Have recently been cooking my popadoms in the microwave...spray or brush lightly with oil & zap for 45 secs on high...works like a treat !

                                                                Kalia

Ingredients :

?   Meat 2 lbs
?   Oil 1/2 cup
?   Onion paste 1/4 cup
?   Ginger paste 1 tbsp
?   Garlic paste 2 tsp
?   Turmeric paste 2 tsp
?   Chili paste 1 tsp
?   Cumin paste 2 tsp
?   Coriander paste 2 tbsp
?   Ground pepper 1 tsp
?   Cinnamon 3 - 1" sticks
?   Cardamom 3
?   Bay leaf 1
?   Potatoes 1 lb

Method :

Cut the meat into 1 inch cubes. Mix all the ingredients except potatoes with the meat and half of the oil. Cover the meat with an equal amounts of water and cook under medium heat. When the water has evaporated, stir fry the meat for about 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, peel the potatoes, and cut them into large pieces. Fry the potatoes in the rest of the oil until they start turning brown. Add the potatoes to the meat and stir fry them a bit longer, making sure that the potatoes and meat do not start breaking apart. After about 15 minutes, add a bit more water to dissolve the spices that may be sticking to the pot and cook covered in medium heat for another 10-15 minutes. When the potatoes are cooked, keep covered on low heat for another few minutes.

Chefs Note -
The seeds in tomatoes impart the bitterness...if you remove the seeds from fresh tomatoes it will impart a far smoother and palatable taste to any base sauce .

FYI...a lot of IR use  cream of tomato soup as an added base flavor in CTM ( although they would adamantly deny it if you asked them ) .

I concur with Dylan's comments...the chicken stock would not impart a a dramatic change in taste but rather give the gravy a little more body .

Ditto !!   

Name : John

Age : 56

Location : British Columbia , Canada

Cooking Experience : 40 years cooking both traditional & restaurant-style curries .

Everyone is in search of " that missing taste ." I think that you have to be objective about the former....tastes vary from one restaurant to another - so what does that tell you ! Perhaps the chefs are adding their own touch to the recipe . Base sauces or gravy are common to most cuisines and adjusting the former by adding spices / herbs is a given . The concept of skimming off oil is not a practice which is adhered to in most up-scale Indian restaurants ( be they traditional or BIR ) . Palates differ , so it is quite possible that the " missing taste " also differs form one individual to another .

The chilies should be dried ( in the oven ) before freezing them .  Store them in sealed glass jars in a cupboard, or in the freezer double-wrapped in freezer bags. (Don't put bagged chilies in a cupboard because the plastic is porous and the chilies can oxidize, ruining both the color and the flavor.) With both storage methods, dried chilies last indefinitely.

To reconstitute the chilies, soak them in hot water for about 15 minutes, fry them in a bit of oil until they puff up, or lightly roast them. Dried chilies can also be ground to a powder when you're ready to use them (no earlier, because the powder would lose its flavor).

Scanning the various forums , I find it rather amusing that people are constanly in search of that illusive , authentic restaurant taste and in doing so , are quite willing to sacrifice the original recipe flavour of a dish by adding either obscure or off the wall ingredients .  Time to get back to basics and perhaps read books such as those by Charmaine Solomon ( The Complete Asian Cookbook ) .