C44 Curry Base Sauce

This is a lightly spiced curry base sauce with the addition of green pepper, carrot and fresh coriander for use as an alternative to the C41 base. It provides a variation of flavour and is now my preferred sauce. The quantity produced will be about 2400 ml, enough for 8 curries and should be diluted before use (see note 1). It is basically a boiled base with an initial 'frying' stage to intensify the flavours. It can be replaced by the C46 Base Sauce when that is referenced in any recipe.

Ingredients

Makes 2400 ml	Continued...
100 ml oil	100 gm green pepper (prepared weight)
600 gm onions (prepared weight)	120 gm carrot (prepared weight)
1 tbspn turmeric	30 gm ginger (prepared weight)
2 tspn ground coriander	25 gm garlic (about 6 cloves - prepared weight)
1 tspn ground cumin	1 tspn salt
1 tspn ground cinnamon	200 ml (half large 400 gm tin) chopped tomatoes
1 tspn fenugreek powder (see note 2)	1800 ml warm water
	15 gm fresh coriander

Preparation

Roughly chop the onion.
Deseed and roughly chop the green pepper.
Chop the ginger.
Chop the garlic.
Chop the carrot into small pieces.
Very finely chop the fresh coriander, including stalks.

Cooking

Heat the oil in a large stock pot and fry, uncovered, ½ of the onion for 6 min, stirring regularly.
Stir in the turmeric, ground coriander, ground cumin, cinnamon and fenugreek and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 min.
Add the remaining onion, green pepper, carrot, ginger and garlic and cook, mixing well and stirring constantly, for 2 min.
Stir in the chopped tomato, salt and 1800 ml of warm water, bring to a boil, and simmer, covered, stirring every 15 min, for 1 hour.
Allow to cool a little and blend until smooth.
Bring back to a boil, and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, for an additional ½ hour.
Stir in the fresh coriander, bring back to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, covered, stirring regularly for 10 min.
Allow to cool and add warm water to make 2400 ml then blend until smooth. (It is a good idea to make a 'measuring stick' for the stock pot to simplify this process).
Store in 300 ml portions and keep refrigerated for a few days or in a freezer for future use (see note 2).

Notes

(1) The sauce is quite thick and should be thinned down by mixing 100 ml of water with the 300 ml of sauce and warming before being used. Most recipes call for 300 ml of base sauce and so not all of the resulting 400 ml needs to be used, but this will depend on personal preference for the final sauce consistency.
(2) The fenugreek powder can be purchased already finely ground or can be ground from fenugreek seeds - these are very hard, so a decent spice grinder will be required.

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