I tried this, with the yeast because the pictures of the ones you made without yeast looked a lot flatter than the naans I've eaten in Swedish restaurants. I really liked it, though the yeast ate all the sugar so that the breads weren't as sweet as I had wished. Next time I'll add more sugar, but I will use the recipe again, it was very simple.

I also fried it in a normal frying pan, which worked just fine for me.

Today my mother (yes I live at home) was surprised to find a nice smelling letter addressed to Hargiwald in the mailbox, thank you SnS. So I took another stab at the Chicken Tikka Masala today, this time with some methi thrown in for good measure. All my improvements from my last attempt worked wonders, so even though I'm not feeling quite ready I'll post the recipe the way it is now. If there's any interest, the recipe is here: https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3388.msg30390#msg30390

Hi and welcome to my first posted recipe. The base used is SnS's base: https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=2757.0, which doesn't mean that other bases couldn't substitute, but naturally a vastly different base will give other results, great or bad, who knows?

On another side not, while I would say that this is very similar to Tikka Masalas I've had at restaurants, especially my favourite place, keep in mind that I'm Swedish and there might be some stylistic differences. However, just like the BIR CTM's, the ones we get here are sweet and mild and full of flavour, but rarely, as far as I've seen, containing anything coconut.

Now that that's out of the way, let's go:

Chicken Tikka Masala (Serves about 6 very hungry people)


Ingredients:

400 ml base sauce (SnS's in my case)
200 ml tinned chopped plum tomatoes (Italian Napolina)

0,5 l water
1 tsp dried methi
3 bay leaves
Green cardamom pods, a lot of them, about 20. Crush them lightly so that that the seeds are exposed but won't leave.

3-4 fairly large garlic cloves, finely chopped or minced.
1 tsp minced ginger
2 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp garam masala *
2 tsps dried coriander leaves
2 tsps dried coriander seeds
2 tsps chili powder
2 tsps ancho style chili powder (sweeter and milder, kashmiri mirch might be a good substitute, but I wouldn't know)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp dried mint leaves
0,5 tsps cumin
0,25 tsps fenugreek

3-4 dl cashew nuts, finely ground (that's 3-4 dl before you actually grind it)
1 dl of mango chutney
4 tsps lemon juice (Skip it if you want to, just don't nag about it. It doesn't take away any of the sweetness)

Precooked marinated chicken for 6-7 portions, I can't say how much because when I made it I used to little anyway. I also can't give you a good recipe for a marinade because the one I tried wasn't any good, but I suspect you could find a good marinade recipe on here. Next time I will fix these two issues.

Optional: Fresh coriander leaves for garnishing.
Red food colouring (I put some in, but the stuff I had at home is liquid and it seems that the general food colouring on here is powder so you'll just have to figure out how much to put in yourselves.


Method:

Start with putting water, methi, cardamom pods and bay leaves in a saucepan and bringing to a boil. The heat should be lowered slightly after a few minutes and you can let it stand and simmer until you need the stuff, just don't burn anything.

Then fry garlic, ginger and tomato puree gently in butter for about 1-2 minutes, making sure not to burn it. Add more butter, make sure you have a fair amount melted butter in there now now, and the spices and keep the gentle frying going until you get what SnS describes as the tofee aroma.

Start adding base, tinned tomatoes and the boiled water (including cardamom, bay leaves and methi) little by little but fairly quickly, meanwhile stirring. Raise the heat and add mango chutney, ground cashews and lemon juice.

Let it simmer until you feel it's just a bit thicker than you want the final result to be. Add chicken and cook for a few minutes. Then add the cream. Unless you feel it's too thick or watery, it should be done as soon as you've got the temperature up again. Otherwise simmer or add water until you get it right. Taste with salt and possibly sugar if your mango chutney doesn't bring enough sweetness. Garnish with coriander leaves if you feel like it. There's also the option of leaving the cardamom pods and bay leaves in, but I think it's a pain to pick all of the cardamom out personally. People in general also seem to enjoy chewing and sucking a bit at the cardamom pods before spitting them out, so it's often worth it leaving them in.

I hope you like it, but either way, tell me what you think. Any suggestions for improvements are welcome, I'm not quite done with this anyway. 




* In case this spice mix looks vastly different in England, it wouldn't surprise me if we Swedes got this messed up, this is what's in it, according to it's packing (from most to least prominent): Cumin, Cardamom, Coriander (probably the seeds), black pepper, clover, cinnamon and cayenne pepper.

Haha, exactly. I'm really grateful here, but you wouldn't want to see my barbaric side, I tell you.

Anyway, when the spcies arrive I'll probably take another stab at that Tikka Masala, and if all the modifications go right, which they probably won't, I'll go right back here with a recipe.

Couldn't find any E-Mail address so I PMed you instead. As I said there, it's very kind of you, thank you.

Aah, hej igen.

The reason I checked in before was actually to check up on the madras recipe for some inspiration. I took what was there and modified it into a chicken masala (I was too hungry to bother with marinading the chicken) and it turned out to be a party in my mouth. I'm going to try making it again with some small adjustments and marinade the chicken and then I'll return with a recipe, but one thing's for sure, I love your gravy. I love, love, love it. And I'm going to marry it, till death do us part. I've made a couple of masalas before, ranging from good to really boring, but nothing like this. This tastes like the real deal.

I appreciate the help, but I was only talking about the general foodstores and malls. And the names aren't a problem, they used to be but I've learnt by now, either way thanks. Anyway our normal grocery stores all have the same stuff, invariably no fenugreek, but if I go to certain areas with more immigrants I can always find oriental type stores that has rarer stuff. However, the day I decided to make the base I was at home and I wanted the curry badly so I went without the fenugreek and madras powder and ordered it online until next time. The only thing I haven't found online is methi, and I love shopping online, so if you can get methi from where you order stuff SnS, please do share, because I'm running out. Many thanks!

Made the base last week, but without the fenugreek and the madras powder because I couldn't find any in the stores, this is best explained by me being Swedish. I used it to try to improve one of my dullest curry attempts, that I had stored in the freezer. It definitely got better. Yesterday madras powder and fenugreek powder ordered online finally arrived and today I tried the recipe. However I forgot to buy fresh coriander so I had to make do with some dry leaves thrown into the mix. The result was good and felt a lot more like something I could receive in a Swedish Indian Restaurant than the usual stuff I make, however it wasn't quite there and I tried adding some (not much) lemon juice. I also added a bit of cardamom because my favourite indian place where I used to live have an extra cardamom touch to their madras, and one green chili pepper that was lying around, begging to be used. This, imo, made a good recipe even better, though the improvement might not have been needed if I had had the fresh coriander.

In short, good stuff, even though the extra touch that fresh coriander leaves always entails probably would have made it even better. The lemon juice was just a strange way of compensating, and the cardamom is just a question of taste and how your mind has been shaped by your local Indian restaurant. Great base and good madras.