Curry Recipes Online
Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: Mark J on February 17, 2005, 09:51 PM
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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. :)
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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 ??
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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
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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! :o
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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
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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!)
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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.
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Hi Gareth,
I fried them in oil slowly, after a few minutes I added a tablespoon of curry base.
For the balti I tried something different, I fried them slightly in oil, then added a TSP of restaurant masala (see Pete's curry house cookery ebook), then added about half a cup of water and simmered.
In short the pathia turned out better but I felt the balti wasnt right, I didnt have any pataks balti paste so used pataks kashmiri paste instead
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Hi Gareth,
I fried them in oil slowly, after a few minutes I added a tablespoon of curry base.
For the balti I tried something different, I fried them slightly in oil, then added a TSP of restaurant masala (see Pete's curry house cookery ebook), then added about half a cup of water and simmered.
In short the pathia turned out better but I felt the balti wasnt right, I didnt have any pataks balti paste so used pataks kashmiri paste instead
Thanks again.
I'll try using this recipe - if I can get it half as close to the real thing as you have I'll be happy!
Gareth.
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Just made this again and it was awesome, even better than the first time I made it.
Differences this time were: I forgot to put the fresh tomato in, I used ghee and veg oil and used pasata instead of tomato puree.
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chicken pathia
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.
Both curries were simmered slightly then served garnished with fresh coriander (and they tasted superb as always)
I made the chicken pathia last night and was very impressed.
I like the way that the pre-fried onions seem to disappear into the base sauce
I was surprised at using sugar
I had wondered if that was something that we had made up.
That is what I love about these genuine recipes
You know that it's right, it's NOT a calculated guess.
I used Rajah Mild Madras Curry Powder.
The chef from my Bengal Cuisine lesson said they used Rajah.
What did you use?
I watered down the curry base too (Bengal Cuisine gravy was very runny too)
Anyhow the result was excellent
So, thanks!
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Excellent, glad it worked out pete. For curry powder I used the restaurant masala mix from the curry house cookery you posted. (And for the curry powder element of that I used sharwoods medium curry powder).
Both chefs gave me some flannel about it being their secret spice mix (I thought at the time "yeah right, straight out of a rajah or east end packet" ;D)
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I made this last night and it was very nice.
I used my own spice mix instead of a packet curry powder and didnt add any precooked onions. Im not a pathia eater myself but even I thought it tasted ok, a bit sweet for me so it must have been right! I didn't have any batteries in my camera so I couldn't take a pic but it looked the business.
Cheers
cK
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Just made this again and it was awesome, even better than the first time I made it.
Differences this time were: I forgot to put the fresh tomato in, I used ghee and veg oil and used pasata instead of tomato puree.
did you use the pasata in the first dish (not so good) or in the second dish (awesome) ?
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Pasata, they are definately using pasata and not concentrated tomoatoe puree in the 2 kitchens I have been in.
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They use a cross between passata and double concentrate. If you go into an Asian shop you can buy tins tomato paste. It is not no concentrated.
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Here's another possible approach. Please see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/eastmidlands/series7/curry_chefs.shtml
It seems the UK has a shortage of curry chefs. The article goes on to say "The only large scale training academy is based in London. The Academy of Asian Culinary Arts at Thames Valley University launched the UK's first curry course in 1999."
I assume they teach the 'UK curry' style in order for the course to be of much use. If they taught how to cook 'proper' or 'fine dining' Indian food like served at top hotels in India, then the guidance wouldn't be of much use in many of the 10,000 Indian restaurants in the UK.
Students might welcome some extra income. Stand outside and offer cash to anyone prepared to pass on some knowledge!
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Further to my previous posting, here are details of the training course:
http://www.tvu.ac.uk/courses/Course_details.jsp?course=650
It says one year, part time days. It sounds a doddle, especially if one is after practical knowledge, rather than to pick up a piece of paper with 'NVQ level 2 pass' written on it.
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Im going to enquire if we can do it online or get the course materials, Ill let you know
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I was told it cant be done online nor can you buy the course materials.
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I'm waiting for the prospectus to arrive by Royal Mail. Pity they couldn't send outline details of course hours and fees by e-mail. They must wonder why there's a sudden surge of interest!
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I have just received the prospectus for the course mentioned above. It's a 'year' (September-June presumably) of attendance on Mondays only from 10am - 2pm. It's free for UK and EU students 16-19 years of age, and ?450 for UK and EU students aged 19 or over. All ingredients are supplied, which sounds good. They mention 'traditional food preparation'. My guess is that the course would teach a lot about cooking fine quality food, like if you have a great curry in a hotel, but I wonder if they even touch on curry house techniques.
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Ok, tongiht I cooked the Balti, as described by Mark in the first post of the thread. The gravy used was Dhillon gravy. My impressions:
- Generous portion!
- Looks the *business*
- Texture/consistency spot on
- Taste: I think I over did it a bit on flavourings. It was over spiced. I shall try again tomorrow, and halve the amount of Pataks, redue the amount of salt, and reduce the amount of Curry power used. Maybe I heaped my teaspoons a bit too much!
I like very much the onion/tomato technique to get the dish going. I'm gonna stick with this methodology for a few nights, and try varying the spices a bit to see what I can get.
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Hi thomashenry,
I find that over spicing is a frequent problem. After I have produced a dish from whatever recipe, I often have to adjust the taste to suit my taste or adjust towards BIR and inevitably the dish ends up over spiced. As you say the best approach is to redo the dish but use a smaller quantity of the suggested ingredients or omitt / add some to get closer to the required taste.
This does emphasise that as much as we love our BIRs, when it comes down to it they do not have a very strong taste and this delicate / froogle spicing may be why we struggle to achieve perfection.
Anyway, keep up the good work,
cheers thomashenry,
Blondie
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On reflection Im not sure that the balti did have curry powder added as well as Pataks, I cooked it recently and just used pataks and it was great.
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Ok, just had another attempt.
Followed the Balti recipie, but omitted the pataks, used a heaped teaspoon of curry blend instead (equal parts paprika, turmeric, Rajah curry power, cumin and coriander). Blown away! That meal *had* the taste, no doubt about it. If I were a resturanter, I spose I;d be selling it as a Bhuna. To recap then:
Heat 4 tablespoons of oil in yuor pan. Squirt in a teaspoon or so of garlic puree, spread and stir. After 20 secs, add in a ladle of pre fried, finely chopped onions, and a lug of blended tomatoes. Fry for 30 seconds. Add a ladle of Dhillon base, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, heaped teaspoon of spice mix, heaped teaspoon of dried fenugreek leaves, 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar, and a teaspoon of chilli powder. Also, half a chopped tomato, and I also put in a choopped green chilli. Mixed it all round, then added the meat and aladle of pre fried onion and green pepper chunks. Fried for 30 sseconds or so, then added a good handful of chopped coriander. 20 seconds later I added two further ladles of Dhillon base, and simmered for a few more minutes. Added a another generous pinch of coriander, stirred through, transferred to servinf dish. sprinked with more coriander.
It was magic. It felt like every ingredient was doing a job, and contributing to the flavour.
The pre fried onions are obviously important, as they lend a natural sweetness other wise missing. The fenugreek adds body in a subtle way - the kind of thing that you notice in its absence. The stregnth of spicing was spot on, and the heat was just right for a medium dish.
It looked fantastic, and smelt great too.
One thing I advise is to use a nice looking Balti serving dish, and to leave it a few minutes after cooking, to allow it to cool a bit - when it is piping hot, you can taste as much.
As you can probably tell, I'm rather excited. Big thanks to MarkJ for posting his observations! For the first time ever, I got 'the taste'. Now I need to be able to repeat it.
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Excellent! I serve it in sizzling cast iron balti dishes
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Thanks. The recipe above was spot on!
Just made a batch of Kris Dhillon's sauce with 10kg of onions, 500g of garlic, and 500g of ginger, for 25 people.
I made about 8 kg of korma using Ghanna's recipe with the whole spices added, and two portions of the above recipe and was told they were both as good as restaurant meals, so am very pleased. :D
Making a largish batch of sauce didn't appear to affect the flavour of the curry sauce. I used Kris Dhillon's method of pre-cooking the chicken in the base sauce with turmeric added, but instead of straining out the chicken and throwing away the chicken cooking sauce, I added it to the korma, and I do think it added an extra taste.
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Excellent, glad it worked. How did you end up cooking for 25 people!
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I made the mistake of offering to. I reckon, overall, it must have taken about 12 hours -including a minor incident where the liquidiser nearly went up in flames! I'd do it again, though. It's only by cooking in largish proportions that I learn.
Thanks again,
Stephen
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Well if Stephen made a base in that quantity ,without it changing it's general taste, that ends the "needing to cook in large quantities to get the taste" theory.
And congratulations too!
That was a lot of curries!!
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Thanks. I did the same bulk cook last year, but last year I didn't add sauce the chicken was cooked in to the final kormas. I half-precooked them in boiling water. Now, it might be my imagination, but, this time it did taste much better (in my opinion). It might be because I changed the recipe slightly, but I've noticed before that by adding the sauce that the chicken breasts are pre-cooked in to the final dish, the taste does seem to improve. I would agree with the assertion that adding chicken stock/jelly to the base sauce improves the flavour.
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Ive started adding this liquid to my base also, it smells our of this world
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Ive started adding this liquid to my base also, it smells our of this world
That sounds like a much more practical thing to do.
Do you have any whole spices in the water as well?
Making jelly by boiling for FOUR hours is just not something most people have time for.
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I made about 8 kg of korma using Ghanna's recipe with the whole spices added, and two portions of the above recipe and was told they were both as good as restaurant meals, so am very pleased.
Stephen - do you mean your korma had the same type of flavour as a BIR korma, or was it just as good as, or better in a different sort of way? I have made good kormas in the past. My friends would say they are "as good as restaurant meals" (or better). But they are not the same!
Regards
George
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That sounds like a much more practical thing to do.
Do you have any whole spices in the water as well?
Making jelly by boiling for FOUR hours is just not something most people have time for.
I just use the bruce edwards method of precooking meat and then use the juice and oil that is left over in the next batch of base sauce, this obviously isnt too vegetarian either and I presume you have no need to precook meat. If you pre cook vegetables using this method though that would be worth a shot
Have you tried adding chicken stock cubes? Im currently using knorr chicken stock cubes just to get a bit of chicken stock and msg into my base without the hassle of boiling bones for hours ;D
Ive got a base on the go at the moment actually, its your base Pete minus one onion, plus a carrot, green pepper, coranider stalks and half a can of chick peas. Ive also added 5 stock cubes and about 200ml of pre cooked meat base sauce
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Well done Stephen, this is good work, but might I also add:
>> was told they were both as good as restaurant meals>>
Comments like this from friends are nice, but absolutely meaningless - I've been told that for 20 years, and it's not true.
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Stephen - do you mean your korma had the same type of flavour as a BIR korma, or was it just as good as, or better in a different sort of way? I have made good kormas in the past. My friends would say they are "as good as restaurant meals" (or better). But they are not the same!
Regards
George
Hello George,
I've been thinking about the taste. I had quite a lot left over, some saved some for a couple of days to have a clean palate, and to avoid being "spiced out" by all the testing whilst cooking? ;). On retasting today, I believe the creaminess was nearly there that you get with a restaurant korma, and also, I believe, the depth of flavour. I attribute this partly to using the chicken cooking sauce, and also to Ghanna's suggestion to use evaporated milk.
One thing I think was wrong, was the thickness of the sauce. I do think it was too thick. Next time, I shall probably add more evaporated milk. I added three baked bean sized tins to the entire korma mix. I think if I were to add more, it would thin the sauce, and make it richer.
Well done Stephen, this is good work, but might I also add:
>> was told they were both as good as restaurant meals>>
Comments like this from friends are nice, but absolutely meaningless - I've been told that for 20 years, and it's not true.
Hello Joe2,
Thanks. I totally appreciate your point. I always take what people say with a pinch of salt because I know perfectly well when I taste it myself the next day that it isn't as good as a restaurant meal. This one was better than last year's, though. There's always room for improvement, so next time, I'll try the improvements above.
Thanks Stephen
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I like the way that the pre-fried onions seem to disappear into the base sauce
So there are no noticable onion pieces in the finished curry?
Is this because the onions are so well cooked that they are very soft?
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So there are no noticable onion pieces in the finished curry?
Is this because the onions are so well cooked that they are very soft?
I think it varies ive had vindaloos with onion pieces in and some without. Ive been adding some to mine recently and if they are cooked to browning they do dissapear.
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HI Mark,
Fantastic recipe after many many attempts the acid test for every recipe was my 13 year lad,
even when the wife and I were moderately pleased with the result of my endeavours the
reaction from the lad was" this curry is minging!" However using a Bruce Edwards Base and following your pathia recipe I was amazed as was the wife to hear him announce "This curry
Rocks" and he proceded to eat an entire dish full.Great work and thanks.
Steve E ;D
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Hello forum
I've been away from the forum for a few months, as after a solid month of home-BIRing I took some time off to go back to some traditional Indian cooking. Anyway, I've had another spell of nightyl BIRing kicked off another month of BIRing, and am happy to have done three spot-on dishes in as manynights - something I've not before done. It's all based on the info MarkJ posted at the top of this thread, big respect to him. Anyway, my observations.
I've tried 3 bases - and concluded this is definataly, definaatly, DEFINATELY not where we are missing out. I tried with Dhillion, BruceEdwards, and my own adaptation of Dhillion - and the sauce used had NO bearing on whethere or not I acheived the taste - I acheived 'the taste' with all three, and failed to achieve it with all three. ANY OF THE COMMONLY USED BASES IN THIS FORUM WILL DO.
The difference between success stories and failiures for me I think is due to cooking technique - the AMOUNT and TEMPERATURE of oil used. Too much much or too little oil can prevent you getting the dish right. Not heating the oil enough can have the same effect.
The pre-fried onions are very important to the texture of the dish. Furthermore, I've never got the taste without them either. I'm not convinced they are needed for the taste, but I like my sauces to have them anyway. Chop them finely, and fry them in plent oil on a medium/low temp with 1/2 tsp curry powder, 1/4 tsp turmeric per onion. Fry them gently, for a long time - 30 mins at least. You need them soft, and gently browning. DO NOT let them go dark brown/black - do not let them burn under any circumstances. You don't want that 'hot dog stand onion' flavour at all.
Meat - I've been frying in oil with a shake of chilli and turnmeric and a few bits of casia bark, until they are just done. They then get another 5 or so mins of blast in the curry, so don't worry too much about under doing them. 10 mins is all they need. I just fry them gently in the pan - all the other methods have added nothing for me, and the taste has been achievable whatever method I use to cook chicken.
As soon as I get my digital camera sorted, I'm going to post a picture of my chef's spoon, pan, and teaspoon, as the shape and size of these three things are important for quantities - the chefs spoon in particualr for the oil and base sauce adding.
When I've got these pics, I'll post recipe/method/pics.
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The difference between success stories and failiures for me I think is due to cooking technique - the AMOUNT and TEMPERATURE of oil used. Too much much or too little oil can prevent you getting the dish right. Not heating the oil enough can have the same effect.
Hi Mate,
Good to hear a success story, what final dish recipes have you used?
I agree on the oil, I recently had success with Pete's simple madras recipe, I really fried the tomato/spice tarka on top heat for a while and I noticed after a while it developed that smell, Im sure the curry base oil is key now. Did you skim oil off the top of the base?
cheers
Mark
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Nope, it was plain veg oil. I believe its the quantity and temperature of this oil that is so vital. Correct and amount, and BLAZINGLY hot.
The recipie I used was a slight adapatiaion of those you posted, but with less spice basically. I'm gonna wait till I've got photos before I do a more detailed recipie/method. Amout of oil, heat, and adherernce to method are all so important.
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Do you use any garamasala in the final dishes - if so does it make a difference to you ?
Can you tell us what curry powder/mix you use ?
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No garam masala. The spices I used in the dish stage were a modest teaspoon of Rajah Curry Powder, some chilli powder, 1/2 each of sugar and salt, and one of Fenugreek leaves.
The specifics of the curry powder are of no importance. Any sensilbe 'curry powder' mix will get you the right results. This is not a concern. I've stuck with Rajah Madras powder as the local shop sells it. Any other brand would give the same reults, as I'm sure, would any home blend of cumin/coriander/turmeric etc.
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That's the same brand of curry powder I use and I've had mixed results in the past. If this is "the taste" that I'm looking for then the majority of this must be related to technique. I wonder if the hot oil draws out the taste from the curry powder.
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I've tried three curry powders - Rajah, East End, and 'Resturant Masala' as described on this site. It's made no difference as to whethere or not I've gotten a good result. All are capable of a good result, all will fail if you don't cook it right!
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hi mark
hope you don't mind me asking but could you possibly do this recipe for me i don't mean come round and cook it lol just mean can you put it into laymans terms for me so i can follow it step by step i also use darthpalls base thanks mark
deb
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Sure, Ive actually done that for my own use so it will just be a copy and paste :)
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Chicken Pathia
On a high heat add 2-3 TBSP oil
Add 2 TSP garlic puree, stir fry for about 10 seconds
Add 3 TBSP medium chopped pre cooked onions, stir fry for ~20 seconds
Add 1.5 TBSP tomato puree (in hindsight this was probably pasata or some other thinner paste than our standard tom puree)
After ~20 seconds more add the pre cooked chicken, about 2 TSP curry powder (I would recommend Bruce Edwards spice mix from the ebook section/curry house cookery but any of the mixes talked about on this site will be fine), 1-2TSP chilli powder, 1-2 TSP sugar, a few pieces of raw tomato, 1 TSP fenugreek leaves and a little salt.
Stir fry this mixture for about 10 seconds more and then add a small ladle of curry base, evaporate this off.
Add chopped coriander leaves, another ladle of curry base and a wedge of lemon and leave this to simmer for 5 minutes.
This is the recipe as I typed out after I observed it first hand, looking back on this I'm not sure the lemon is right going in at the end like that, I personally would add it just before the first ladle of gravy goes in.