Quote from: cheesyknob on January 13, 2008, 10:59 PM
I used 1.25kg of onions (10x British cooking onions, unpeeled weight) and Charlotte potatoes that are readily available from Tesco.

Hi Cheesyknob

Welcome to the forum and a great first post.

Be great to hear more feedback from other curries you try using the Saffron base gravy.
Glad you enjoyed it. 

Can you just confirm that the weight of the 10 onions of 1.25 kg was UNPEELED and not peeled please. Just gathering relevant information for the final "trimmed up" recipe. Thanks.

Regards

SnS ;D

Quote from: George on January 13, 2008, 05:02 PM
If anyone knows an Indian restaurant which serves better-tasting chicken tikka than this, please let us know.

Regards
George

I made this last night and I agree with George.

SnS ;D

Quote from: unclebuck on January 13, 2008, 03:41 PM

Quote from: smokenspices on January 13, 2008, 03:06 PM

Quote from: unclebuck on January 13, 2008, 02:51 PM
i used this base sauce with darth's madras main it was good as any take out if not better!...

Hi UB

Great to hear .. another tick in the box.

Was that with the corrected spice quantity? Did you take note of the weight of onions (peeled) you used?

Regards

SnS ;D

to the letter really. 8 medium onions only needed about 1 pint of water afterall

I'm sure the amount of water added at the final stage is pretty much a rough guesstimate. The aim is to produce a very thin gravy to allow the oil to break away and separate as it simmers (separation = translucent sheen to the edge of gravy bubbles). Any excess water is evaporated during main curry cooking stage anyway.

SnS ;D

Quote from: unclebuck on January 13, 2008, 02:51 PM
i used this base sauce with darth's madras main it was good as any take out if not better!...

Hi UB

Great to hear .. another tick in the box.

Was that with the corrected spice quantity? Did you take note of the weight of onions (peeled) you used?

Regards

SnS ;D

Quote from: spooner000 on January 13, 2008, 11:58 AM
Hi All,  I am desperate to find an authentic recipe for Chicken or Lamb KOVALAM. It is similar as you know to Keralean dishes but misses something. I had it quite often in a local take away that specialized in unusual Indian dishes and this was a winner everytime !! The key ingredients on the menu were; Coconut milk, mustard seeds and curry leaves. I would be most grateful if anybody could help or point me in the right direction.
This site is fantastic !!!! ;D ;D ;D

Hi Spooner

Welcome to the forum.

Kovalam is a place in Kerala so the recipe you seek will be Karalean (my favourite restuarant in Lincoln is also Karalean).

Found this which may help. I guess you could adapt this recipe for chicken.

http://www.tarladalal.com/recipe.asp?id=209

Regards

SnS ;D

also, if you like Keralean food look here:- http://www.pachakam.com/

Quote from: haldi on January 13, 2008, 09:16 AM
Unfortunately I had made the base and curry before the ingredient quantities were revised.
I don't know how much of a difference it would make
I followed the instructions exactly and found it was 2 litres of water required for the initial boil,the onions weighed 2 kg, and I ended up with 4.5 litres of base
The final curry was the colour expected
The curry was a different recipe for me
I have never done one with this "cooking half an onion first"
I used prawns for the curry and it was completely eaten
I can't totally judge what I got (because of the spice changes) but have you remade the whole thing from scratch and got an exact result?
I think you could get very different results from how long you cook the onions
Mine seemed to cook very quickly, I might have slightly overdone them
Thanks a lot for the recipe

Hi Haldi

Sorry you missed the modification.

I'm guessing here, but I reckon those that have used 8 to 10 medium/large cooking onions will get closer to 2 kg (like you). Then of course the error in the spice volume will be a lot less significant and so you will end up with a result closer to design.

I have not yet repeated the recipe myself yet, but when I do I will write down notes in detail. I can then compare this to the a sample of the Saffrons base sauce for accuracy.

When I was at the Saffron, everything was done by eye, and although they showed me each step carefully, there were no accurate measurements used.

As far as frying the onions at the final stage, again this can vary on type of onion, type of oil, size of burner flame, type of pan and size of chopped onion bits ... but I think as long as the raw bitter taste has gone (absolute minimum time) and the onions have not started to burn (absolute maximum time), then the resulting taste will be similar.

Regards

SnS ;D

Quote from: ast on January 13, 2008, 12:01 AM

Hi SnS,

Thanks for all the info (plus the masses of each of the powders).  I know it's kinda splitting hairs, but I was trying to figure out how much to scale stuff if I wanted to use 1kg of onions.  I was just about ready to halve things, but it's a good thing I didn't.   Not sure yet if I'm going to throw in an extra couple of onions to get it in the 1.1-1.5kg range or just go with 1kg and see what happens.  I think it'll kinda depend on what I feel like tomorrow.

Thanks again.  I'm really looking forward to tasting the result!

Cheers,

ast

Hi Ast

As long as you're using over 1 kg of onions, personally I'd add the rest as in the recipe (maybe reduce to 1.3 pints of water instead of 2 pints). Try it and see - it won't be far out (if at all) I'm sure. The saffron chefs didn't measure everything exactly either. I think the technique and timing is probably more important than exact measures of the ingredients.

Looking forward to your appraisal tomorrow.
Regards

SnS  ;D

PS: If you wanted to proportion everything from standard (1.5 kg onions to 1.0 kg), then I'd just use 2/3 of the stated ingredients (mulitply everything by 0.666)

Quote from: ast on January 12, 2008, 04:52 PM
Current plan is to make this tomorrow.  One final clarification please:  your 8-10 onions should be about 2kg right?  This would jive with CA's approx 200g representative "medium" onion in the cr0b1 recipe.

Hi Ast

Thanks for your earlier mass/density/volume explanation. I feel a bit of dickhead now!!

I've just weighed a typical unpeeled cooking onion (just purchased at Sainsbury) of about the same size (volume cc's) they used and it is 140 GRAMS (I don't know the volume HAHA). So based on this, 8 - 10 (before peeling) will be no more than 1.5 kg.
Also at Sainsbury are the salad potatoes "Charlotte" (look a bit like large new potatoes but oval). An average size Charlotte spud weighs in at only 80 grams.

Regards

SnS ;D (keep smiling)

Quote from: Jeera on January 12, 2008, 04:37 PM

Quote from: smokenspices on January 12, 2008, 03:16 PM

Please note that the measured spices should be in ml not grams.
If you have used grams (as shown in the original recipe) there will be approximately 1.5 to 2 x times as much spice in the gravy than is required.

25 ml is 5 teaspoons

Really sorry Secret Santa - you were right - too much spice. However, how it still produced good results (in nearly all cases) is obviously something to look at (CA) - strange eh??

Admin , would you please edit the orginal recipe for me please (to stop further mistakes).

Regards

SnS ;D

SS, I don't think your point is clear....... do you mean that it should be 5 tsp of each spice rathern that each being specifically weighed out at 25g ? .... which I assume works out much more than 5 tsp ?

Ast is correct (last post). In my work I deal with water in air (psychrometry) and a ml of water is a gram - there is no difference (1 litre volume of water weighs in at 1 kg mass). I forgot I wasn't at work !!!! (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it)

Unfortunately with spices the density is less than water so as I used mass (grams, weight) instead of ml (volume), it meant there was too much spice by volume.

Anyway if you measure the spice by volume (25 ml) that is equivalent to 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons (or 5 teaspoons total). The actual weight in grams will vary depending on the spice density - but will be a lot less than 25 grams. I have just accurately weighed the individual spices (25 ml) and I get this

Cumin 10 grams = 25 ml
Coriander 10 g = 25 ml
Turmeric 16 g = 25 ml
Parika 12 g = 25 ml

This means the original error was even greater than I first thought:-

x 2.5 on cumin and coriander, x 2 on paprika and x 1.5 on turmeric !!! Whoops (big whoops)

Sorry chaps. We all make mistakes.

Regards

SnS :

Quote from: smokenspices on January 06, 2008, 05:03 PM
8 to 10 medium size cooking onions
1 large carrot
1 green pepper
4 salad potatoes (peeled)
2 medium tomatoes

Chop roughly and add to large cooking pot

Add:-

2 cups (500 ml) of fresh vegetable oil
2 tbsp (30 g) garlic/ginger puree
1 tbsp (15 g) salt
enough water to cover all the ingredients

Cover and bring to boil. Simmer for about 40 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add:-

Half a tin (200 g) of chopped plum tomatoes (Italian Napolina)
25 ml cumin powder (5 tsp)
25 ml coriander powder (5 tsp)
25 ml turmeric powder (5 tsp)
25 ml paprika (deghi mirch) (5 tsp)

Cook for another 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and blend for at least 5 minutes until very smooth.

Add 2 pints of water. The gravy will now resemble a very thin soup.

Bring to boil. Simmer uncovered for about 20-30 minutes stirring occasionally. Remove any scum forming on the surface. When the oil separates the gravy is complete.

Please note that the measured spices should be in ml not grams.
If you have used grams (as shown in the original recipe) there will be approximately 1.5 to 2 x times as much spice in the gravy than is required.

25 ml is 5 teaspoons

Really sorry Secret Santa - you were right - too much spice. However, how it still produced good results (in nearly all cases) is obviously something to look at (CA) - strange eh??

Admin , would you please edit the orginal recipe for me please (to stop further mistakes).

Regards

SnS ;D