Topic: Pillau Rice & Chicken Korma

[Curry King]

Try creamed coconut I use it in a CTM and it makes all the difference. 

[George]

George, you seem to be the one who has the best result, could you advise of the exact base and links and how exactly you achieved the korma you got.

In order that the forum doesn't miss out on our chicken korma R&D, here's a summary of info I sent to James by eMail.

I found my korma notes on my PC and realise they are not yet ready for publication. I need to do more work, even though my first attempt was better than the last BIR korma I had. Both had the 'character' of a BIR korma.

>The 2nd I tried was the one on this forum with sweetened condensed milk
Try Ghanna's idea of evaporated milk. Oddly, I was going to try condensed milk next time round but, from what you say, perhaps it won't be as good.

>but added spices from Dhillons book
Ghanna adds no spices and it works, relying only on the minimal spicing in the base sauce.
Next time, I will try adding a few spices and if I get the right mix, am confident it will be even better. But start with no spices and take it from there.

>and the cinnamon and this tasted much better
As above, I'm not surprised. Experiment with minimal spicing and do let me know if you hit a success story with a given mix of spices.

>I also added a golf ball size piece of cream coconut.
This is about the quantity I used. Dissolve it in the evaporated milk (half a 170g tin = 85g), warmed at the start. I will try coconut powder as an alternative, but my first success was with creamed coconut.

>Then Simmered added a little single cream and served
I didn't use any single or other real cream. The evaporated milk was my only 'cream'.

>Really it was very nice, but still not the same as a take away.
My attempt was better than half all BIR kormas, and probably not as good as the best half of all BIR kormas.

>This didn't seem to create the result you described. Maybe it was the Onion base.
I used MarkJ's 30 onion base, scaled down pro-rata to 2 onions. As I said, I attribute a large part of the success to his base sauce, plus the 'tang' of the evaporated milk.

>I also added crushed cashews and 1 tsp of ground almonds to each of the above currys.
Grind 0.5 oz raw cashew nuts and 0.5 oz raw almonds in a coffee grinder until powdery.
Make a paste with water. Set aside, before adding to sauce.

>did try a separate curry with descicated coconut but it seemed to bitty?
I wouldn't use this.

>Maybe coconut powder?
I intend trying this, after I saw large sacks of the stuff being delivered to an Indian Restaurant.

Regards
George