Curry Recipes Online
Curry Base Recipes => Curry Sauce, Curry Base , Curry Gravy Recipes, Secret Curry Base => Topic started by: stewpot007 on December 23, 2004, 09:35 AM
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Curry Gravy (Thanks to Pete from in2curry)
600 ml oil
1 ? bulb of garlic
? quantity of ginger pureed together with water
2 cinnamon sticks
1-teaspoon black pepper
4 black cardamoms
8 onions chopped
2 inch of creamed coconut block
1 ? teaspoon salt
3 bay leaves
6 breakfast spoon curry powder
1 ? breakfast spoon cumin
1 breakfast spoon turmeric
1 ? tins tomatoes
Heat the oil and cook garlic/ginger until golden and add the cinnamon stick and peppercorns and cook until garlic/ginger is brown not golden but Brown THIS BROWNING STAGE IS THE MISSING FLAVOUR It will go sticky, be very careful it doesn?t stick to the pan Add onions and water; enough to come just under the initial height of the onions Add everything except tinned tomatoes Cook until onions are soft (about an hour) Now add the tomatoes and cook for a further hour Remove the whole spices, and puree Return the whole spices to the mixture (they continue to add flavour) Put it somewhere cool It will keep four days because of the oil.
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Curry Gravy (Thanks to Pete from in2curry)
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add the cinnamon stick and peppercorns
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This is a misprint I believe, Pete can you confirm you meant black cardomom at this point rather than peppercorns?
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It's no misprint. That is what he said.
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OK so the black cardaomoms go in at the later stage then yes? (Its just your recipe didnt mention peppercorns so I thought it a misprint). This seems a bit odd to me, almost every other recipe that uses black cardamoms seems to add them in with the cinamon.
I've made this base sauce twice now Pete and both times its been fantastic (I add the black cardamoms at the same time as the cinamon), well done for finding it!
cheers
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I use this base sauce now all the time and its great, I have on occasion thrown in a carrot and a couple of peppers and this works equally well.
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Sorry!
I have made a mistake
When I wrote "black pepper" on the line above "black cardomons"
I meant to write "black pepper corns" instead
I think it probably wouldn't affect it too much anyhow
I am really pleased that folks have found this recipe useful
I made it again yesterday and the house smells slighlty "aromatic" today
I'm going to let the sauce mature for a couple of days first then
I'll cook up a batch of Vindaloo and freeze it
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Just a couple of questions.
1. what is a breakfast spoon?
2. is the amount of ginger half the amout of garlic?
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Just a couple of questions.
Hi,
Breakfastspoon = Desertspoon
The amount of ginger is half that of garlic and both purred together with water and oil.
For some more info have a look at this thread on in2curry where its discussed in detail:
http://www.in2curry.co.uk/curry_chat/posts.asp?fTopicID=350
Hope this helps
cK
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Just a couple of questions.
Hi,
Breakfastspoon = Desertspoon
The amount of ginger is half that of garlic and both purred together with water and oil.
For some more info have a look at this thread on in2curry where its discussed in detail:
http://www.in2curry.co.uk/curry_chat/posts.asp?fTopicID=350
Hope this helps
cK
British Spoon Measures
Teaspoon 5ml
Dessertspoon 10ml (though I have never heard it called a breakfast spoon)
Tablespoon 15ml
Both spoon measures and cup measures change depending on where your recipe comes from.
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Thanks for the responses,
I now have a big pot of orange sauce sitting on my stove, and it smells better than my local take-away, more like a good quality
Indian resteraunt.
Several quck questions, during the cooking the oil sort of floated to the top which was good as I wanted to skim it off and store it for
cooking the curries. However after I blitzed it with a hand blender the oil has sort of emulsified into the sauce. Any ideas on how
to cause it to seperate again?
Or should I just portion it off and freeze it in individual portions?
Thanks again.
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Let it boil for a little longer, and some oil will reappear on the surface.
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I know it's a bit excessive but I simmered my curry gravy for another four hours on low.
The oil totally separates out and goes darker and sweeter.
The sauce also improves too
If you have the time, it's worth it.
You make need to add a little water or stock to it every now and then
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You make need to add a little water or stock to it every now and then
Did you simmer it uncovered?
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Covered, or it evaporates too much.
Even then I have to add a little water from time to time
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I made another batch of this sauce up at the weekend and to try something different I thought I would add some cashew nuts as suggested by the Prashad book. I made Pete's gravy as usual but with the addition of a tbls or so of blended cashews & water, the result was surprisingly good, it did add to "that" taste, it was sweeter and the sauce actually tasted fine on its own!
Ive only made one curry with it so far and will experiment some more.
cK
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So you added 1TBSP of cashew nut puree at what stage?
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Just after adding the onions, where you add everything else except the toms.
cK
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hi i added the browning stage today . much sweeter nice one stewpot!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
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just done large batch with the above recipe ,it went mustardy yellow & oil emulsified into gravy , so far the end resulting taste is rather savory a little bland & not that sweet i have had a lot better luck with some of the others Ive tried over the last year or so ,might put up some of my own later if this is what some of you are calling fantastic then i may be of help ,been tentative about putting my recipes on forum as ive had little experience & have no intention of teaching anyone to suck eggs as it were but you never know i may have been lucky ,i`ll have to sit down & try & remember the good ones & what ingredients /method i used.i made a small batch 2 days ago it was a disaster yet it was sweeter & smelt exactly like my local take-away.but as we all agree on the day of cooking ,it could be thermonuclear tasty & glow in the dark & our senses would not notice it with the hours of standing in the fumes whilst cooking it.
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If you cook the gravy for another hour the oil separates out again.
Or you can take it out before pureeing, then add it back again afterwards
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I'm a newbie here and perhaps this is a dumb question BUT what is it the 'closest one' to? i.e. given that the basic curry sauce is only work-in-progress within a UK indian restaurant/take-away. You can't order a portion of basic curry sauce, can you? And be sure they haven't added anything. Pure samples would be useful in order to have a reference point to aim at. Better still, get half a dozen samples from as many take-aways, in order to assess consistency, and have even more to go on.
Moving on to the next stage of cooking, whether it be Chicken Korma (one of my favorites) or any final dish, surely adds a whole load more uncertainty as to whether 'stage 1' - the basic sauce is as good as my suggested sample of six professionally made sauces.
Regards
George
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600ml sounds like a huge amount of oil to use - has anyone tried the recipe with less oil?
Also, I wonder what a good weight of onions would be - 2lb?
Gareth.
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I'm a newbie here and perhaps this is a dumb question BUT what is it the 'closest one' to? i.e. given that the basic curry sauce is only work-in-progress within a UK indian restaurant/take-away.
Regards
George
All the restaurant recipes fry a little onion then add a little garlic/ ginger puree and spices, then a large dollop of a basic curry gravy, main precooked ingredients then dried fenugreek and fresh coriander.
To get this restaurant flavour, it is important to have the right flavour curry sauce.
Using the above gives a very good finished result.
I have used this with excellent results more times than I can remember.
However, there are other basic sauces on this site.
Check out Muttleys "non rambling" sauce or the jpeg downloads from "curry house cookery" in downloads.
600ml sounds like a huge amount of oil to use - has anyone tried the recipe with less oil?
Also, I wonder what a good weight of onions would be - 2lb?
Gareth.
Try the recipe with the full amount of oil. You can always spoon off the excess.
If you don't like the recipe then modify it.
And 2lbs of onions would be fine.
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Hi All,
I've just made a batch of Stewpots base sauce. It appears to be the real deal and will report back after I have left it for a couple of days and made a couple of final dishes from it.
Just one thing that I found a pain and took me more time than I would have liked was fishing out the whole ingredients before blending.
I wondered what thoughts any of you may have as to using a BOUQUET GARNI of the whole spices or maybe using Cinamon powder and Ground Black Pepper (amount would need experimentation ) in place of the whole ingredients.
Cheers All,
Blondie
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Just one thing that I found a pain and took me more time than I would have liked was fishing out the whole ingredients before blending.
Ive been there, spent enough of my time fishing out pods and stick.
You could add half a teaspoon of garam masala instead.
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Ive made two batches now and yep Ive been fishing as well :D, it a real pain but worth the effort.
I think this sauce with the proper Garlic/Ginger frying plus the addition of puree tomato (minus the juice) at an early stage of cooking must be as good as it gets.
Does anyone else throw in some chopped Coriander Stalks, this certainly adds something as well!!
Alas i only have an Electric hob and think this is making a big difference to my results, i just cant get the flames ;D ;D ;D
S
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hi, ADMIN
please don't fish the spices out from the finished gravy .
Garam masala that we do add at the end is these spices but ground.
they perfume the gravy and they mellow in taste and texture a lot after that long boiling with the onions and other ingredients.
when i puree them with the onions and the other ingredients i can not see them any more or feel their texture,but believe me they add some thing to the taste.
yes they add coriander leaves and stalks to the gravy with a little bit of fresh mint ,little bit of fresh dill,and little bit of fresh scared basil ( you can find this in THIA cooking a lot ). please see my post about talking to a restaurant owner.
thank you very much for this site ,it is actually one of the best .you made a lot of people happy.
GOD bless you
thanks
ghanna
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Thanks Ghanna ;D
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Tried this again last weekend, this is still the best base IMHO, it is heavily spiced but the smell from it is incredible.
Following my feeling that onions are the key to the missing taste in our replicas I fried the onions initially for about an hour before adding any other ingredients to caramelise them, to my mind it made a noticeable difference to the base, probably the best yet.
On another note I visited my friendly local takeaway last night and on asking him about cooking a curry dulling your taste buds he agreed and said you are always best off leaving a curry for a few hours after cooking it
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Is that correct Mark you fried the Onions for an hour ??
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I think so it was certainly 30-60 minutes and more toward the 60, very low heat lid on to caramelise them. They didnt get that far but had started to brown around the edges.
I also added coriander stalks to this base (a must in any base to my mind)
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Oh and one other thing, I was cooking a lamb curry later that night so lobbed in 3 lamb neck fillets to cook for about 1.5 hours in the sauce as it was cooking
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Ive been making lamb Kebabs for the first time recently, after how many years cooking Curries doh !!, you live & learn eh ?