I noticed the range is described as "home-style" Indian cooking. It might not be very BIR at all.

As Jimmy2x pointed out it is still more expensive than doing it yourself - and not half as much fun!

Paul.

Hi Gazman,

I'm a bit busy now cooking Taz base and preparing to cook my first paella dish.
Check the original instructions posted by Mick (Achmal on this forum).

You start with about 200 ml of hot base in your pan. Get this bubbling then add all your spices, chilli and any tom paste and garlic/ginger, salt and methi you are planning to use. You did mix up the Taz spice mix first?

Now keep this on the boil as you are going to drive most of the water out of this mixture. As the water reduces you will get brown residues on the pan. Scrape this back into the liquid continuously before it burns.

After about 5 to 8 minutes the mixture should be well reduced and the oil should begin to show clearly. Of course it depends on the heat and type of pan etc.

Then you can do second stage, add more base, pre-cooked meat and simmer to get your desired consistency for the curry.

Good luck!

Paul.

Hi Gazman, it tastes fine to me - but lentils? Doesn't have any lentils in it does it.

Don't worry about the taste of the base and make your judgement after the finished madras. Don't forget the reduction and scraping back techniques when you make up a curry later.

I think CA has a valid point here although I agree that we are all (for now) operating in isolation.

I think it is correct that if you have a good base recipe and a good spice mix you should be able to produce a general medium curry that should stand up on it's own. That would make a good starting point before you start turning it into a more specific dish.

The closest I have come to this is using the Taz recipes. I'm going to grind up some fresh cumin and corriander seeds this weekend and make another Taz base and spice mix after a couple of weeks of CA base and recipes.

I still think the oil is probably the missing link. I'll get a TA tonight from my local Saffron and scrutinise it again.

Paul.

Hi LG,

The base recipe makes about 3 litres of base sauce. I make a curry for me and the wife using 500 ml of this base. So this amount of base is good for 6 double curries for us.

You may have bigger appetites than us, however.

The dopiaza recipe posted uses 400 ml of base (approx) and is a large single takeaway sized portion.

Hope this helps

Paul.

From what I've read the product contains anchovies, parmesan cheese and some mushroom type extract.

I don't think I'll be putting that in my curries although I'm sure it would work better for other cuisines.

This is nothing new at all. Umami was already well known.

MSG, Thai fish sauce (fermented anchovies), Chinese oyster sauce etc. do exactly the same thing. Seems to work well in oriental dishes but I'm not sure about curries.

Bobby,

As far as I know some people have used ready ground cumin and corriander and others have ground their own and added to the pot with not much difference in reported taste.

I make it with whole seeds but use my jug blender, as the whole seeds are hard to blend with a normal stick blender and I thought I would burn out the motor if I carried on using it this way.

It makes me wonder too, whether it makes a difference but I kept to the Taz recipe 100% and I'm happy with the curries I can make with it.

Paul.

Hi DD,

We only have the dopiaza recipe but we do have the Taz spice mix recipe.

For madras you would have to experiment but I would say the usual suspects:

Garlic, ginger, 2 or 3 teaspoons Taz mix powder, chilli powder, methi, tom puree, salt - you know the score.

Hi Paul,

I'll be making another batch of Taz base this week. I've only tried 3 bases from this site: SnS June 2008, Cory Ander base and Taz and for me Taz comes closest to what I like to eat.

I'm surprised more people here haven't tried it.

PaulP.