/storing the curries

Jobs for tomorrow include cooking up a big batch of pilau rice, and cooking 50 odd poppadoms!  Will sell the curry for a fiver a head and tend to be rather generous in my portion control.

Started off with 3 x batches of Taz base.  This is more than I needed - but I have frozen about 2 litres for later cooking.

I then boiled and diced 10 kg of chicken breast - good old Cash'n'Carry!

The pureed base along with 10kg of boiled chicken breast.


I made the curries up in the usual method found on the forum.  However without the reducing stage it is hard to pack in the BIR flavour when cooking hence the double cooking.

I like to get all my ingredients measured out and ready before I cook These are the components for the Pathia.


The Pathia is on the left, the Madras on the right.



Both curries taste pretty good - the madras needs the lemon/methi and a bit more heat.  The Pathia is a little hotter than I intended and there is a bit too much sauce.  The real tasting happens tomorrow!   Will hopefully get a few photos.

Recipes

Chicken Pathia
20 tbsp oil
4 chefs spoons of par-boiled onion/pepper
200ml diluted tomato puree
6 tbsp (heaped) of mix powder (I used Taz)
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp pataks tikka or tandoori paste (optional)
1 tsp red colour powder (optional)
3 tbsp kashmiri mirch or mild chilli powder
10 tbsp sugar
10 tbsp mango chutney
10 tbsp lemon juice
Approx 2 litres of base - I judge by eye mainly
Chicken 8-10kg

1. Heat oil
2. add onion/pepper for a few mins
3. add tomato puree for 2-3 mins
4. add mix powder/salt/chilli and cook till you get a lovely smell/consistency (about 1-2 mins)
5. add sugar/mango/lemon juice
6. add base in batches till you are happy with amount
7 add chicken and cook till oil rises
8 allow to cool.

9. reheat (the oven is useful as you can easily burn the bottom of such a deep pan)
10. add chopped coriander and 4 tsp kasuri methi and some quartered tomato.

Veggie Madras. (not particularly hot)

10 tbsp oil
5 tbsp garlic/ginger paste
20 ml tomato puree diluted
5 tsp mix powder
2 tsp kashmiri chilli
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp pataks tikka or tandoori paste (optional)
1 tsp red colour powder (optional)
2 kg pre-cooked mixed veg (I cheat and use bags of good quality frozen veg)
1 and a half litres of base
Chopped coriander
4 tsp lemon juice
3 tsp kasuri methi
2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1. Heat oil
2. fry g/g paste for 1 min
3. add tomato puree for 1 min
4. add spice mix, chilli, salt - cook stirring for 1 -2 mins till you get a lovely caramel/toffee smell
5.add half base
6 add veg and rest of base
7. cook till oil rises or at least 15 mins

8 on reheat add lemon juice/coriander/methi and worcestershire sauce 10 mins before serving

Maybe not BIR but two fishy curries I cook a lot are these 2;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/meenmoleefishcurryco_77185
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/tunakikaracurriedtun_76586

The 1st is a thin almost Thai style curry - not sure if the coconut milk is good for you though?

The 2nd sounds weird but is lovely with bread or pasta but not rice strangely.

nice work Matt and some good looking curries too!

Hey Matt, the photos look good, (always nice to see some ghee)

Hmmm how strange, the photo of the finished eggs was included in the post and appeared on the preview and when I checked it on the forum! #Dons deerstalker and goes off to investigate#

The pic should be there now - no idea what happened there.  Wouldn't call them a nargisi kofta (can't imagine many BIRs using Sausage meat!) more of an Indian Style Scotch Egg

Used to get lovely Nargisi Kofta in the Polash in Oxford (long closed) served with a posh egg net on top

Been experimenting with some home made scotch eggs to sell in my pub.  The first batch were black pudding, the second cider & fennel.  But it was only a matter of time before I got all Indian on them  ;D

Just added spice mix, mild madras powder, chilli powder, g/g paste, pataks tandoori paste, mint, lemon juice and coriander to some sausage meat and wrapped around some hard boiled eggs. Dip in flour, egg then breadcrumbs before baking in the oven (bit healthier than deep frying - and I hate the smell!)

To make them a bit more interesting I added some Panch Poran (fennel, cumin, black onion, fenugreek, and black mustard seeds) into the breadcrumb coating.

In my own personal opinion - pretty damn good.  If anything the Indian flavours overpower any sausage flavours.  Only a few split in the oven - so I had to eat those myself

As I liked the idea of whole onions in the base - a la Chewy Tikka, and the use of the pressure cooker as mentioned by Phil and Chewy T.  I thought I would knock up a base as fast as I could - but do it all in one pan/cooking process to see who it compared with some of my faves.

I added all the usual base suspects -
3 onions (500g)
half a carrot
1 litre of water
8 tbsp oil
2 cubes of raj frozen g/g puree
1 tbsp tom puree
half tin of chopped toms
1 tsp spice mix
1 tsp salt



Bought it to a simmer, got the pressure on and gave it 30 mins then whizzed it up.



Came out pretty well on consistency, but had the taste of an onion soup as the high pressure killed all the spices and garlic/ginger flavour.

Made a nice Prawn Chasni from it to test - which went down a treat!  Not as good as when using CA's base though.



So in conclusion I would have used the pressure cooker to do the onions & any veg, but leave the spices/garlic & ginger till later in the cooking.  (or follow CTs recipe which uses a different pan).

Yum!!

One cheat when making big portions like I used to in my old pub, was to add sweet potato mash to the curry - it has a lovely flavour, blends in to the sauce and adds a bit of sweetness to this style of curry too.

Apart from that - I would use less base relative to the increased portion size, if that makes sense.