Topic: Curry Bases

[Cory Ander]

The following posts have been moved (by CA) from another thread where they were seriously off-topic!

[Cory Ander]

Posted by Haldi:

I have chatted with loads of chefs and spent many evenings at demos and still not got exactly what I'm after.
I genuinly thought when I bought my big restaurant cooker, that the missing flavour would magically appear
Well, it didn't
I have made some brilliant curries but they still lack that extra (dare I say it?)....taste
At least now I know where my problem lies
It's the curry base
If I buy a base from a takeaway, then I can make a perfect curry (with the taste and aroma) on my big cooker or my domestic cooker
Any of the many posted demo recipes, on this site,would give exact results
I think George said it
It's all down to a well documented recipe
And as for the "base of my dreams" I don't have the recipe, yet
I'll keep trying
I've not given up
Maybe something in this book will give me a clue
Maybe I'll succeed before I buy it

[Cory Ander]

Posted by Fumble:

If I buy a base from a takeaway, then I can make a perfect curry (with the taste and aroma) on my big cooker or my domestic cooker

I have the opposite problem, Haldi.
I can make a batch of base sauce.
Freeze four or five portions of it.
Each curry is a bit different.
Some are great and have the taste,
some are not so great.

So I think the base is important,
but not critical to the 'taste',
at least for me.
To me the 'taste' is the richness of the sauce
which comes from the onion, oil and spices of
the base, in conjunction with the garlic and
spices of the final dish.
I think salt is important. Last base I made I cut
down on the salt from 1 tbsp to 1 tsp and the result
did not taste right at all!

[Cory Ander]

Posted by AST:

I think salt is important. Last base I made I cut
down on the salt from 1 tbsp to 1 tsp and the result
did not taste right at all!

That's interesting given my own experience yesterday.  I completely omitted the salt from the base sauce since I was making it so our 11 month old son could eat it too.  I added salt to the final dish for myself and my wife, but not for our son's.  Both my wife and I thought the end results were brilliant using the base with no salt.

Tasting some of what I made for our son (I added a few pinches of coarse sugar to his instead of salt), I thought it had the same smell and base taste--but was missing salt (go figure).  Maybe it was all the chillies in the vindaloo, but to my taste, I didn't miss the salt in the base at all.

How much salt is in the recipe for the final dish(es) you made?  Also, which base did you use?

[Cory Ander]

Posted by LorryDo:

haldi, I still think there is a link between the "tast" and the fact that BIR chefs wont even taste their curries (allegedly).   

[Cory Ander]

Posted by Haldi:

haldi, I still think there is a link between the "taste" and the fact that BIR chefs wont even taste their curries (allegedly).   

Last year I made friends with the owner of a local takeaway
He let me come up whenever I wanted to sit in their kitchens
The chef was a very nice chap but you could tell he wasn't totally happy with his cooking being watched
I think he thought I was some kind of health & hygene spy
Anyhow, I got to see lots of little things when I went
One thing that amazed me was that this takeaway was a centre for all sorts of people to meet at.
"Friends" would be call in
Taxi drivers, cousins, uncles, brothers and other takeaway owners
The place buzzed with activity
Endless cups of spiced tea were being made with a steady flow of digestive biscuits
But each evening you, could rely on one event
At some point the staff would have a meal
It wouldn't be the same as you or I might buy
But it would involve the same ingredients
Curry gravy oil,curry gravy,spices,precooked meat,naan and rice
On a few occasions they did something a little different
One evening they curried baked beans
Another night they did something with eggs in rice
Sometimes the driver/deliverer cooked
They made a little fun of him, but it tasted ok
So perhaps it's just this place, but they definitely tasted their own curries
One gem of information that the chef offered me was that "no chef enjoys his own curry"
I reckon he's right there
This takeaway has now changed hands
The new owners won't let me see anything now
Never mind, it was a touch of magic while it lasted

[fumble]

Posted by AST:
How much salt is in the recipe for the final dish(es) you made?  Also, which base did you use?

I don't normally put salt in the final dish, so I guess the amount
of salt  in the base is important. Salt seems to act like a flavour
enhancer like MSG - if your're used to salt, things taste bland
without it.

A used Admin's base with a few small variations. The first time I
tried it, I put 1 tbsp sale in the base. I actually thought I'd
spoilt it, as the base initially tasted too salty. But the final
curries were just right.

The second base I put just 1 tsp salt in, well the first curry I made
was definitely not right. The second I added a tsp salt in the final
stages and it was much better.

In the second base I also added in a green pepper to see if it made
any difference. I couldn't detect any.

[ast]

fumble,

In that case, you're dead right.  If you don't add any salt at the end, it will certainly be missed.  Actually, both salt and sugar act as flavor enhancers in different ways.

Speaking of flavor enhancers:  interestingly enough, MSG doesn't enhance the basic tastes (bitter, salty, sweet and sour), but it is supposed to enhance the "complex flavors of meat, poultry, seafood and vegetables" (http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=15581).  The article also mentions that it is naturally a part of tomatoes and Parmesan cheese, so maybe that's one reason that some of the curry bases with a few more tomatoes, or the addition of tomato puree to the target curries, might make a significant difference to the overall taste of the final dish.  I'd never investigated exactly what it was supposed to do before, but your reference to "flavor enhancers" made me go look it up.

Thanks for clarifying the base/salt question.  I haven't tried Admin's base yet.  I'm now almost tempted to try Gary's (parker21) Rajver base next as it seems to have also delivered good results to several people.