Curry Recipes Online
Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: Cory Ander on April 06, 2007, 11:30 AM
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Hi All,
Being inspired by a recent debate (on another thread) about Phals, I thought I'd ask the question:
"How do British Indian Restaurants (BIRs) typically make their curries hot (i.e. Madras, Vindaloo, Tindaloo, Bindaloo and Phal)?"
Do they simply use chilli power? Or do they use fresh chillis and/or some kind of pre-mixed chilli paste?
Regards,
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In my experience it is mainly chili powder and fresh chili's are not used unless it's asked for or stated on the menu as in a jalfrezi. I would be interested to know what others think about this I like them hot but can't take to much chili powder.
cK
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I have often used crushed chillies for heat but this can be a bit 'stingy'! I also use 'who dares burns' or 'Dave's insanity sauce' but these are obviously not used in BIR's.....or are they??
Sparkybill.
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some very hot bir currys taste uncooked
but are very very hot, with out depth just hot
and powdery (like red slop).
a poor show, like powder has just been put in
at the last min.
Others have depth and taste and heat and are dark in colour,
and very nice.
both could be called vindaloo etc.
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I find that adding chilli powder gives an immediate heat to a curry, but if you add a combination of powder and fresh chillis at the right point during cooking, the resultant heat is much "deeper" and flavourfull.
I rarely use the fresh green chillis typically bought in the Indian grocers, and prefer to use home-grown chillis of my own. I have found that the addition of a Habenero chilli or two adds a fantastic taste to a hot curry and give it real depth that actually is an improvement to a BIR curry. I have also tried adding some lemon chillis that provide significant heat whilst maintaining exquisite flavour.
As a confirmed chilli-head I must say that its not just about the heat - its also about the taste. In my experience it is absolutely possible to cook a very, very hot curry and keep it tasting great!
Barry
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Do they simply use chilli power? Or do they use fresh chillis and/or some kind of pre-mixed chilli paste?
Well Cory,
This is an interesting one!
I knew a chef who used a mixture of fresh chopped chillies and also chilli powder.
He swore to me that he only used ordinairy chilli powder
Never use the the "extra hot"
He claimed that it tasted too powdery
I believed him, but a couple of months later, I saw that he had a bag of it in the kitchen!!
Normally the chef doesn't buy what he cooks with
He is at the mercy of the restaurant owner, and he will most likely decide things by their price
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as well as powder i belive
you need the green chilli flesh from
to add depth.
graeme.
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I have seen some takeaways use diced Jalapenos in the finished curry
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Jalapenos are relatively mild aren't they Stew? Do you think that they are maybe there for appearance and flavour, rather than heat?
Regards,
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Pretty sure it's just chilli powder as adding fresh chillies changes the taste. IMO this would be better but if a green chilli's used then it becomes too similar to a jalfrezi.
I agree with the depth thing and this is one reason i'll always choose a madras over a vindaloo. As we're cooking ourselves this is an area we can easily be better that a BIR. Using a chilli powder that doesnt contain any other ingredients is a start. Swartz & supermarket brands often contain oregano for instance. Using a blend of powders to get every angle of the chilli taste in the powder is the next level. Heston blumenthal's chilli con carne recipe for example uses a blend of 9. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/chilliconcarne_87368.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/chilliconcarne_87368.shtml)
Preparing fresh chillies properly is also important. For best taste in my experience you should cut them in half, take out the white bits, seeds and wash the membrane out. Then put them in a glass of hot, v salty water for half an hour. Rinse and then chop up as required.
This makes the chilli taste purer because it takes out most of the harshness that come from the chemical irritants (i think). It also means you can use more chillies (maybe double but that's a guess as i havent used many different varieties) so there will be more taste and not just hotness.
Jalapeno's taste like green peppers not chillies (IMO) so i wouldnt use them.
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From the place that makes the vindaloo that I like the best, if the best chef does it, it always includes extremely small, sliced green chillies which, on their own, are fairly hot--milder than habaneros, for example. Again, not sure if he was winding me up, but after a few go-rounds about getting my vindaloo hot enough, he said that to make my vindaloo, he'd order the chillies from Bangladore instead of the ones they normally used. Dunno if he did or not, but not long after that, the vindaloo got a lot hotter and a lot better.
The guys I was talking to at the place in London mentioned one of their two chefs didn't like to cook phals due to the fumes from the chilli powder, so he didn't cook them properly and just chucked a bunch extra in so it was ungodly hot, but not very good. They said I was lucky the night I was there because I got the better chef that actually prepared it correctly.
Don't know how this compares to other places, though.
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being as I only make hot curries ranging from madras to phall - I allways load the base gravy with extra hot chilli powder and cook it long and slow to cook out the harshness of the powder - not BIR technique I know but it works for me :P
Kev.
p/s recipe to follow - using a slow cooker - great for cooking base gravy (IMO)
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I've never been keen on to much chili powder but like a hot one so tend to use scotch bonnet chili's. I find if I chop them up to a pulp and add them at the very start of cooking the heat comes through without the taste.
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I've never been keen on to much chili powder but like a hot one so tend to use scotch bonnet chili's. I find if I chop them up to a pulp and add them at the very start of cooking the heat comes through without the taste.
I did an interesting experiment with the last curry night I did. There were 6 of us eating and 2 of the guests can eat a medium curry, 3 like it hot and one is an absolute chilli head.
I did a vast amount of Dhansak and split into 2 about halfway through the final cook up.
The first portion was based entirely on chilli and chilli powder in the original recipe, which gives a nice medium curry.
The second portion had 4 haba?ero chillies finely chopped and thrown in and mixed.
This portion was then split again and 3 Dorset Nagas to the final portion.
All 3 lots were then cooked off and served.
Result:
Portion 1, just chilli powder and original chilles from recipe = nice medium/hot well rounded dark full flavour (as it should be)
Portion 2, Original chilli content plus 4 haba?ero chillies = still nice round flavour but hotter and flavour was slightly lifted with more top notes.
Portion3, All the chilli content of the other 2 with 3 Dorset Nagas as well= Much lighter flavour, and *expletive deleted* hot.
Conclusion:
The addition of fresh chillies seems to lift the curry (more lighter top note flavours)
BUT whether this is due to the inherent flavour of the chillies added, or the gob numbing abilities of vast quantities of capsaicin, I am not sure..discuss and experiment for yourselves. :)
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Result:
Portion 1, just chilli powder and original chilles from recipe = nice medium/hot well rounded dark full flavour (as it should be)
Portion 2, Original chilli content plus 4 haba?ero chillies = still nice round flavour but hotter and flavour was slightly lifted with more top notes.
Portion3, All the chilli content of the other 2 with 3 Dorset Nagas as well= Much lighter flavour, and *expletive deleted* hot.
Conclusion:
The addition of fresh chillies seems to lift the curry (more lighter top note flavours)
BUT whether this is due to the inherent flavour of the chillies added, or the gob numbing abilities of vast quantities of capsaicin, I am not sure..discuss and experiment for yourselves. :)
Holy crap! And people were accusing me of making my curries hot! :o
Just so I can compare, approximately what was the volume of sauce/chillies in each case? I use habaneros from time to time (and I'm currently drying some to use to make some custom chilli powder), but I've never had Scotch Bonnets or Dorset Naga. From the Peppers by Post site, it looks quite interesting.
I quit eating really spicy food on a regular basis for a while after we moved out of the city, and I noticed my tolerance isn't what it used to be. With all these curries here lately though, I'm working on getting back in shape. :)
Still, I don't know that I'd be able to eat your curries. Those Dorset Nagas look pretty serious!
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...(more lighter top note flavours)
Oh get her! (unless you are a her of course in which case the joke doesn't work so well. :) )
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...(more lighter top note flavours)
Oh get her! (unless you are a her of course in which case the joke doesn't work so well. :) )
SS,
very sorry with coming out with phrases you may not have heard before, but they come second nature to anyone who has had 30 years working in the food industry and knows anything about taste testing descriptions/techniques.
If you have got a better description for defining the difference between types of flavours then please let us all know.
Perhaps you could re-define the whole way the food industry works, tests, describes the way we taste things, and pass the information on to others in a way they might understand and therefore have the vocabulary to describe what they are actally tasting in a logical way.
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Hi Jethro
I've had nigh on 30 years trying to emulate BIR curries and still haven't managed it. BTW you may have missed the smiley at the end of my post (not to mention the fact that I said it was a joke), makes all the difference to what I said. No?
But I forgive you. (Is there a saint smiley?)
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I have been cooking curries the restaurant way for well over 20 year now and in my opinion the use of fresh green chilles and chilli powder are used when making vindaloo/phalls, the hot ones. If you use too much chilli powder, all it does is make the curry too powdery and thick and stodgey as the chilli powder would also act as a thickening agent too. By using some chilli powder and hot fresh chillies chopped you don't get that powdery taste and the flavours still come through. CQ
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On the next-to-last lot of vindaloo I made, I used 4tsp of hot chilli powder and 1.5 tsp of cayenne (it was supposed to be 2, but I ran out) for 200ml of base. I agree with CQ that if you add much more than that in terms of volume with other spices, you're throwing off the consistency and you're going to need to add some extra liquid of some kind.
I still think the best taste combination is quite a bit of hot, some cayenne and some fresh chillies to give the full depth of heat before, during and after each bite. I have to experiment with a few more kinds of chillies though, because I don't quite have the right ones for the taste I want. I've exhausted the range available at the local shop, so I've got to schedule a shopping trip to a proper Indian/Asian market to see what I can find there.
CQ, what kind of fresh green chillies are you talking about? Are they fairly small?
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Hi ast, At the moment I am using some thai chillies about half inch in length. They are quite fiery - I'm just using them up as I have been experimenting with Thai dishes. Usually I use scotch bonnet or dorset nega. The last lot of dorset negas nearly blew my oh's head off, which is something I have never achieved before with regard to heat. He has always eaten them blow your head off phals and I usually like vindaloo/phal, so I think its fair to say that the dorset nega is the hottest i have ever used. CQ
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Thanks for that, CQ.
I went shopping today at the Asian market and bought the hottest fresh chillies they had. They're not very big around, but some of them are about 2-3" long. I've no idea what they are, though.
I brought some red Thai chillies back from France (you can get them at Carrefour fairly easily), but I ended up having to dry them because I didn't use them quick enough. My wife doesn't like food as hot as I do. They're pretty hot, but not as hot as Habaneros. I did find some dried red chillies (whole) today that look about the same size as the ones you mention. I'll have to try them all and see what happens. ;)