tonight's tea: Madras (extra hot) with veg rice and rotis

[goncalo]

Apologies for the quality, but my only camera is my phone and as I forgot to charge it and I was unable to activate the flash. The Madras was absolutely perfect, 9.5/10, as good or better than an average BIR. Perhaps the first time I had a meal and wasn't really thinking about what was different, because everything fell nicely into place. The veg rice was average. The cauliflower and the carrots were undercooked, but thankfully the rice had a decent, all around, aroma and flavour, made it without following any specific recipe.

Chicken Madras (vindaloo strength)

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Veg Fried Rice

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Rotis (store bought)

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Ready to eat

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[rshome123]

Goncalo my friend you seem to have cooked my favourite meal. Looks superb. No particular recipe for the Madras?

I've had the undercooked problem with veg when making the rice, particularly carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. Just steam microwave them for 2 minutes before adding to the rice. Don't do it with frozen peas though of course... Let them defrost before adding. Whole spices eg cinnamon cloves cassia cardamom fennel etc. are very good to flavour the oil before you put anything else in. Of course you probably know all this already. Oh and ghee does work well in fried rice dishes (of course )

[pauly]

I do like the consistency of your sauce, spot on for me.

[Geezah]

Looks top notch
....shame you cut corners and bought the roti's for how easy and quick they are to kame.

[goncalo]

Thank you all for the great feedback!

I used chewys recipe with 1.5 level tbsp of deggi mirch instead of kashmiri mirch. You know when a spicy curry has been well cooked when the chilli isn't quite numbing your taste buds and the flavour is all coming through. I used lea & perins (worcestershire) sauce, it misses a certain kick from the malt vinegar which I got accustomed to before switching to it. I like how well rounded it is. I've done this recipe tons of times before, but while it always gets me good results, it's never gotten to these heights though

I didn't think of flavouring the oil for the veg fried rice, to be honest. I thought that given I was using a pilau rice already, it shouldn't really need more flavour, but I could certainly have had. What I learned (or I think I did) is that my cooker does have a very powerful hob and after the initial baghar+onions frying stage, when I added some mix powder, the wok went all dry. When I added the rice, it wasn't flowing much with the chef spoon tossing technique and started sticking to the wok. There was no burning, but I'm sure it didn't cook exactly to perfection. I also felt scraping was in order. I did lower the heat throughout, but it didn't made much of a difference. I didn't wanted to add more oil or ghee because too much oil ruins an otherwise edible rice for me

I agree that rotis could have been made very easily at home Geezah, but I had nothing prepared. I have a h4c's naan/roti recipes on my "to do" list waiting for some time.

[rshome123]

1.5 TBSP of Degi Mirch... yes certainly extra hot Madras. wow.

Regarding when to add mix powder for the veg rice, I've seen videos where the mix powder is added after the rice, and of course it has to be cooked out properly. I've tried adding in the mix powder 30 seconds after the veg are in (before the rice) and that works ok as long as there's enough wetness in the pan (e.g. oily mushrooms, onions, peppers, brocolli etc) but if you are short on vegetable moisture I think it might be better to wait until you've put the rice in.

Cook out properly to avoid the well known undercooked powdery taste and it should work out ok.

I've also worked out not to add the peas until very near the end of cooking. They turn greyish and are not too pleasing to look at.

[h4ppy-chris]

That looks lovely mate. Once you have made roti you will never buy them again.