Topic: Cracked it!

[Mark J]

I have to take you to task over one thing though. It's the same argument I've used before. How will people that are not tolerant of any chilli heat tolerate curries made with the oil scooped off phalls, madras' and vindaloos. I've never disputed that reusing oil, whether from the base sauce or the curries themselves, is a good thing. But restaurants reusing oil from the curries just doesn't make sense. I have a friend who considers a korma hot! She wouldn't tolerate a curry made with oil scooped from the hotter curries.

I only reclaimed some from the finished curries, personally if I was a BIR in the situation I wouldnt reclaim from anything above medium strength

[DARTHPHALL]

Mark do you put extra Oil in the Base & skim it off, & extra Oil in the second stage of actually making the Curry & skim off also, sorry but with all these postings I'm a bit lost.
If both statements above are correct would i be right in guessing that you could put say 600-700 ml of Oil in both base & curry, skim off & use again or do you have strict recommendations on amounts of Oil used ?

DARTH..... .....

[DARTHPHALL]

Another reason I'm intrigued by this new development is that i make loads of Curries with patches of the taste (i think someone else posted about this).
I`m wondering if the patches are the small amounts of Oil that is re-cooked/re-used from the base etc..As you may also recall i posted a long time ago about cooking the Oil on its own on high for 15 Min's which resulted in a sweet tasting Oil.
Does that indicate as many have also mentioned that BIR`s can get their Oil up to a much higher heat than many of us at home.
Thanks DARTHPHALL..... .....

[Yellow Fingers]

As you may also recall i posted a long time ago about cooking the Oil on its own on high for 15 Min's which resulted in a sweet tasting Oil.

I do recall, and I think it is not relevant. Restaurants will not cook oil on its own for any time. Time is money Darth!

[Yellow Fingers]

Good point. I wonder if there's any chance they have 'mild oils' and 'hot oils' depending on the source of the reclamation.

Again, we've covered this before George. Or at least I have. It's not you fault but the search engine here is shite. Perhaps it's time for a FAQ?

I can't imagine the chef scooping oil from phalls, vindaloos etc. into one pot and the oil from korma, passanda into another. But I have never been that close to a chef. What do I know

Infact although I don't like creamy curries, I have attempted them, and you can't scoop the excess oil from a creamy curry...can you? At least I've never managed to! It just gets blended into the sauce.

[Mark J]

Hi Darth,

I just put the ~500ml in the base to start with, this means the onions in the base are essentially deep fried in spiced oil.

Then when cooking a curry I use the reclaimed spiced oil to start with, if there is any substantial amount of oil on the curry at the end then I reclaim that also, I dont care if its too hot as I dont do any mild curries  ;D

I think the key is the constant reuse of both base and oil, essentially after making the 10th batch of base for example there is still essence of oil and base from the very first one in it, much like the chinese vintage stock idea.

cheers

Mark

[Mark J]

Curry Base Recipe

This is adapted from curryhouse.co.uk, I would recommend this ebook to anyone, well worth the money.

Add remaining spiced oil (usually ~250ml) and top up with ground nut oil to ~500ml

Heat to medium and add 350gms of finely chopped onion

The oil will pretty much cover the onions, deep fry for about 10 minutes

Add 3 gloves of garlic chopped and 2 x 3mm slices of fresh ginger peeled and chopped, fry for a further 1 minute and then turn down and simmer for 10-15 minutes.

Take off the heat and allow to cool, add 350ml of water to a blender, add the oil and onion mixture to this and blend to a very smooth puree.


Add this back to the pot and add 45ml pasata, 0.5 tsp cumin, 0.5 TSP coriander, 0.5 TSP turmeric, 0.5 TSP salt, 0.25 TSP black pepper, add any previous remaining base you have, bring to the boil then simmer for 30 mins to 1 hour. (basically as long as it takes to get the oil to float so you skim it all off) skim off any froth that appears

Take off the heat and skim off the oil, dont worry about getting a bit of the base in as well as the oil, to my mind the most important thing is to get all the oil off.


As you can see when finished using a batch of base you should always make sure you have spiced oil left over and some base (~300ml) left over to make the next batch.

I will post the recipes for pre cooked chicken and the curry (chicken achar) later this week

cheers

Update 2/1/2006:
I now add the following everytime to this base:

1 black cardamom at the initial frying stage (take it out before pureeing and pop it back in after, fish it out at the end)

And when simmering the onions I now add 1 slice of lemon (including peel), half a small green pepper, half a small carrot, 1 TSP fenugreek leaves, 1/2 TSP ground thyme, coriander stalks, small amount of creamed coconut (about 1 inch square or less). (thanks pete for all of that? ;D)

And when all that lot is in I add in the last of my previous base one spoon at a time. All of this then fries for a good 5-10 mins before pureeing.

[Yellow Fingers]

The oil will pretty much cover the onions, deep fry for about 10 minutes

Add 3 gloves of garlic chopped and 2 x 3mm slices of fresh ginger peeled and chopped, fry for a further 1 minute and then turn down and simmer for 6 minutes.

That's funny, by coincidence that's exactly what I did on my most recent KD base. I did it this way because I found that the rawness of the garlic and ginger in particular seemed to be evident in the final taste. What I did find is that doing it this way makes the base sauce very sweet, but as I usually add a little bit of sugar to my final curries this isn't a problem. Now I don't need to use sugar.

[DARTHPHALL]

Thanks for the extra info Mark.
DARTH.....

[George]

I think the key is the constant reuse of both base and oil, essentially after making the 10th batch of base for example there is still essence of oil and base from the very first one in it, much like the chinese vintage stock idea.

I believe this concept is also used with some bread doughs. Some previous dough is added to the new batch. I think I've heard it claimed that some dough ('sour dough'?), which you can buy, has origins/links from dough first made over 100 years ago.

Regards
George