Quote from: Masala Mark on January 14, 2012, 12:06 AM
Hi,

Here we add whole spices to the base gravies, they are very rarely ever added to a finished dish.

As an example, Butter gravy has green card, cinnamon stick, cloves, bay leaves. Onion Gravy has cloves, black cardamom, cinamon sticks, and sometimes star anise if no big cards available.

Don't get added to the final dishes as no one really wants to bit into a whole spice, if they are noticed when going into the final dish then they are removed, sometimes we miss them though.

Regards,
Mark

Mark, for the spices to remain whole do you add the spices after the blending stage and then do the final simmer ?

Quote from: Razor on January 12, 2012, 09:39 PM
Well, here's the verdict.!

So, after a day's experimenting with this base, and again, I stress that it's NOT the c2go base but a variation of it, I made a good old Chicken tikka madras.

Once the first ladle of base sauce went in, I couldn't believe how quickly it reduced down. It virtually just turned to oil within minutes.  I quickly added my next ladle (about 100ml) and this time, it mixed well with all the other ingredients.  Heat on high, with lid on, I carried on cooking the sauce.

I got this to reduce to about half again, then added a further 100ml of the base.  The smell was great but I was also worried about, spice overload. 

I gave it another minute or so, then knocked off the heat.

Whilst the sauce was relaxing, I grilled a batch of blades chicken tikka (I'd forgotten how good this is).  Whilst the chicken was under the grill, I stepped outside to regain my sense of smell.  If anybody could have seen me, they would have phoned the funny farm.  I was breathing in and out of my nose like a raging bull on heat

Anyhoo, the tikka was done.  I put the sauce back on a low light, just to heat it through, and added the tikka.  I took it off immediately, and served on a bed of plain boiled basmati rice.

The reason I didn't give the chicken any further cooking in the sauce was because I didn't want ANY other flavours permeating the sauce.

On my first taste, my initial thought was that it wasn't as sweet as I'd hoped it would be.  However, after a couple of mouthfulls, I no longer thought that, as there was a lovely sweetness coming through after each swallow.  Then, the heat took over from the madras and it almost obstructed what it was that I was looking for.  Luckily, I could still appreciate the sauce for what it was.

I guess my final thoughts with regards to this base is, It's not a break through in terms of "it stands out from any other base that you could possibly try" but it is a good base.  The taste of the final dish was almost identical to what I usually make using Chewy's base and my spice mix, which unfortunately, throws up more questions than answers.  Is my spice mix too powerful to be able to pick out other flavours individually?

QuoteIs the base gravy all that important as long as it has the key ingredients, onions, garlic, ginger and minimal spices?

I suppose that the next test would be to try this base with a milder dish or even a simpler mixed powder?

The real acid test would be to make the c2g base to exact spec, including the seasoned oil?

Overall, a very usable base, very easy to make, no major break through I'm afraid, well not as yet.

I'm going to have another go tomorrow, after the base has matured for a day and my senses have returned to normal, and perhaps do a basic curry?

Many thanks for sticking with me on this one, I only wished that I could have brought you something more encouraging.

Ray

I think that is true Ray,doesn't seem to matter that much what you put in a base as long as you have Onions 
well done for all your efforts 

CH,what do ya think of the sig 

Nice find Phil 

Lost all my little icons on the site just left with the Red cross (the one you can right click on and select show picture etc) but it doesn't work when I click on show picture either,any idea's 

Probably because ingredients like Tomato's/Puree  requires very little cooking compared to the firmer ingredients like Onions,Carrots,Garlic etc but I don't really know what effect it would have on the puree if you did put it in the base first stage.

Quote from: Razor on January 10, 2012, 10:56 AM

Quote from: Whandsy on January 09, 2012, 10:16 PM

Quote from: natterjak on January 09, 2012, 10:13 PM
The resulting curries are sweeter and richer in flavour IMHO

Good I'm up for that

Me too but I never really got a definitive answer with regards to the oil.  My oil has mainly been used for bhajis, samosas and onion rings but it has done the odd batch of frozen chips, not too many mind.!  Some say it should be fine, some strongly dissagree.  Julian from c2g never responed either way, so I'm not sure what to do?

Ray

Ray,
Have made the C2G base twice now,the first time with some 'well seasoned' : bhaji oil,the second with spiced oil I made using whole spices and I think the resultant curries using the bhaji oil had the best flavour of the two.How healthy using well used bhaji oil in the base I don't know 
I recently replaced the oil in my mini fryer and there was 'gunk' stuck to the bottom of it so if I do use bhaji oil again I think it will be from a not so well used batch of oil   

Quote from: natterjak on January 09, 2012, 09:53 PM
I followed C2G's base sauce recipe in terms of ingredients but used my 6.5l slow cooker overnight. As ray says, it's incredible how much liquid appears during the first cooking, all coming out of the veg. It was a leap of faith to turn the slow cooker on and leave it overnight when it was practically dry, but lo and behold in the morning it was half full of liquid.

QuoteFollowing the blending and adding spices it had another 4 or 5 hours on "high" as per the C2G method

of cooking post blending, and during this time the sauce darkened and became richer in flavour.

natterjak , the C2G base recipe (going by julians video) does not state the base should heated on ' high' but low as per the first stage.

My latest curry2go base included the chef's spoon of methi but the previous curry2go base didn't and there was no noticeable difference in taste in either the base or curry's which followed 

Well done CH, it seems there being so little to choose between the curry's that using many of the regular spice mix's could produce similar flavoured curry's,my current duo is curry2go's base with ifindforu's spice mix but without the Jalpur GM and ES curry powder (i use Rajah) and am very pleased with the resulting curry's,
As there was no 'Eureka' moment at the tasting confirms to me there is no real need for the JP or ES spices which aren't available in my area anyway,very well done for taking the time to complete the test