It's always best to make up a batch of garlic/ginger with a blender/hand blender/mixer, and freeze it. It's nigh on impossible to make a paste of these ingredients (especially the ginger) in small quantities.

Although various recipies call for different ratios of these ingredients, unless one of them is a particular focus of the dish, I find a 50/50 mix works well (of course, you may prefer a different ratio or even more than 1).

Whenever required, I get about 150 grms each of peeled ginger and garlic, chop them up, place them in the container that comes with a hand blender with some oil, and puree them. I then use some, and freeze the rest in an ice cube tray.

I also make some cubes with chilli added before pureeing, as fresh chilli has a better flavour than dried, and a little is appropriate in many dishes.

Potato and Cauliflower with Fennel and Onion Seeds

Ingredients

800   grams   Potatos
600   grams   Cauliflower
1   inch   Root ginger
6   cloves   Garlic
2   tsp   Whole fennel seeds
2   tsp   Onion seeds
350   grams   Tomatoes, finely chopped
1   tbls   Ground coriander seeds
?   tsp   Haldi
?   tsp   Chilli powder
1   tsp   Salt

Preparation[/b]

1 Blend ginger and garlic until smooth
2 Cut potato into pieces about 2cm square
3 Break cauiflower into pieces of similar size to potatos
4 Start to par boil potatos and cauliflower
5 Fry fennel and onion seeds for a few seconds
6 Add tomatoes, ginger, garlic, coriander, haldi, chilli powder and salt
7 Cook for 5 minutes
8 Add poatos and cauliflower and stir in gently
9 Cover pan and cook until vegatables are done as you prefer

Notes[/b]

About 3/4 of a tin of plum tomatoes works well.

Chicken Vindaloo

Ingredients

2   lbs   Chicken pieces
3   cloves   Garlic
2 ?   cm   Root ginger
3   tbls   White wine vinegar
1   tbls   Treacle
1   tsp   Haldi
2      Chillis
?   tsp   Fenugreek seeds
1   tsp   Mustard seeds
1   tbls   Coriander seeds
1   tsp   Jeera seeds
1   pinch   Asafoetida
?   tsp   Chilli powder
1   lb   Small potatoes
6   tbls   Mustard oil
4?    Minced onions
3?    Tomatoes
2   tbls   Fresh coriander
2   tsp   Salt

Preparation[/size]

1 Blend garlic, ginger, wine vinegar, treacle, turmeric and chillis to a paste
2 Add salt, ground fenugreek, mustard, coriander and jeera seeds
3 Rub paste into chicken and leave for 3 hours
4 Cut potatoes into bite sized pieces and boil until just tender
5 Fry the onions until golden, then add asafoetida
6 Add de-seeded and chopped tomatoes and fry until oil surfaces
7 Add the chicken and marinade and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally
8 Cover and simmer for a further 10 minutes
9 Add potatoes and cook until chicken is tender – about 10 minutes


Notes[/size]
This is not truly authentic for two reasons:

1) The original dish was made with pork
2) It did not contain potatoes.

Of course, thie recipe is easily modified to remove these anomalies.

I've made this quite a few times, and it's quite popular.

It certainly does not need to be made hot.

Thanks Jedi Spice.

Now I'll have to get posting.

Pete, I can't make out what is quoting and what you've added/are asking.

The spiced oil may be the excess oil retrieved from the production of basic curry sauce, but I very much doubt that is in any way a secret ingredient.

Since I worked out how to make a basic sauce, I've made dishes that are indistinguishable from those that you get from BIR's.

By that I mean that if you took my version of, say, Chicken Vindaloo, and put it in a bowl amongst similar bowls from a variety of BIR's you would not be able to pick out the home made one.

Others who have tried dishes I've made agree.

I've got a couple I'd like to post, but they are not returaunt style dishes.

It would seem to be a good idea to split them up.

?127 is an absurd price.

No matter what anyone tells you, there is no 'secret' to producing curries, balti or otherwise. It's extremely unlikely that the results produced by following this book will enable you to produce something that is a clone of a dish from your favourite balti resturaunt.

You can get about a million recipies for nothing from the net, and there is plenty of good advice available here and on uk.food+drink.indian.

Save your money for ingredients to practice on.

I've now tried this for cooking beef, and I don't know what went wrong, but the result is a disaster!

After the recommended length of time, the meat so chewey it was all but impossible to eat.

So I let it cook for another half hour, no change.

It's now been simmering for about 6 hours and is just about edible.

Any ideas what I could have done wrong. The only thing that was in any way unusual was that I went to great lengths to bring the meat/liquid up to temperature very slowly as I wanted to simmer at just under 100c. THis meant it spent some minutes between 90 and 95. Could this have changed the meat in some way that prevented it cooking properly.

This is a real puzzle.

Tried this out at the weekend with a rogan josh, and was very pleased with the result.

The recipie is a Mudhra Jaffry one, and it's always produced excellent results except that even the most expenive lamb became tough with the cooking method selected.

This technique produces beautifully tender lamb.

Thanks Mark J.

Quote from: pete on January 19, 2005, 08:13 PM
You make need to add a little water or stock to it every now and then

Did you simmer it uncovered?