Quote from: Axe on August 09, 2010, 02:55 PM
That Saag Aloo looks very appetising indeed.

Hi Axe

This one? - https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=4776.msg45944#msg45944

Well, if so, then probably a little too much oil in my attempt, but I recommend it. It is very nice indeed!

Cheers
Cheers

Hi

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Hi

Thanks for the explanation.

Also, where was the cold reclaimed oil from please? the base? - I never seem to be able to reclaim any oil when I make CA's base

Thanks

Hi gazman1976

Very promising & exciting!

Please can you confirm exactly what you do when you 'scraped back'?

Thanks

Hi

Well, I for one, can reiterate, that I have never produced a base like this one. Not even close.

I just made a generic curry with the portion I was given because I was trying to be minimal on the additional spices and to try and let the qualities of this base be easier to identify.

The curry it produced was absolutely superb. Now, I am very hesitant to say it was just like the real thing, and it had all the qualities and the taste, lets just leave it as, it was excellent for now. Although, I could not be bothered to wash up that night, and the following morning the smell in the kitchen from the pan and plates was absolutely beautiful. (Although it was actually cooked outside on a high heat).

However, there is a key difference here, this base has (and this is where we fall into difficulties trying to describe taste with words) body, mid-tones, depth.

Thickness, watery-ness, the viscosity of the base aside, the flavor has a good warm depth to it. Like a good bottle of red, of the sound of a Gibson Les Paul compared to a Fender Strat, some bases just come out 'thin' in taste, this one was very full bodied.

Admin's base is the only one I have tried that has produced a smooth deep bodied flavor that is slightly like this one (https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1894.0) although the coloring was a million miles away - going to make that one again now I have reminded myself

Also, interesting to read in jb's thread about his chef saying they used to add a whole Chicken into their base. Well, as I said in the first post, the base reminded me of spiced Chicken and sweetcorn soup....

Who knows.

Quote from: jb on August 03, 2010, 07:38 AM
Well the Jalfrezi was very nice I was just expecting something earth-shatterring or a big eureka moment I guess.

Hi jb

Thanks again for sharing your experiences.

Also, don't forget, that you have been cooking solidly for around 3 hours and so it is likely your sense of taste and smell will have been stifled and you may not have been able to appreciate the true taste of your efforts. Plus it is still early days in the lessons.

Did you have any left-overs in the fridge that you can taste again?

Cheers

Hi All

Thanks for the reply and ideas.

No, I did not actually see them take the sauce from anywhere. It was brought out (very quickly) from behind semi-closed doors. However at the same time, I got a Vindaloo from them too and you could taste the exact same flavor coming through in that with the onion slithers too - absolutely delicious. So I'm convinced beyond reasonable doubt that it was the real deal.

It is also highly probable that sweetcorn was not an ingredient at all. I must confess, checking for the digestion of any sweetcorn is taking the investigation a little too far - a very clever suggestion though.

Carrots, yes maybe used in a large quantity would account for the colour and sweetness. Not really a 'carroty' taste coming through, but I suppose that could be affected by all the other ingredients.

Anyway, TBH, we will probably never know. I was just very surprised to find a sauce that was so different from the ones I have tried in all the books and on this site.

cheers all.

Sorry to double post.

Did you notice the chef bring a ladle from under the counter near the end of the video and pour it into the middle of that dish.

Looked like deep red oil (reclaimed?) to me...

Quote from: Stephen Lindsay on August 02, 2010, 07:01 PM
I can't see it properly but is that him putting lemon juice on the sizzler trays?

Hi

I recognise the bottle, that is (or was originally) lemon juice, very interesting.

Don't know about you, but I was wondering why they were just walking by the trays that were just sitting there on fire for ages!

Hi

Over the weekend, I was able to acquire a portion of 'curry sauce' as they called it, from my favourite local TA.

Just posting a picture of the sauce and a description as it was quite unlike any base that I have made from this site or any book.

I got some REALLY funny looks when I asked for it too  - they did not really have any idea what a 'base sauce' was, but after a small chat, we all established that it was the plain as it comes from the cooking pot 'curry sauce' that I was after.

It almost seems that their base could be made in two parts. There is an absolutely perfectly smooth blended body to the base, then it seems an addition of sweet small slithers of onion are added as an addition. There was also the odd fragment of coriander leaf floating about in it too.

Other than that, the base was perfectly uniform in colour and after a night in the fridge only a minute trace of oil formed around the top sides of the sauce.

In flavour the base is like sweet chicken and sweetcorn soup with a spice mix added, but incredably moorish. When sampling the dish and trying to work out what was in there it was near impossible not to just gobble up the whole lot, and that is something no other base has made me feel compelled to do.

TBH - I have no real idea what is in there, but I am sure they use most of the usual stuff like potatoes, carrot and peppers. However, between three people who have now tasted the base we all thought there was a good amount of sweetcorn in there too. It probably wasn't, but it tasted like it.

Made a tremendously lovely curry. Not sure if it actually had the taste or not, but it was tremendous. Some left in the fridge for another opinion tonight.

Cheers all