I just cooked up 4 double batches of this for tomorrow night. It's really interesting to see the difference in taste between the batches, using identical ingredients.

The first i used too much onion at too low temperature and it didn't have 'the taste'. The next batches were fine but there were still different levels of quality.

Cooking on induction is a bastard.

Quote from: gazman1976 on February 05, 2012, 09:32 PM
Once again - people should make recipes exactly to spec - if they dont like it then tweak it - hate seeing people saying oh but i added this and omitted that - not the same im afraid !

Just thanking the man for his recipe. You have a right to your opinion, even if it is complete nonsense. The recipe specifies no particular base sauce or mix combination, so has no exact 'spec'.

Oh, I left the tomatoes out too, 'cos I don't like them.

Mind your own, I'll cook what I like with whatever recipe I like.

I didn't notice it in the recipe (1 cardamom for a double portion). I was just trying to compensate for it not being in my curry mixes and not having much reclaimed oil.

Thanks for the recipe! Made a lamb tikka bhuna with it and the missus said it was the best curry ever (and she wasn't wrong).

I'm not sure what made the difference, I used CT's base and CA's mix. I chucked in a black cardamom with the star anise and finely chopped the green pepper. Pinched a bit of oil from a Madras and a new batch of base sauce, but apart from that pretty much to spec.

Just a word of warning with lamb. If you need a specific amount remember you lose about a third in water from pre-cooking!

The missus just uses CA's pilau recipe, 3 mins on the heat/ 3 minutes covered off the heat, 45 mins in a low oven.
She says the secret is not heating the oil to  high when frying the spices (she's Turkish, so has a fair bit of spice coking experience, she always thinks I'm over heating stuff).

Also, she didn't understand one word of your video and didn't believe me that it was English ;D

Thanks Chewy,

The Madras was my best curry yet. I used your base which gives a good sweetness plus CA's mix powder + a little Balti garam masala. Lovely silky texture.

I found adding the puree to the oil first let me control the frying of the spices a bit more (and I'm cooking on Induction!)

Also coincide with the missus perfecting the timing of pilau rice and the best naans yet.

It was a good night.

Big thanks out to everyone on the site. Finally managed to cook decent naan and pilau rice.

I'd love to cook up a batch of lamb tikka to use in various recipes. Is it possible to freeze tikka recipes? and if so, would it be advisable to half cook it?

Thanks in advance.

The missus is on Cortisone at the moment and so can't have any salt at all. I don't normally add any extra, but she does like a bit.

I made a kinda fusion curry using CA's Vindaloo recipe but using Pat Chapman's special Balti base since I had some in the freezer. So a creamy/ vindaloo thing. It was good and I didn't miss the salt, even the missus thought it was good. I live in France and the TA stuff is pretty poor to dire, so she's only really tried curry a couple of times in the U.K.

She offered some of the sauce to a friend the following lunchtime who turned their nose up at  it , being without salt. Eventually the friend had a taste and pronounced it as good as Indian food she'd had in the U.K.

The French might not know much about curry but I was pleased as punch. It might give a taste but it's possible to make something O.K without the salt.