Ooo err, it looks like I've rubbed the chuckle brothers up the wrong way.

Seriously though, the answer to your question about being able to use any base to be able to make a decent curry is simple. You get yourself 40 odd years of general cooking experience and knowledge along with nigh on 30 years of trying to get the BIR smell and taste (at which I have admittedly failed), mix it liberally with an energetic and enquiring mind and voila, you have someone who can turn the curry equivalent of a pig's ear into the proverbial silk purse. No secrets!


(To you, to me, to you ...) 

Quote from: Cory Ander on January 18, 2008, 11:09 PM
Secret Santa, can I ask you which curry base you normally use please?

I don't have one. I stumble from one base to the next hoping that this will be the one that makes the difference. One thing I will say is that along the way I've pretty much come to the conclusion that there is no right base because I can make any one into a decent BIR style curry. It does bring me back to the "can you mix and match bases and curry recipes" question though, and I'm absolutely certain from experience that you can't.

Talking about curry powders (well we were in another thread) I thought this might be an opportune time to see if anyone knows where I can get this from. I used to buy it from Tesco but they seem to have stopped stocking it. I can get it from Kohinoor online but does anyone know a high street shop that still sells it?

Quote from: slimboyfat on January 18, 2008, 03:04 PM
VENDAKKA MASALA PACHCHADI
Okra simmered in a thick, coconut-flavoured, yoghurt-based gravy,


INGREDIENTS
800g/P/4 lb Okra
Groundnut Oil to deep fry 3g/1 tsp Cumin seeds 4g/1 tsp Mustard seeds
20g/2 Tbs Urad dal 3 Whole Red Chillies 10 Curry Leaves 125g/% cup Onions 250g/ll cup Tomatoes 5g/1 tsp Red Chilli powder 3g/ xk tsp Turmeric ljSg'/1 Tbs Coriander powder Salt
75g/1 cup Coconut 15g/2 Tbs Cashew nuts 100g/'/2 cup Yoghurt

I don't often cook authentic recipes any more but I rather fancied trying this one as I love okra. There seems to be some errors in the quantities though, for example, 20g/2 Tbs Urad dal and 15g/2 Tbs Cashew nuts, the tbs and gram measures are different. Can you just confirm that these are right? Cheers.

Quote from: extrahotchillie on January 18, 2008, 10:34 AM
what can I say, probably the worst curry I have made in years

So I haven't completely lost my sense of taste then. To be fair though my comments were based on the guinea pig version (i.e. the wrong version, which I appeared to be the guinea pig for) and I might eventually get around to trying the modified version, although I notice that SnS himself is now modifying the madras recipe to more along the lines that I would take, so I think this one is still up in the air. Just shows you how far apart our individual expectations are for that BIR flavour and doesn't bode well for our proposed "standard" BIR curry!

Quote from: Cory Ander on January 18, 2008, 09:45 AM
Stick with it Nutty, I'm sure the answer to your question is in there somewhere! 

Hmmmm, now if only I could remember the question. 

Quote from: smokenspices on January 17, 2008, 01:59 PM
did you use the reclaimed oil from the gravy for cooking the onions and spices in the Madras

What reclaimed oil? As I mentioned in my first post there was no separation of the oil at all (one more reason I didn't like the base) so I had to use fresh oil but yes, I would normally use reclaimed oil as it produces a superior flavour.

Quote from: Cory Ander on January 17, 2008, 12:08 PM
apart from that from Secret Santa who appears to have made some changes to the recipe

What? It was everyone else who made changes! Apart from not adding a carrot into the base because I didn't have one, I kept to the base and madras recipes exactly.

Quote from: haldi on January 17, 2008, 08:03 AM
and oriental seasoning...

I've seen that on so many menus but what on earth is oriental seasoning?

Hi Smokenspices,

I might try it again but it won't be or a while as there are other bases I want to try first. As for putting newbies off trying the base, I made the base exactly to recipe (minus one carrot as I didn't have one) and I stand by my report, it was not a very pleasant base. Further the curry as per the recipe was genuinely one of the worst I have ever made. I'm pretty sure now that this is mostly down to it using too much cumin, which is why it reminded me of a jar of Pataks curry sauce.

Now if you look at most of the reports that say it's fab, you'll see that they have not kept to the recipe, adding thing like garlic and ginger which were not specified in your recipe and not using the deggi mirch. But of course these comments are based on the base as originally published so it'll have to wait until I get around to trying it again.