Topic: Secret Recipe Group Test

[RubyDoo]

Looking good. Another recipe I've been meaning to try as I can convince myself that I'm eating healthily.

All that spinach can only be good for you I agree.

[Unclefrank]

Hi SS it's just that around my area, West Midlands, they nearly all have a lot of slithers of garlic, just to add that nutty flavour but by no means does your recipe not bring the goods, far from it i really enjoyed it and so did my friends.
This is a keeper for me excellent dish.

RubyDoo this is a great dish to cook, the richness really is wonderful you have to try it.

[Secret Santa]

Looking good. Another recipe I've been meaning to try as I can convince myself that I'm eating healthily.

If you ignore the sugar and cream, oh and the oil and ummm butter... ;D

[RubyDoo]

Ok I am hooked but please explain - pureed spinach? Stick it in a blender? Very finely chopped or pushed through a sieve ( hope not ). Ordinary large leaf stuff or can I use that poncy small salad leaf spinach?

[Secret Santa]

When I make it I use frozen spinach and I get one that is cut up very fine, so it's almost a puree and the other is whole leaf which I chop a bit to make it smaller but you could leave it whole. It doesn't really matter in the end as long as you use the right total amount of spinach.

[Naga]

Looks very nice indeed, UF. So much so that I will definitely try this soon. Using spinach in its pureed form never once occurred to me! What an amateur I am! 

...I'm very partial to garlic myself...

Me too - big time! The more the merrier for me!

[DalPuri]

Nice one UF, love a saag curry  ;D

Right then, onto mine.
Rob gave me both choices of recipes in the first PM so i had to try them both of course. 
The first being from the video posted by Ali for the Viceroy.

There were two ingredients which i didnt have and have been waiting for them to be posted to me since day 1 (9th jan).
Living in Mid Wales is a struggle for curry ingredients so i tend to buy in bulk anytime i'm in an Asian area.
Over christmas in Blackburn i bought some cheap tamarind sauce.  :-X revolting! Tasted powdery and sweet. Avoid Rivonia Tamarind sauce!!
I decided to do a test run with the cheap sauce while waiting for the Tamarina. Also, without knowing what the fish masala was that was used in the video i took a guess and added a few sprinkles of some mixed masalas i had.
[ I did email Ali early on and he told me there were no other ingredients in the pan before or with the gravy. What you see is what you get. He did also mention a squirt of lemon but i think that was him add libbing seeing a wedge on the plate. (he does that a lot i've noticed, Suka powder?  : ) ]

Well, it was a pretty horrible sauce and tasted like i expected. gravy+tamarind sauce+mixed masala powder. No balance or blending of flavours. Maybe when i get the correct ingredients it will taste better? i thought.
 
2nd attempt.

Onto the ingredients.
On first opening the bottle of Tamarina, the first thing that hit me was the smell of cumin.
 Finger test - very sweet and...thats about it really. Nothing special but miles better than what i had.

Next ingredient as confirmed by Ali was Rajah fish seasoning.
Finger test - ohh, its celery salt. 

I made the dish tonight using langoustines, couldnt get king prawns. The tails were butterflied and given a short tandoori marinade. then grilled for a few minutes almost touching the hot electric bars.
The heads and claws were poached in the simmering gravy to try and add some more flavour to the dish.
I dont have any red colour powder but did attempt to colour the dish with liquid colouring. Doesnt work, as you can see.

But i'm afraid even with the correct brands it still tasted like doodoo's.
Sorry Ali, i think you need a better chef. 


The next offering was more up my street. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-hbriM4pMrE CBM Chicken Bengali Mirchi 
I did a test run with this recipe too.
Overall, i really liked the dish but thought it was way too sweet. No problem when its piping hot, but as soon as it cools it gets sweeter and sweeter.
A really good curry for me has to be equally as good cold for those little mouthfuls you cant resist going back to when you get your second wind  ;D

2nd attempt.
Made the dish again tonight using pre-cooked lamb. Not as much meat as in the video but enough for me. Mine probably looks a little saucier because of less meat, but the dish is still quite dry.


A nice burn from the naga. Not sure what spring onions bring to the party? I wont bother with them again. I used 2 tbsp of tamarind sauce this time which is better for me on the sweetness but i could happily try 1 spoon or leave it out altogether.
I didnt have any spiced oil on the go so used some onion paste instead towards the end.

I used a Taz base for both curries but were from two different batches. One was a standard Taz and the other was a Taz meat, i.e. lamb bone thrown in the gravy from the start. (Leftover from chopping up a leg to dice and pre-cook.)

Would i make this dish again?
well...its sort of my standard type of curry anyway apart from the tamarina, so Aye. Give this one a go.   

Cheers, Frank. 


p.s. will somebody please tell me how to do the hyperlinks. thanks.

[Naga]

Hi Frank. Hyperlinks first.

With the cursor in the Post Reply text box, click on the Insert Hyperlink icon depicting a blue globe and a blank page. It's 2nd from the left on the on the bottom row of icons (immediately above the smileys).

You'll see two words (url) enclosed in square brackets. Copy the link to the web page you want others to see and then paste it between these two brackets ][.

That'll give you a plain hyperlink.

The other way to do it is to give the hyperlink a name. If we take your first hyperlink as an example:

Tandoori king prawns in a tamarind sauce

What to do is to type out the title of the link, i.e. Tandoori king prawns in a tamarind sauce, select it by holding the left mouse button down and dragging the cursor over the text, and then click the Insert Hyperlink icon.

Right at the beginning of the link where it starts off "left square bracket" url you need to type in an equals sign (=) and then paste the link directly after the sign so it reads "left square bracket" url=http:// etc, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L4_t4YMMGT8]Tandoori king prawns in a tamarind sauce [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L4_t4YMMGT8]Tandoori king prawns in a tamarind sauce]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L4_t4YMMGT8]Tandoori king prawns in a tamarind sauce

This also works with non-video links. Hope it makes sense!

[Naga]

You gave these recipes a real go!

It's a real bummer that the Tandoori Prawns didn't work for you, especially as you made the effort to check and obtain some of the ingredients. Langoustines ain't exactly 10-a-penny either! The photo made me chuckle, right enough, as it looks as if the langoustine is trying to escape from the curry!

Better luck with the Chicken Bengali Mirsch, though - the sauce looks good in the photo. It's weird that the sauce gets sweeter and sweeter as it cools. Maybe the caramelisation from the onion paste?

My only experience with tamarind is in UF's Pathia (which is delicious, BTW!) and it's a souring agent as far as I know. I had a look at CBM's video and couldn't see where any sweetness was added except, perhaps, for the chef's tamarind sauce.

Like you, I couldn't see what effect such a small amount of spring onions would have on the overall dish.

Good effort!

EDIT: I just tasted a tsp of Tamarina and it's definitely pretty sweet! I haven't used any of it in a dish as I make up my Pathia sauce with tamarind paste, but I'd swear that I felt sugar crystals on my tongue when I tried the Tamarina, and I see that sugar comes second on the ingredients list behind water and in front of tamarind concentrate (9%). I think these things are ordered by quantity, so it looks as if there's at least 9% sugar in there, if not more.

[RubyDoo]

Interesting Frank. Glad I didn't get those to do. I have only bought tamarind twice before and that was a waste. Both times it got thrown as it simply did not get used. Also had similar thoughts to Naga re the escaping langoustine.