Hi everyone. This is my spice drawer. It is based on the small Kilner jars and I have 48 herbs and spices stored here. I don't keep my mix powders there as they are in larger jars but all the most common whole and ground ingredients are there. How do other people keep spices?   

It does look very yellow, I agree. The true colour difference was somewhere between the first and last pictures. I have just changed my lighting in the kitchen to LED daylighters and it has had a strange effect on my photos even if I use a flash. As far as taste, I would be happy to eat them both from my locals I think but if it was a Madras then I guess it would be the JB one. I have been testing them as they cool today and the C2G base madras had a very slightly stronger garlic taste, which is strange as the JB base had the extra garlic tarka added.

I made two chicken madras today using the same recipe but with different base gravies. They both came out of the freezer. One was a base that was similar to a curry2go base  that had been made in the pressure cooker and the other was the Jb takeaway base found on this site. The madras recipe I used was also JB's chicken madras and mix powder. I cooked both on quite a high heat and then full heat after adding the base gravy. The JB madras was slightly lighter in colour but there was a difference in flavour. I would say that the JB base madras was closer to my local TA but the other one had a stronger flavour, and it wasn't a small difference. I made a point of actually weighing all of the ingredients. I have been making an effort to cook at higher heats recently because it seems to make a difference to the final results. Top picture is the JB base madras and the bottom picture shows the two compared after testing. I did use chicken tikka instead of precooked chicken as that is all I had.

Quote from: gazman1976 on January 19, 2015, 01:34 PM
Bhaji's should be ball shaped in my opinion, never seen them like that before but the colour is correct

I agree about them being ball shaped, I have had some that are flat, like someone stepped on them. Mine tend to be a bit darker but that is just my personal choice.

Thanks for that Unclefrank. I shall give that a go.

This is not a BIR curry which is why I have posted it here. It is based on a recipe in a book called " best ever cook's collection - Indian ". It is very tasty and a curry that I used to cook a lot before I discovered the techniques that are discussed on this site.

Ingredients

3-4 Chicken breasts chopped into bite sized chunks
400-500g Greek yogurt
140g Double concentrate tomato puree (not diluted)
200g Mango chutney (Sharwoods with kashmiri chilli), can be blended
5-6 large cloves Garlic crushed
0.5 large bunch Coriander chopped 
1.5 tsp Schwartz Hot Chilli powder (not ground chilli but a blend of spices)
1.5 tsp Schwartz Garam masala
1.5 tsp Ground Cumin
1 Tbs Veg oil
1 tsp Salt
0.25 tsp Elaichi powder
280 ml water

Method

Blend all the ingredients apart from the Chicken, Coriander, oil and water.
Heat the oil in a Wok or Karahi (I use a non stick Wok). Lower the heat slightly then add the yogurt and spice mix and boil for about 2 minutes. Add the chicken and stir well to coat the chicken. Cook until the sauce starts to thicken. Add the water ( you may not need all of it) to thin the sauce a bit then cook for a further 5-7 minutes. Add the chopped Coriander and cook until the chicken is tender. Serve with rice.

I made a small batch of this up this week, enough for about six curries, and the only thing I did different was to sieve the base as my blender really does need replacing. I also added more garlic than was suggested early on and I have to say that it makes good curries. It added an extra layer of flavour for the recipes that I use. Thanks JB.

Quote from: Geezah on January 18, 2015, 06:37 PM
Bhaji should look like this...

I like mine nice and crunchy, all the way through.

Has anyone ever had a tandoori chicken curry? Years ago when I first started eating curries one of my local restaurants used to serve it. The chicken I later realized was actually chicken tikka but the gravy was nothing like CTM. It was quite dark red in colour and very savoury. The dish was later changed and they did use tandoori chicken taken off of the bone but it somehow lost something. Has anyone else tried this and managed a recipe for it? 

Thanks for that Garp. Can you use chicken tikka or is the flavour lost? I think that and Onion Bhaji would make a good starter with that Pakora sauce. By the way, I include a photo of my cremated Bhaji.