I have the week off, taking a few days after the Fourth of July holiday we get here and plan on having a bash at this.  I am 100% a vindaloo guy so now a little wary after Santa's post but we shall see.  Got my grill set up, summer is here and that means outdoor curry cooking for me.

Robbo

Cheers Livo, I love a properly stained old paper printed recipe.  The good news is my concrete patio is now poured and set, my grill has arrived and it's almost June and time to start cooking outdoors.  I have a couple of base gravy recipes to try, as a break from my instant pot fixation of late.  Summer in Chicago on the way.

Robbo

....born in the last 20-30 years....I wish.

SS, thanks for that base recipe. One to keep for future. I will pressure cook it.

Livo, let's see some scans if you can.  Blast from the past always welcome.

Robbo

I love a curry as much as the next person but just don't have it within me to get into an argument online with someone I've never met about it.

"Aaargh, vindaloo doesn't mean potato, the origins are in the Portuguese blah blah why does no one listen blah blah". Etc etc

"What do you mean you like a curry as much as the next person? Aaaaarrgggghhhhh!! I like curry way more than you."

Life's too short, and so am I.

Keep calm and cook curry.  And to those of you in the UK, think yourselves lucky that you can just pop out for takeaway whenever you like.

Robbo

PS: "what do you mean keep calm aaaaarghh...." Ok you get the idea :-)

Chokos... well there's a thing I had to google. Interesting.
And I agree about the frustration that comes with inconsistency.  The times I've cooked what I thought were absolutely identical dishes and have one great, only to find the repeat was meh...For that IP butter chicken, my only mods to Urvashi Pitre's recipe are;
1. Use extra hot chilli powder instead of cayenne
2. Added ingredients - black cardamom, few green cardamom, star anise, couple cloves, Indian bay leaf, 5 or 6 Thai chillies, sliced lengthwise.
At least we get fed doing this never ending quest.

Robbo

I've made Chef Syed's service onions a few times and had good results. And now have enough Ajwain seeds to last a lifetime, as I rarely see them in recipes.
Mrs Robbo away with daughters for 4 nights from today so it's curry night (and day) till Tuesday for me. Bliss.

Robbo

Let's get back to curry chat.

Robbo

Phil,
Regarding that Maddhur Jeffrey book. My first 2 dishes were;
1. Chicken stewed in a light sauce with potatoes and cauliflower.
Result: nothing special, just too watery for me.  Will not repeat.

2. Lamb with spinach
Result: not too bad, used the slow cook function for 5 hours.  Added cream at the end to thicken.  Would not repeat either.

I bought some mung dal this weekend to try that next.

So far though, I much prefer the dishes from Urvashi Pitre and her "Indian Instant Pot Cookbook" with the butter chicken recipe that started this whole electric pressure cooker experiment.  The biryani in that book is good too.

Robbo

Truthfully, the 'banging on' term is mine. She's American so doesn't have such linguistic capability.  Mind you, when we first got our vacuum sealer it was a revelation and I vac-pack tons of stuff now. First try of the spices though.  Will give that a run out on a curry this week.
After I try a couple of recipes from Maddhur Jaffrey's Instant Pot book that I got from that excellent book site linked in this forum recently.  What a site that is.


Robbo

Just the other day, I proudly showed my newly re-arranged spice tin thing to daughter #2. "See, when I make that instant Pot Butter Chicken, I just take one each of these individual spices and add to a tin of tomatoes, no back and forth to the pantry" etc etc... She's a very organized person, likes to plan meals for the week in advance etc. I thought she'd appreciate my effort.  She just asked, "why don't you just make up a single packet with everything in it?"

Wait, what?

"Yeah then vacuum seal it with that machine you're always banging on about for sous-vide"

Result.


One regular and one hot one for me.

Robbo