Madrasandy,

Appreciate that puts my mind at rest.

I'd never gone past 2 hr in past on stage 1 and was not aware of the rubbish effect of going too sweet.

Lesson learnt albeit hard way.

If you have the money then why not. The heat up would be my concern but I guess on gas won't be too long. 

The thing with tandoor for me would be to do meat.

The poor mans is a gas BBQ. It works pretty well. Not tandoor for sure. Warm is 5 min. I have tarva too but to impress it's the BBQ.

As others point out method and recipe have big effect. H4ppy-chris at his best.

this did not go well - mainly down to the base.

i got too much oil in dish 1 - only added 2 tbsp.

dish 2 had too much sweetness in the "lumps" of mashed base which did not sit well in the dish - i blended it straight after.

dish 3 was better having upped the chilli powder and mix powder.

dish 4 was not bad but cooked on my burner using the normal technique. the dish had been lost though

going forward have 1 main question if anyone can help - i want to darken the dish - i'm thinking of well caramelised onion.

detail notes:
Rev 1 no good 3/10

Rev2 dish 2
Base to sweet "mashed not mashed enough"
More mix and chilli worked well
Colour not right
Taste not right

Rev2 dish 3

Blended base much better 5/10
Colour and taste not right
Perhaps missing more garlic or Ginger or even blackened onion

Rev3 dish 4

Hot fried
Garlic and Ginger 3:1 added
F.coriander added (too much)
Dish now 7/10 but lost original target taste
Extra Ginger worked well
Sweetness essentially gone - why
Leave garlic and puree as is ie adopt more
Try onion on next

pics
dish 1


dish4

have cooked the 4 off no 3 vindaloo using the base.

i ended up blending it - the mashing is what i need for "best" - it looks good but too many other problems need sorting 1st.

the main problem was the base was just too sweet and in the mashed form the "chunks" were just out of balance in the finished dish. felt like a traditional dish.

forgot to comment on the inclusion of the chip fryer oil - i don't feel i added enough. i was looking for a sort of "cardboard" flavour and in short don't see this happening (as Haldi said) until the fryer oil is right - i just don't cook enough bhaji to produce the effect.

going to abandon it - have greater areas of need. i actually hope it caused the sweetening as i've never had this problem before.

on next batch going to reduce the cook down to say 3 hrs from the 5 hrs in effort to kill off this sweetness which i really don't gel with.

part of me also says this basic base is not right - thinking of upping the turmeric. its currently at 0.6% of onion g where my norm would be more like 4%.

i'm also not sure how long i can hack this basic base idea - beginning to question my original thought - why on earth. it does expose problem areas though and for that is worth my effort. need to sleep on it.

Secret Santa,

It must be as you say taste bud.

I can relate fully to zap.

What put me onto it was ashoka (Marg) but more importantly TA carton in fridge always have slight solid debris.

I have asked at BIR and very clear butter ghee naan only and veg ghee rest. Must admit can see the mixture of oil and ghee although I only add v ghee to base - just a small amount (30g in 800g you can go wild and add more)

From the sidelines much appreciate mickdabass report who I trust.

Comment on sweetness and the tarka very helpful.

I won't help and not being negative as I love the tarka effect. I have tasted 2 off BIR base and neither had tarka taste.

It's clearly part of the jigsaw though.

quite ironic given Kai's post - onions were far too sweet. i also still got too much oil in the finished dish (only added 2 tbsp at dish fry).

have done 2nd stage cook on the base to try and remove the sweetness. will get another dish cook on monday. there was not much oil on top so the excess oil is from added at dish fry.

for background. the basic base used at the restaurant does have water added but was not clear when or how. i've adopted the nottingham idea of adding it at dish fry ie missing out stage 2 re heat (this happening at the dish fry). i've also been trying to adopt mashing and this needs the onions cooking typ 5 hrs. over a few goes i've now got this right but ended up with very sweet onion. the base tasted much sweeter than the base i tasted in the restaurant - so i feel i've gone too far.

it might just be the case that my sauce mix is not right ie to balance the sweetness.

i'm well out of my comfort zone "base knowledge" on this but hoping to learn more of the why.

only real progress is the coriander root - the restaurant does not add to the base. i find if mashing it makes the look of the base naff. in short going to dele the coriander from the base and add more at sauce.

the sauce method works a treat. i used the no3 vindaloo sauce - not bad still work in progress but base needs to be right 1st.

madrasandy's ultimate vindaloo post gave me the push to get on with this.

have tried to crack vindaloo a few times. i've adopted Secret Santa's thoughts in this go.

the key change was to increase the amount per portion of the fresh green chilli and to switch to finger chilli from birds eye.

i've put the whole dish into a sauce or paste - the idea being same as the no3 madras ie freeze a "dish" portion then at dish frying simple add oil, the sauce and base. this is how the local restaurant do it. i'm purely guessing at what that means in practice.

in short the paste tastes pretty good.

the key thing for me is to get the taste and heat balance which most BIR fail to do - it's either too hot with the taste or no taste and no hotter than a madras.





in the recipe sheet the CS column is the original green chilli sauce i used and the Original Vindaloo is the dish frying ingredients - i've combined and tweaked them into the R1 column and then made a 4 portion batch.

beautiful so far.

finally got round to making base and trying out the idea of Fryer Oil. have added 10% fryer oil of the plain oil ie 30ml fryer, 150 reclaimed, 150 fresh.

have also adopted the 2:1 ginger:garlic ratio suggested by iffu. had no carrot but made good with extra onion (have made previously with and without so not fused).

aiming to try out No3 Vindaloo with it being motivated by madrasandy's ultimate vindaloo post.

link to iffu base (not original which is quite different)

https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,7621.0.html