After seeing your ceylon, seeing as I need to fash tonight, I thought I'd make another curry to have just before the fast starts (10pm) and so I couldn't resist and made a ceylon! Granted it does not look as well as yours, but the taste...ohhhh... I'm sold to my new base

Just as I had the first few bits, I realized a photo of it plated was in order. As usual, mind my food imagery skills

Pilau rice cooked in pressure cooked using my general recipe with added coconut milk, fried shallots and coconut chips.


So far this is curry nirvana for me. I can't wait til I cook my next curry.

Lovely! I love a good ceylon. Some places add a lemon wedge to it, but I've never tried myself.

Speaking of books, sorry to help derailing the thread a little bit more.

I just saw this bargain. 10eur for 5 curry books (second hand, but looking ok).
http://www.adverts.ie/food-and-drink/5-great-curry-cookery-books/2867921

Hi Garp,

It may help to include the site where you got it from. I personally can't relate to that recipe myself. I also don't think that these days people are too inclined to try a random base recipes for the sake of it, it's too much trouble/work and if the result isn't satisfactory, it's been a waste of time, food and gas/electricity. In any case, good luck. I tend to try a lot of base recipes, but they need to at least have had 2-3 positive comments and some buzz.

Quote from: h4ppy-chris on July 03, 2013, 08:45 AM
I have to be able to Rob or there is no point in me doing this book.

There is a fine difference between being able to mimick your chef's cooking (i.e get exactly the same results as he generally gets) and being able to successfully repeat a recipe, using the same techniques. Both are different things, and I think Bob was trying to understand the former,not the latter.

I can get good results in my kitchen, but no matter how hard I try, I know I will never be able to get the results of my favorite BIR with all their recipes. There is more to do it than meets the eye, equipment and/or tastebuds.

Quote from: speziak on July 01, 2013, 01:44 AM
Do you 'toast' the dry spices in a dry pan?  Or just use them as is?
How long do you marinate fish for?  Overnight is overkill, correct?
And what is CBM 1?  It refers to a base mix, correct?  I used to be on this site quite a bit about 2 years ago and it sounds very familiar, but where would I find it?

I use ground spices only. I've always marinated salmon for more than 24h, so I don't know how it compares against, i.e 2hours only

CBM v1 is the first ebook volume from Mick Crawford. I used his recipe for Red Massala which I use in this marinade.

P.S: CBM aka Curry Barking Mad or Mick Crawdford, he used to be on this community.

http://cbm-mick.blogspot.ie/

Looks yummy Gav! good stuff.

Looking forward to a ceylon myself.

I've tried few tikka recipes as well as my own concoctions for salmon tikka. Some good examples from this site: Blades tikka and most recently (2 days ago, in fact) ifindforu's tikka marinade.

I think these marinades are great, but they are far away from the standard I am looking for (even for chicken.).

My reference for tikka salmon was in a restaurant named Meghna in Cambridge. Their marinade was quite runny (almost like mickdabass) and emphasized a red color. The salmon was clearly cooked in the tandoor, because the salmon would be sealed, but full of moisture/juice inside... Yummy!

My own concoction marinade. I haven't worked on it recently to find out anything to improve upon, I remember it was decent, but I'm looking for something specific.

1 tbsp. of red masala (from cbm v1)
1 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp of blackpepper
2 tbsp. veg oil
Juice of half a lemon
3/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. tomato puree
half-tbsp heaped g&g
1/2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. hot chili powder (or to taste)

Quote from: MushroomMike on June 29, 2013, 02:01 AM
Please can you explain what a bhagar is and how it's used in BIR cooking? An example recipe would be good aswell. ;-)

Baghar is a tempering technique. Most curry dishes start with a baghar of very hot oil, g&g, spices (mix or whole). It's basically an infusion of g&g and spices into the oil.