Quote from: George on November 26, 2010, 12:05 PM
your comments fly in the face of much of the advice at this forum. How can you make such pronouncements if you haven't even tried any of the popular bases off this site?

I'm not sure what pronouncements have in mind, George.  All I do is report factually on my own experiments, and give my own assessment (and sometimes my wife's) of the results.  Never have I suggested that KD's bases are better than CA's, or Ray's, or Bruce Edwards, or anyone else's : all I am suggesting is that KD's bases are absolutely fine in their own right, and produce final curries that are comparable to any that I have eaten in British Indian Restaurants.

QuoteI think I'm right in saying that the KD bases have never been rated very highly by most people here, even though there are a few fans. Perhaps they haven't tried the superior bases, either, so they might not know what they're missing.

Yes, I am aware that not all regard KD's bases as highly as I do : that seems perfectly reasonable, but surely that is not a reason for not posting my own tests and results ?  After all, if we all agreed which was the best base and the best final-dish recipes, there would be no need for CR0 at all : we could simply publish the definitive BIR recipe book and retire on the profits 

But what I don't know, George, is what your own preferences and experiences are : which bases have you tried, in conjunction with which recipes, and what results have you achieved ?  This isn't Wikipaedia, where original research is frowned upon : quite the opposite, in fact -- original research forms the lifeblood of this forum !

** Phil.

Quote from: currymonster on November 26, 2010, 08:30 AM
Not having made the KD2 base myself, how do you find the base compared to others on this site?

With considerable embarrassment, I have to confess that the only bases I have ever made are KD1, KD2, and my own creations.  And on thinking about it, I suppose that my reason for this is that I feel that a base is just that : a base.  The creativity comes in, I think, when you are preparing the final dish : the base is just there to provide the right texture and underlying flavour, which therefore has to be subtle and understated.

** Phil.

Quote from: Stephen Lindsay on November 25, 2010, 10:19 PMWhen we were younger and more naive he used to order a chicken madras without onions from our local takeaway. They used to say "no problem" and then serve him the same curry as everyone else

Reminds me of old, apocryphal, joke :

Man goes into American coffee house and says "Can I get a coffee without cream ?"  "Sorry", says the waitress, "we don't have any cream.  You can have one without milk, though, if you like ... ?".

Interesting.  To my ear, they don't really have the same accent, but in voice clip 2, the chap who used the term "little b@st@rds" where the previous speaker had been speaking of scallies, chavs and so on, sounded the most Mancunian to me, whereas the "scallie/chav" speaker had an accent which I personally would have found hard to place.

** Phil.

Quote from: Razor on November 25, 2010, 06:55 PM
Phil,

Don't think that the Mancunian accent in your link wasn't accurate at all.  The fella sound more North Easter than North Western, nevermind Mancunian. 

Do you happen to know which recording it was ?  There are at least four separate sets of (allegedly) Mancunian informants.

** Phil.

Quote from: JerryM on November 25, 2010, 03:54 PM
electronic scales are what you need. dead easy switching from old to new units.

That's what we had, until herself dropped them and didn't tell me !  We still have electronic scales, but these are a much older design that are bi-stable : press once for on (metric), then press again for tare and/or Imperial.  Unfortunately it is extremely unpredictable what happens on a second or subsequent press, which is why we bought the more modern set on a trip to Germany.  They will have to be replaced a.s.a.p. !

Quotei thought the KD2 base is the same as KD1 - is it the pressure cooker that you are trying out.

No, KD2 involves sauteeing the onions; that is the basic difference, intended to make the smell when they are finally boiled less offensive.  The pressure cooker I have used before, and is basically a way of leaving the onions doing something useful (softening) if I want to turn the power off (for example, to go out, as I did today).

More later : going back to start liquidising now and the adding the tomato and turmeric/paprika.

Updated : Stage 3 is quite tricky; you have to fry one teaspoon of turmeric and one teaspoon of paprika with one teaspoon tomato puree and one tablespoon oil; I failed to read the key words "medium heat", and the spices almost certainly cooked too quickly as a result.  I shall persevere, even though I could have re-started that stage with very little loss, but of course the tests will no longer be conclusive.

Second update : Well, that was interesting.  The first thing to note is that KD2 stage-1 sauce is noticeably different in colour to KD1; it has far more of a milky appearance.  After stages 2 & 3, any remaining difference is no longer obvious.

In total, KD's quantities (see above, plus 1,5L water) yielded 54 fl. oz. stage 3 sauce, which I divided into 1 x 3/4 pt for today's chicken thigh curry, and 3 x 14 fl. oz. for chilling or freezing.  I didn't bother to reserve any stage-1 sauce for pre-cooking future meals, as there seem so many other ways that it was not worth  bothering at this stage.

So this evening I made a chicken thigh madras : 3/4 pt stage 3 sauce, 2 x skinned free-range chicken thighs (I fried the skins yesterday in "essence of curry", and they were wonderful !).  5 tablespoons recycled oil, 2 teaspoons Bassar curry masala, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon fenugreek, some chopped coriander stalk, a wedge of lemon and a squeeze of lemon juice.  In retrospect, less Bassar curry masala would have been better, as there was still considerable heat in the recycled oil.  And the squeeze of lemon juice was overkill.  Garnished with chopped coriander leaves and served with a stuffed paratha. 

Now the punch line : the chicken thighs weren't fully cooked !  But as I'd already poured the gravy over the paratha, I couldn't wait for the chicken to finish cooking, or the paratha would have gone soft, so instead I just ate paratha and curry gravy.  It was superb    So without intending to, I really put this recipe to the test : could you eat the sauce effectively by itself (OK, with paratha) ?  And the answer was decidedly "yes".

So I have no reservations about recommending KD2 as a base for those who want to avoid the unpleasant smells associated with KD1.  But KD2 is more labour intensive, so I suspect I will continue to use KD1 as my base of choice, resurrecting KD2 when and if I need to prepare base when herself is at home (or is expected home the same evening) !  That's it for tonight, most is already washed up, so unless anyone asks any questions I shall stop here.  Goodnight, all.

** Phil.

Opening the 'fridge door and seeing a leek reminded me of this post, and I wondered : has anyone ever tried making a base using either carrageen or agar-agar as the thickening agent ?

** Phil.

Just trying KD2 base (in pressure cooker, on LP setting) for the first time.  Horrified to discover that Kris has "gone metric" in KD2, so for the first time in my life I have had to weigh 2Kg onions and 50g garlic & ginger.  I will continue to update this message until the base is complete and I have cooked my first curry (hopefully this evening), so please don't add replies until I have finally reported on the end dish.

** Phil.

And now, Taste Tester, you can compare all of these examples with genuine recordings made around the country, and see if you can work out from where our curry-loving linguists really originate :

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/

Sadly the couple from Boughton Monchelsea (about two miles from here) sound more like Londoners than real Kentish folk : my maternal grandfather was a Man of Kent, and his accent was distinctly more rural than this couple sound.

** Phil.

OK, good luck !

Update : tried the Bosch stick blender on my current batch of KD2 base, but on trying to get the resulting gravy through the mesh of a sieve, I realised that the particle size was still quite large.  I then transferred what remained in the sieve, plus a little of the now-fltered gravy, into the goblet blender and gave it another minute, after which it seemed absolutely fine.  I am not sure what the maximum run time is for a 600W stick blender, but I suspect it is considerably less than the 3 minutes that Kenwood recommend for the goblet, and I have a feeling that it may be as little as 15 to 30 seconds.

** Phil.