Quote from: blade1212 on October 25, 2005, 08:02 PM
I had Chicken Tikka Karahi Bhuna Madras which was amazing

Chicken tikka, Bhuna, madras, what's not to like!? ?

How about a bit more detail though? How thick was the sauce, any veg in there, swimming in ghee or not, any predominant spice flavours? That sort of thing.

Quote from: grimmo on October 24, 2005, 12:22 PM
Typically the dish will call for 4TBP of oil to start, and by the time the precooked ingredients have been added and the dish is ready there is no oil to be skimmed.

Yup, been there, done that. You definitely need to cook like a restaurant. High heat all the way through. In the last couple of mins cooking at high heat, quite a lot of the oil comes out. Then leave it for a minute or two with the heat off and even more comes out. What I do is turn the heat off and tilt the pan by whatever method to make it easy to scoop out. Don't stand there holding it?
One or two minutes later, start skimming.

Oh and perhaps more importantly, 4 TBSP isn't much oil. A good half to a quarter is going to stay in that curry no matter what you do!

Hi curryqueen

I know we've had this diuscussion before, the group that is, and I totally agree with you that reusing the oil from the base is beneficial to the 'taste'. I also use the oil skimmed from each curry and put that into a pot to cook the next curry in and that is even better. I think Pete does this too. ( Hey admin, I only know this because I had to read the 'other' forum's posts while cr0 was down again this morning! Come on Stew we need a mirror, talking across forums is impossible.) Yes I know, many people here do that too, but a restaurant can't be doing this because the oil would eventually be so concentrated with chilli it would be unusable for mild curries. So re-using oil from curries is great, but it isn't what the restaurants do!

Quote from: Mark J on October 24, 2005, 08:22 PM
OK, I have just tried Pete's really simple recent prawn madras and it came out perfectly

Hmm, this is strange. My attempt at the prawn madras (I used chicken),? certainly wouldn't have passed the 'smell' and 'taste' tests. I'm wondering what I might be doing wrong.

I added more water than required to the KD base because her recipes weren't designed to be cooked at maximum heat like the restaurants do, and like I do. It seemed obvious to me that if you want to keep the concentration of the KD base right while using a high heat you would need more water because it is going to get evaporated off quicker.

What I didn't do was put all the oil in at the tomato cooking stage like Pete did. I put a lot in at the start of the onion cooking bit. Perhaps this makes a difference?

I went out to Tesco today and bought a big can of 'pride' brand tomato puree to use next time incase this is important, although I doubt that it is.

I see you used pepper and carrot like I did, but Pete seems to think this detracts from the 'taste'. You also used a stock cube which has to have a bigish effect on the taste. I'm well confused!

There's definitely something not right here. Between your attempt and Pete's there is green pepper, carrot, msg and stock cube, but you both think you've cracked it? Definitely something not right.

I'm going to try again when I can hoodwink a friend into letting me cook in their house, or whenever my house sells, whichever comes first? ?

It's definitely something I've thought about. That small amount of the residue from the previous curry must get quite well cooked up in the initial cooking of the next curry, when there is only oil and garlic in the pan. It's bound to affect the taste somehow.

Damn it! Is there no end to the possibilities that might create the 'taste'?? ?

I don't have it, but it presents a menu like you would find in a curry house and then gives the recipes for those dishes. The recipes aren't restaurant style, so I would save your money.

I've made a couple of curries now with this batch of KD sauce and I'm finding that the raw taste of the garlic and ginger is too noticeable. It won't be any time soon, but when I make my next batch I'm going to fry the garlic and ginger first. I'm also going to leave out the bit of carrot and green pepper that I added as Pete reckons this didn't help.

Quote from: Curry King on October 21, 2005, 09:42 AM
Anyone eles tried ths yet?

I managed to coax a friend into letting me cook in their house so I wouldn't stink mine up while it's being sold? ?

I tried the prawn vindaloo exactly as described, except I didn't have the tomato paste so just used ordinary puree and I also used chicken instead. Oh, and I added a little bit of carrot and green pepper to the base, but not much. Well what can I say, it didn't do it for me? ?

It did have a bit of the 'taste' but only as a background not full in your face like bought curries, and most disappointingly it didn't have the 'smell' at all.

I mean this in the nicest possible way Pete, but I hope your effort was a one off fluke because I'm never going to crack this otherwise, it just doesn't seem to work for me.

Quote from: DARTHPHALL on October 14, 2005, 11:06 PM
p.s. Yellow Fingers, have you tried the recipe ?

I'm in a bit of a bind at the moment because my house is just about ready to go on the market. It's taken about four weeks to get rid of the curry house smell and until I sell I'm not going to do any more curry cooking. It's agony I can tell you.

However I will try this recipe and it goes on my list of other things I want to try, top of which are your 99% and 100% curries and CK's 'guaranteed to have the smell and taste' vindaloo and some of Pete's demos.

Quote from: Mark J on October 15, 2005, 10:14 AM
Only! Isnt one desert spoon of spice quite a bit for 1 portion?

I thought it was a bit much for one portion too. In general the total of spices I use never add up to more than 2tsp (1 dessert spoon) per portion. So it might be 1 tsp restaurant mix and 1 tsp of chilli for example.