Topic: THE ULTIMATE MADRAS - AN EXPERIMENT

[Garp]

Fancy a try at your Ultimate Madras tomorrow, Andy. Any last tips?

[Madrasandy]

Hi Garp i would just stick to this recipe that I first made-

MADRAS RECIPE

  1Tb - Green Pepper (finely chopped)
  1Tb - Onion (finely chopped)
   1ts - Hot Chilli Powder
   1ts - Deggi Mirch
   1ts - Kashmiri Chilli Powder
  1Tb - Mix Powder
   1ts - Fenugreek Leaves (rubbed between fingers)
   1ts - Cumin Powder
   2ts - Lemon Juice
   2ts - Garlic Pureed
   1ts - Ginger Pureed
  2Tb - Blended Tinned Toms
  1Tb - Coriander
1/4ts - Salt
   4 drops of worcester sauce
  6Tb - Reclaimed oil
350ml - Base sauce

 I bashed the onion and green pepper in pestal to form a paste

 Heat oil low to medium heat
 Add onion/pepper and cook for 3 mins
 Turn up heat
 Add garlic/ginger and cook 1 mins
 Add tomatoes and cook for 1 minute
 Add methi and stir, and mix powder stir, add chilli stir, add cumin stir add salt lemon juice and worcester sauce and stir for 1 minute
 Add ladle base and evaporate off stiring ang shaking pan continuosuly
 Add Chicken stir and add remaining base and cook 5 mins
 Cook on full for last 30-60 secs then add coriander
 Done!

Of course you can feel free to change anything in the recipe to suit your needs, personally I think this is absolutely wonderful and all others experiments I have done havent been as nice as the this original recipe. Chilli can be upped a little but havent decided on what proportions of chilli powders work best. Also a thin green chilli in place of the green pepper works well but it does up the heat considerably so chilli powders need to be altered to get the correct heat for a true Madras. Hope you try this Garp and could you please report back your findings and any alterations made.
 I think this is a great Madras, the best I have made but it is still only a work in progress, a few tweaks here and there, but only small ones, and it will be perfect.
 It would be good if you made it to spec and then decided what you think it needs more/less off and maybe we could crack it , other peoples opinions are most appreciated and helpful.

[Garp]

Thanks Andy. Don't have any deggi mirch and the rest is very similar to the Chewy one I usually make, so will just make that, but add some fenugreek leaf and see how it goes

[Madrasandy]

Ok Garp, let us know how you get on, I found that using blended tinned toms instead of tom puree gave a smoother more balanced curry, and also bashing the onion/green pepper(or green chilli) in a pestal/mortar and frying gently for longer reduced the acid and improved the sweetness, as for the chilli powders I think the deggi mirch gives a more moreish taste than normal chilli powder. I am still working on that aspect of the curry and am again experimenting tonight and may just use deggi mirch only, or may just use kashmiri only to see what the flavour difference is. I made a base last night but couldnt decide which one so ended up making a mix between KD1/admin new base/ Ca /taz, hopefully it will be ok . Which base are you using Garp?

[Garp]

I use this one Andy:

4 x Big onions chopped up roughly.
 50 grams unpeeled fresh ginger chopped up roughly.
 50 grams peeled fresh garlic chopped up roughly.
 6tbs vegetable oil
 1tsp heaped salt
 240g (small) tin of chopped tomatoes
 1tbs tomato puree
 1tsp turmeric
 1tsp Paprika
 2tsp Coriander powder
 2tsp Fenugreek powder
 2tsp Cumin powder
 1tsp Garam masala

Method:

1. Fry the onion in 1tbs of the oil for 10 mins on a low heat until soft & translucent (don?t let them brown as this changes the taste).
 2. Add in the garlic, ginger and salt then add enough water to just cover the top of all ingredients.
 3. Bring it up to the boil then turn down to a light simmer uncovered for around 30 minutes.
 4. While this is simmering, put the rest of the oil (5tbs), the tomatoes, puree, turmeric and paprika into another saucepan ? bring to the boil then simmer for 10 mins on low heat.
 5. Let the 2 mixtures cool down then blend them both separately until they are super smooth.
 6. Combine the mixes and bring to a simmer.
 7. Add the coriander, cumin, fenugreek and garam masala and leave the whole curry base to simmer for 15 minutes.
 8. You need the final sauce to end up being about 1.6 litres - if it's not, add water to this volume now and if there?s too much keep simmering to reduce.

[Madrasandy]

Cheers Garp, is that your own recipe, hoping my base is ok , bases take to long to experiment with, it certainly smelt nice while cooking last night so fingers crossed it will be good tonight.

[Garp]

It's one I found on another site before I joined this one. I find it very versatile so have just stuck with it

[Madrasandy]

yeah , I need to decide on a base and stick with it, tried many but none have had the 'wow' factor as of yet.
Looking forward to madras with new batch of base tonight

[Garp]

Looking forward to the report and pics mate.

[Madrasandy]

 Ill report later Garp and post some pics, also having onion Bhajis(new recipe I tested last week), yoghurt mint sauce, which Ill also post pics of.
 Let us know how you get on with your Madras Garp and what you used in the making of