Quote from: jb on October 30, 2011, 07:47 AM
Had a go at making Curryhell's pillau rice last night.I've always struggled cooking rice and never attempted before to cook it completely in an oven.All I can say is fantastic!!!! Much better than any take-away round my way(They all seem pretty tasteless to me and none really colour their rice any more).A real winner!!!

Thanks for inspiring me to have a go at this recipe, I'll try it later today and report back. I tend to serve my curries with plain boiled rice as pilau has always seemed tricky to get right, but this method looks semi-foolproof (me making it will test that to the limit!)

Those curries look the business too 

Chicken or lamb tikka or tandoori - gotta be red for me. Simple tastes have I!

Quote from: Ramirez on October 30, 2011, 09:24 AM
Great effort natterjack. Really interesting read. I've not tried Abdul recipes yet, except the pre-cooked chicken.

Quote from: natterjak on October 29, 2011, 07:13 PM


However this means the spices are effectively being boiled in the base sauce rather than being fried.  Doesn't seem right?  The thickness of the base sauce also meant this stage of the cook was fairly brief before more base sauce was required.

Doesn't the recipe call for frying the spices in the oil for 2-3 minutes (with the onions) then adding the base?

The recipe doesn't call for this (I've quoted the recipe in full below) but that misses the point a bit because it's impossible to do so anyway because the pan is so dry at the point the spices get added that there's nothing there to fry them in.  The basic tarka is made with 1 TBS of oil and there's no extra oil called for in the recipe, so at the stage you add the spices the pan has some fairly dry fried onions in.  The spices will form a dry paste with the onions and nothing's going to fry - it would burn if you didn't add the base sauce straight away.

The obvious answer is to add more oil at the start of the recipe.  Others such as CA start with 5 or 6 TBS.  I assume that Abdul cooks with more oil but has simply underestimated the measure in writing down the recipe.


Abdul Mohed's Madras Recipe:
Ingredients

Pre cooked chicken  16 portions (est. 152 to 180grams)
Basic tarka
Chilli powder  1 tbsp
8 spice  1 tbsp
Tomato puree paste  1 tbsp
Small lemon  quarter cut
Gravy

Garnish
Coriander


Method

1.   In a cooking pot make a basic tarka.
2.   Add 8 spice, chilli powder, tomato puree and squeeze the juice from the lemon.
3.   Then add 1 ladlespoon of gravy; stir well for 2 to 3 minutes to ensure the masala is well cooked.
4.   Add the chicken portions, stir well and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. 
5.   Finally add 1 pint of gravy and cook for 5 to 6 minutes.
6.   Garnish with coriander.?

Today I make Abdul's base sauce, pre-cooked chicken and Madras curry recipe.  Here are my thoughts and questions:  https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=6214.msg61874#top 

Would appreciate comments from anyone.

Ok, finally I got the images in the above post working!

Hi all  ,

This thread is for me to report back on my experience of cooking Abdul's Madras recipe which is posted here: https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=6180.msg61863#top and using his base sauce and pre-cooked chicken posted on the first page of this thread: https://curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5958.0

I'd like to say up front that I'm a beginner curry chef  - I don't claim any expertise at all, so any problems I had can be attributed to my own incompetence if you like.  Please don't assume Abdul's recipes are wrong, but I will take the chance to ask some questions and hopefully Abdul will comment.

So... how did it go?  Not bad, but not perfect.

The base sauce recipe was easy to follow and with the exception of omitting the paprika from the 8 spice mix (because I didn't have any) I followed the base sauce recipe exactly.  Image 1 below is the base sauce cooking in a 5litre stockpot.



Blending the base was easy enough as even after only 30 mins cooking everything seemed quite tender and well cooked.  The aroma was of mild curry and compared to other bases I've cooked before (KD1 and Ashoka) it smelled very tasty.  At the blending stage I noted that it was very thick and I believe Solarspace has made a similar comment in another thread.  Rather than water it down, I left it as is and proceeded to cook the pre-cooked chicken and Madras curry.

By the way, the taste of the base sauce once blended was of a fairly hot but otherwise bland curry.  In place of 6 chillies called for in the recipe I used 3 large green chillies and was unsure whether to leave the seeds in or not.  In the event the seeds went in - maybe that's why it was so hot.  But no matter!  I love a curry that makes you cry so it wasn't a problem.

Picture of blended base below.  That pic is of a third of the total quantity and that's a big bowl by the way.  The overall volume of the blended base was at least 4.25litres and if diluted to the consistency of an Ashoka base it would be at least 7 litres so check you have space in your freezer before you make a batch!



The pre-cooked chicken recipe was easy enough to follow but it was unclear to me when the capsicum should be added (it appears in the ingredients list but isn't mentioned in the directions).  Perhaps Abdul could clarify?  I was concerned that cooking the chicken for 15 mins followed by cooking it again in the final recipe would lead to it being dry but in fact it was ok.  I did find however that at the end of the pre-cooked chicken recipe there was still a lot of fluid in the pan.  Maybe my cheap supermarket chicken breast was giving up water as it cooked.

Now, the Madras recipe.  This was where I had some queries but with no time to check things with Abdul and a rumble in my belly I proceeded anyway.

First question, as with the pre-cooked chicken, is when the capsicum should be added.  I put it in with the garlic/ginger and onion.  Next, it was unclear to me how long the chilli powder, 8 spice, tomato puree and lemon juice should be cooked for before adding the first ladle of base sauce.  In the event this resolved itself because with only 1 TBS of oil in the pan the spices, tomato and lemon juice were so dry in the pan as soon as they were added that a ladle of base sauce was immediately required.

However this means the spices are effectively being boiled in the base sauce rather than being fried.  Doesn't seem right?  The thickness of the base sauce also meant this stage of the cook was fairly brief before more base sauce was required.

And here's my biggest confusion over this recipe.  The ingredients call for 16 pieces of pre-cooked chicken but nowhere is there a description of the size of the pieces.  So I used the weights supplied (152 to 180g) and it turns out 175g was 1.5 chicken breast portions which was actually about 10 pieces of chicken the way I had cut it.  In total the recipe asks for 1 pint of base sauce plus 1 extra ladle full and the effect was to leave me with far too much sauce and not enough meat in comparison.  Boiling the sauce down to thicken it wasn't much of an option as the base sauce is already so thick when added, so I cooked it for the required 6 minutes.

A pic below of the final dish which came out thick and creamy in texture and very very hot for a Madras (more like a vindaloo).  There was a lot of additional sauce which is not shown (I left it in the pan as it would have drowned the plate if served).  Beneath the heat there wasn't a lot of depth of spice flavour, maybe because the spices don't seem to get a chance to fry in this recipe but rather boil down in the base sauce.  This may be due to confusion over the thickness of the base or the oil content (1 TBS seems very little to start the dish with).  At no stage did I see oil coming through to the top of the dish and apart from the initial tarka stage, there didn't seem to be a lot of frying going on, but rather bubbling and boiling of an already thick base sauce.

Having said that it was a satisfying hot curry which I enjoyed eating, but I think some tweaks will be needed and would be grateful if Abdul has any suggestions. 

Hi Abdul, I have a few more questions....

In your base gravy recipe you include "4 large onions".  Am I right in thinking these should be what we call "spanish" onions, ie. large and mild onions?  They taste quite different to smaller "english" onions so I wanted to check what you usually use, especially as they are only boiled for 30 mins.  Will using smaller english onions spoil the flavour of the gravy at all?

Also when you mention 1 tsp or 1tbs measurement of spices, is that a level spoonful or heaped?  It makes quite a difference to the amount.  I think I asked this question before but it's easy to miss posts in this fast moving thread.

Last, what colour capsicum do you recommend for the base gravy recipe?  They have different flavours so I wonder whether you think green, yellow or red works best?  Thanks

Thanks guys, I already have frozen garlic / ginger paste cubes in my freezer (using ice cube tray) so will use one of them.

The base sauce is just getting going on the hob.  It came out larger than expected and almost fills a 5l stockpot, despite being "only" 4 onions and "only" 4 potatoes, etc.  Surprising how it all adds up once in the pan.  Already smells pretty tasty even in its raw state.

Thanks HS - now I see it I realise I had already read it in the main Abdul thread and then forgotten it. Maybe my brain only retains the last three bits of info it receives..... 

I'm going to try making Abdul's base, 8 spice and Madras today so we'll see how it turns out.

Quote from: Razor on October 26, 2011, 12:08 PM
Recipe provided by abdulmohed2002 - moved here by Razor

Chicken Madras

Ingredients

Pre cooked chicken  16 portions (est. 152 to 180grams)
Basic tarka
Chilli powder  1 tbsp
8 spice  1 tbsp
Tomato puree paste  1 tbsp
Small lemon  quarter cut
Gravy

Garnish
Coriander


Method

1.   In a cooking pot make a basic tarka.
2.   Add 8 spice, chilli powder, tomato puree and squeeze the juice from the lemon.
3.   Then add 1 ladlespoon of gravy; stir well for 2 to 3 minutes to ensure the masala is well cooked.
4.   Add the chicken portions, stir well and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. 
5.   Finally add 1 pint of gravy and cook for 5 to 6 minutes.
6.   Garnish with coriander.?

This might be a silly question, but I have Abdul's book and can't find the answer in it so I'll ask anyway....  What is meant by "make a basic Tarka"? Ie what are the ingredients and method for this Tarka?  I'm familiar with Tarka dhal but perhaps this is not the intention as it wouldn't normally feature in a Madras recipe.