OK, cheers CH 

Excellent jb    as said above take pad and pen with you you'll never remember it all 

Hi all, off to Cork (Ireland) next week and just wondered if anyone can recommend anywhere there for a decent Curry  washed down with a couple of pints of Guinness after  ;D

Quote from: Edwin Catflap on February 26, 2014, 12:48 PM
Can anyone else let me know if they use methi in their madras, ignore the off topic posts.

Cheers

Ed

I stood alongside the Chef in the kitchen of  one of our local t/a whilst he made my Madras and following a chef's spoon of veg oil went a pinch of Methi leaves so I follow suit 

I recently made the 4kg Glasgow base as posted by bigboaby1 and to achieve the 'milky' state of the onions took over three hours of boiling  this needed frequent adding of water to prevent the onions from burning and sticking to the bottom of the cooking pot . The addition of all the extra water did not seem to lessen the flavour of the base and would guess it is only water that is boiling off.
The finished base was creamy sweet and rich , the Madras and Korma curry's I made with the base were excellent.

Quote from: curryhell on December 27, 2013, 01:41 PM

Quote from: Ader1 on December 27, 2013, 01:29 PM
Next time I go, I might take an European leaf to show them what I meant when I said they are different.

QuoteNext time you go in I'd also be tempted to ask him for a handful if you can't get them locally    I'm sure he'd oblige.

You can order on line but delivery costs are high unless spending quite a bit of money.

http://www.theasiancookshop.co.uk/indian-bay-leaves-indian-tej-patta-leaf-10g-2178-p.asp

Oooo err Matron  ;D 

Hi Ader1 , when it comes to cooking Indian dishes the Asian Bay is much better, sweet and fragrant compared to the more citric flavour of the European Bay.
Asian Bay are not so easy to find as European (not around here anyway) and I have seen many of the well known spice suppliers putting European Bay in their packs alongside all their Indian spices so do your research so you know the difference 
For reference the European Bay has a vein that runs along the centre of the leaf with veins coming off at 90 degrees to the sides whereas Asian Bay has veins all shooting out from the bottom ( fan like ).

This is a ' all in the base ' t/a where ( I guess ) only chili powder is added in the hotter curry's .
I did cook my own  Madras in their kitchen some time ago and was scorned when I automatically added mix powder  : I was surprised at the amount of oil on the surface of the pre blended base which leads me to believe they must put a fair whack of oil in to start with .

Was waiting for my Curry etc at my local T\A and I noticed their giant pot of base on the floor about to be blitzed with a commercial blender which resembled an out board motor from a power boat  ;D
I noticed there was a fair covering of Oil across the top of the container covering mostly cooked onions with the odd piece of carrot , the mixture was clear with no sign of powdered spices being used in the first boil up  just for info ,

Well done Chris , excellent vid , high heat just ain't necessary unless your in a hurry