There was a T/A I used in the late 80's early 90's that did a Keema Royale which was a sort of Keema/Bhuna/Dopiaza with minced meat, peppers, onions, peas and was garnished with a quartered boiled egg, very nice it was too. Just try a sliced boiled egg as a garnish for a biriani or any curry for that matter, absolutely delicious. Hope this helps.
CoR

I think you would either need an enormous pan to caramelise all the onions in one go or be prepared to spend an eternity doing them in small batches. If you overcrowd the pan the onions will just stew in their own juices rather than frying/caramelising and so you would end up at square one, with a stewed onion base.
I'd not be inclined to bother, just add onion paste as required.
CoR

OK. Did a simple lamb madras last night, usual way only substituted my base with the stuff from the jar diluted 50/50 with water and upped the spice mix (BE) to compensate for the absence of spices in the base, the results were actually quite good.
That's not to say we can all just call it a day coz I don't think it is better than a "proper" base but it's quite an acceptable stand by to have handy and miles better than any of the curry pastes, especially the Patak ones which I find particularly nasty.
Thing is though for the ?1.30 it cost I could have made 3 litres of base, I'll be lucky to get two decent portions out of this, oh well that's the price of being a lazy bugger I suppose.
CoR

Quote from: Bobby Bhuna on February 21, 2009, 05:59 PM

Quote from: CurryOnRegardless on February 21, 2009, 03:12 PM
http://www.eastendfoods.co.uk/nishaan.htm it's in most supermarkets

No it's not

Oooh yes it is ;D ;D

Well its in my local Morrisons anyway, they have a whole shelf full of the stuff and I'm pretty sure I've seen it in Tescos as well. As I'm completely out of base at the moment I bought a jar, purely in the interest of research you understand, and will do a madras with it later and let you know how it turns out.

BTW the ingredients list is as follows:-

Onion, Tomato, Vegetable Oil, Salt, Ginger, Garlic, Citric Acid.

that's it, no spices, no "flavouring", no MSG!
CoR

Quote from: Cory Ander on February 21, 2009, 10:31 AM

...I have never (yet) seen one for just the plain curry base though. 

Hi CA

What about this stuff http://www.eastendfoods.co.uk/nishaan.htm it's in most supermarkets but I can't comment on wether it's any good or not never having tried it, has anyone on here?

Hi DD, this seems nice


Basically just a tarka dahl with courgette and chilli its by Michael Pandya who has done loads of books on Indian veggie cuisine, well worth checking his stuff out if that's your thing.

CoR

you could use a (tiny) pinch of red food colour if you want...

CoR

hi DD

try a Youtube search for caramelised onions...

CoR

Quote from: RebeccaVT on January 25, 2009, 08:47 PM
I also think it could be really versatile by using different spices blends.       

Versatile indeed, try it with Stilton cheese on crackers, very nice! It's also worth blitzing a little Greek yogurt (5 parts banjara/1 part yogurt) with it, seems to add an extra dimension to the final dish.
CoR

Definitely sounds like the Keema Chicken they do in the more downmarket t/a's and restaurants in North West England, I thought it was a regional thing but obviously not. They will serve it in posher "contemporary BIRs" but you have to ask and they always seem to pull a face and treat you like you just crawled out from under a stone, which is a pity coz done proper its dead good.
CoR