Hi

Good ideas here!

Personally have tried loads of bases from the site and books but always end up coming back to the CA base as I find it to be the most flexible base with regard to getting good results from a variety of dishes. Although my version of the CA base has been tweaked substantially, I would like to put forward the standard CA base as a contender for the 'breakthroughs lie with recipe refinement' project.

Edit: What is this project going to be called? - in the past various posters have severely 'done one' basically just down to the naming conventions and what they might imply being used to discuss an idea like this? - keen to avoid that kind of negativity.

Cheers all

Quote from: Phil (Chaa006) on January 11, 2011, 01:30 PMSnip...

But to answer your real question, I am confident that the answer is "both".  We have already see over the last few days that Ham's base with black cardamom is both attracting attention and attracting praise; but a base alone cannot make a curry, any more than can the final preparation and spicing.

My two penn'orth, for what it's worth.
** Phil.

Hi

For what its worth I agree with Phil, although my efforts will be 90% recipe refinement and 10% base tweakage.

From the knowledge and recipes on this forum, and the books we all know about I was able to produce a 100% Chicken Tikka Jalfrezi last Saturday night. It was absolutely spot on and up there with any of the best from any restaurant. However, I cannot say the same for my Vindaloos. They are very nice, very nice indeed but still sit at 85% to 90% - they are just not the same. This must be down to something like recipe refinement?

Cheers guys

Quote from: mickdabass on January 10, 2011, 11:24 AM
Hi Solarsplace
tbh it was hit and miss. Averaged 50% success rate.
The heat is fearsome
Im going to take the easy option and get some welding type gloves before my hands look like Freddy Krueger's

Hi Mick

Well, sounds like you are getting a lot of fun and success out of your new Tandoor

Gloves sound like an essential idea!

Please keep us posted with any tips, personally have so many boring things with a higher priority that need money spending on them like flooring and car repairs that any dreams of a Tandoor take a considerable step back, so anyh excuse to push it higher up the list  :

Regards

Food looks delicious 

Did you have any difficulty at all with the naan's sticking to the tandoor walls or did it just work fine?

Very jealous of your tandoor

Cheers

If it was really that offensive and serious, this thread should have been reported to Admin at the beginning.

Can Admin or some other Admin if one exists sweep up this unpleasant and unnecessarily drawn out thread please?

There were several friendly and positive posts all sitting comfortably on the front page of the site, and now these have been forced off by this unfortunate thread.

Quote from: Phil (Chaa006) on January 07, 2011, 03:18 PM

Quote from: ThaiExpat on January 07, 2011, 01:48 PM
Singha has too strong a taste for me and is brewed at 6% here (only 5% in the UK I think) and it gives me a terrible hangover, don't even touch Chang as it has a long shelf life due to all the chemicals like formaldehyde in it and is brewed at a minimum of 6.4% but can be a lot stronger, it is the beer of choice of the local alcoholics and it gives you an even bigger headache than Singha, Tiger has a strong overpowering beer taste and as for the local Heineken as well as being the most expensive of the lot it always has a weird taste to me.

Interesting !  In my pre-teetotal days, I loved Singha and Tiger, but then I was always drawn to strong beers, not for their alcohol content but simply because they seemed to have a far better flavour.  For me, 5% was infinitely better than 3,5%, and Chimay Rouge and Chimay Bleue (7% & 9% respectively) were of this world, yet now I drink 0,5% and love it.  I really think the Germans have learned how to brew alkoholfrei Bier that tastes just as good as the real thing (thank goodness !).

** Phil.

I agree with you Phil, personally find now that beers of around 5% seem to have a much better flavour!

Don't get me wrong, if it was a choice of no larger or a can of Fosters, then obviously I'd have to have a Fosters (yuk) - but a nice chilled pint-ish size bottle of Peroni with anything and you cannot go wrong

cheers

Hi CA

I am sure the answer is almost certainly yes, however have you ever tried these: http://www.theasiancookshop.co.uk/chilli-flakes-crushed-dried-extra-hot-red-chillies-1850-p.asp

Had quite successful results with them myself. They do not seem to impart any kind of 'Nagary' taste into the dish like some hot chilli types can which I personally detest and would hope not to encounter unless specifically ordering a Naga type dish.

They do however if added at the frying stage seem to become soft enough to almost dissolve into the dish and produce a wave of instantaneous heat when adding say 1 x tsp per portion in addition to hot red chilli powder.

Cheers

Hi All

Good points and posts

Would just like to add, that the stock for me at least is no magic BIR bullet on its own. The addition of a stock on its own has no chance of turning a inferior curry into a great one. It is essential that many other key pieces must be present too, depending on the dish these may be things such as spiced oil, onion pastes etc.

Personally totally agree that many BIRS probably do not add stock to their base at all. In fact I do not know for certain that my local TA does, I only guessed. Plus it is absolutely certain that there is considerable variation between curry houses, heck 3 of my favourites produce curries that are all absolutely delicious but also very different characters in the same type of dish from one another.

I think it will be an almost impossible outcome for the forum as a whole to agree on what makes a definitive 'standard curry', the key thing is not to talk yourselves out of even considering things such as the stock - or other suggestions for that matter.

One rainy day, why not give all these things we have dismissed a try! what does a portion of base cost to make? a few pounds? why not one day just make up a batch with some stock? - if you don't like it, what's it cost you? the price of a pint? - just make up another

Cheers all  ;D

Hi Guys

Great discussion points

Have myself recently started adding 3 of these stock cubes to a standard size (but slightly modified CA base):



For me, the results have been superb. This takes my previous very good Madras dishes to a new level of 'moorishness' (is that a real word?) never previously attained.

Will continue to use stock from now on. I am a believer! as also mentioned in this thread where I got some base gravy from my local TA, their sauce had almost certainly been stocked with what I believed to be Chicken (https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4851.0).

Cheers all

Quote from: luke465 on January 06, 2011, 09:25 PM
Would be happy to join in and make some!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent - Well played for volunteering!