Indian Restaurant Curry Base

This is not a stand-alone recipe. This is an ingredient. Make this, portion it, freeze it for future use.

This is probably the best kept secret for making Indian food that tastes like it does in restaurants. It's unlikely that you've heard of this before--but that's not surprising. On it's own, it tastes like a poor attempt at onion soup. But, when combined with the other Indian Restaurant recipes on this website, it will blow you away with flavour and speed.

Indian restaurants don't have 20 or 30 different pots full of curry just waiting for you to place an order. That would be just lunacy. There's a system in place and that system hinges on this curry base. The next important one is probably the Indian Restaurant Spice Mix (Recipe HERE) followed by the Homemade Curry Powder (Recipe HERE).

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Full details of how to use these will appear in the recipes for the Indian Restaurant dishes themselves. Full thanks for the guidence provided by Romain over at Glebe Kitchen--without whom, I would still be trying to work this stuff out.

You will need a stick mixer for this.

Ingredients

• 3 litres Water
• 1.2Kg Brown Onions, large, peeled
• 3 Tbsp Garlic Ginger Paste (Recipe HERE)
• 1.5 Tbsp Cumin Seeds, ground
• 1.5 Tbsp Coriander Seeds, ground
• 1.5 tsp Turmeric Powder
• 2 tsp Salt
• 10 fresh Coriander Stalks, with Roots, bouquet garni (optional)
• 1 cup Peanut Oil
• 1 x 400g can Tomatoes, crushed

Method

1. Get your biggest lidded pot onto the stovetop, fill with the water and bring to a boil.
2. While this is happening, cut the onions into quarters and break them apart with your fingers.
3. Once the water is boiling, add all of the ingredients (except the tomatoes). Once the water begins to boil again, reduce the heat to a simmer. Partially cover for 1 hour.
4. Remove the bouquet garni (if using).
5. Add the tomatoes and blend, using a stick mixer until you have a smooth, consistent mixture. Let simmer for another hour. You may notice that the oil will seperate and rise to the surface. Just mix this back through with a large spoon. Lick the spoon and be amazed by the absolutely ordinary flavour. lol
6. After an hour, remove from heat and allow to cool. Portion the mixture into sealable, ziplock sandwich bags of 500ml each (2 cups). You should get roughly 6 portions (and each portion will make 2 meals). Freeze and use as needed.