Topic: Just had a demonstration by the chef at my local restaurant

[Mark J]

Since moving to Chepstow 1.5 years ago virtually every week myself and my wife go out for a curry on Thursday night to our local Indian restaurant, the Mughal Spice. It is without doubt the best Indian restaurant I have ever been to, it is standard BIR fare but the staff are extremely friendly and the food is exceptionally tasty. It is run by 2 brothers from Cardiff and their family in the kitchen (so they say :-) ). Tonight I watched their chef cook my 2 main meals and had one of the brothers explain to me what was happening at each step of the cooking process, apologies if some of the details are hazy but they made me wait until after they had served the other patrons 'as the chef usually has about 6 main dishes on the go at once' and by that point I had consumed the odd Cobra.


The 2 dishes I chose tonight were chicken pathia and lamb balti. One of the things I have never been able to replicate at home is the rich smell that comes with the dishes this place serves (and the after taste!).


After our starters one of the brothers beckoned me over to the kitchen to watch the process, I had already warned him I knew a lot of what went on behind the scenes with regard base curry sauce, pre cooked meat etc as I didn?t want him giving me a load of bollocks about each dish freshly cooked etc.

There were about 8 customers in the restaurant at this time, the 2 brothers served as waiters with 1 other and that left 4 staff in the kitchen, I suspect they had this amount of staff in the kitchen as they were preparing for the weekend.


I shook hands with the chef, an elderly Indian chap who didn?t speak much English, and then he began.

First off he started with the chicken pathia, on a medium-high heat he added a ladle of hot oil from a pot on the stove (not curry base oil, plain veg oil) then quickly added about 2 TSP garlic puree (no ginger), after about 10 seconds of spreading this around the pan he added about 3 TBSP medium chopped pre cooked onions (they looked a little yellow so I presume had been cooked in oil and curry powder, turmeric etc), he chopped these about a bit and then added about 1.5 TBSP tomato puree (very surprised to see this go in at this stage but the same was true of the balti, I wonder if this fried puree is the rich taste I am after?). He fried this for about 10-20 seconds more and then added the pre cooked chicken, about 2 TSP curry powder, 1-2TSP chilli powder, 1-2 TSP sugar, a few pieces of raw tomato, 1 TSP fenugreek leaves and maybe some salt. He quickly stir fried this mixture for about 10 seconds and then added a ladle of curry base which he evaporated off, he added a few chopped coriander leaves, a bit more curry base and a wedge of lemon and then left this to simmer as he got on with the balti. Whilst cooking the balti he stirred this occasionally and added a ladle of the curry base.

For the balti he started in exactly the same way - oil, garlic, pre cooked onions and then tomato puree. He then added a ladle of pre cooked peppers and onion chunks, added the curry powder, about a TSP of salt, 1 TSP fenugreek leaves, a few pieces of raw tomato and then the pre cooked lamb. The brother at this point admitted they used Pataks balti paste to add a certain something at this point and the chef added about 1.5TSP of this paste. After a few more seconds stir-fry he added a ladle of curry base, evaporated it off, then added fresh coriander and more base.

Both curries were simmered slightly then served garnished with fresh coriander (and they tasted superb as always)

I talked in general with one of the brothers about other goings on in the kitchen, he said that they generally only cooked the curry base about a day in advance (they don?t have it simmering on the stove for days on end) and he proved this to me by showing tomorrows pot which he had ready. These pots were huge, about 16 inches in diameter and 10 deep. On quizzing him about the contents of the base he said onions, garlic, ginger, peppers and coriander stalks. I noticed the base was quite thin, which surprised me as most of the curries they serve have quite a thick sauce.

I also quizzed him about the pre cooked meat and he said they buy lamb legs in boxes of about 10 and the chef cooks it until it is tender, I asked him the time this takes and he just said that each leg of lamb is different and the chef keeps trying it until it is right, I told him I cooked lamb for about 35 minutes in this manner and got the impression this is too short. (whilst the chef was cooking he also had a huge pot of meet pre cooking on the same stove)

My overall impression of the kitchen was that it was clinical - extremely clean. The chef had about 8 pots of ingredients next to him and I suspect these are pretty much as Pete described but maybe with the addition of Fenugreek leaves.

[Curry King]

The brother at this point admitted they used Pataks balti paste to add a certain something at this point and the chef added about 1.5TSP of this paste.

Hi Mark,

I didn't actually get to see them put it in but a guy in a restaurant I spoke to said that they use Pataks for all their Balti's so this seems like common practice.

[Dylan]

Hi Mark,
Interesting what you said about the tom puree going in so early, I'll give it a go, next time I cook a batch up. Was it double concentrate puree they were using, like the stuff you can get in a tube?

[Nessa]

When I cook 'normal' dishes like shepherd's pie, spag bol and other stuff I add tomato puree really early when browning the meat and it turns very rich and dark and aromatic.  Adding the same amount of puree later on doesn't give the same taste or richness at all, it's much blander and just 'raw tomatoey' flavour, so I reckon this could be an important step towards a good restaurant curry!

Thanks so much for sharing Mark, fascinating.

[DARTHPHALL]

in my more succsesfull attempts to copy take-away curry(vindaloo/tindaloo/phall) tomatoe puree has been one of the ingredients & tomatoe ketchup anyone else use these ??

[Mark J]

Dylan - Im not sure to be honest, It didnt look that thick so I suspect it isnt the tubed variety, I'm going to try and recreate the Pathia tonight and I will be using pasata so I'll let you know how successful I am.

Darth - I've heard of takeaways & restaurants using tomato ketchup, never tried it myself though

[Nessa]

A bit of ketchup works wonders in all sorts of dishes, Gary Rhodes and  Gordon Ramsey use it to give a bit of 'oomph'.  I'm sure it would be used in many restaurant kitchens.

btw yes I am addicted to the food channel! 

[pete]

That's a brilliant report Mark.
These observed recipes are what will make this site really special.
Where else could you get that kind of information?
Thanks

[Mark J]

Happy to return the favour Pete 

I made the Pathia last night and it was superb, my wife said it was the same as the restaurant but with a slightly different texture as theirs was more oily. I used a watered down version of your gravy Pete (apart from the water I added a sweet potato and some carrots to your recipe)

I used a mixture of pasata and tomato puree last night, I will try the balti tonight (if I can get hold of some pataks balti paste) and will use just tomato puree (I only used pasata as I had some frozen, I expect the restaurants will use cheapest tomato puree!)

[Gareth]

Happy to return the favour Pete?

I made the Pathia last night and it was superb, my wife said it was the same as the restaurant but with a slightly different texture as theirs was more oily. I used a watered down version of your gravy Pete (apart from the water I added a sweet potato and some carrots to your recipe)

I used a mixture of pasata and tomato puree last night, I will try the balti tonight (if I can get hold of some pataks balti paste) and will use just tomato puree (I only used pasata as I had some frozen, I expect the restaurants will use cheapest tomato puree!)

What a wonderful description your first post was! Thanks.

What did you do to recreate the onions which you said were probably pre-cooked in spices?

Gareth.