Curry Recipes Online
Curry Chat => Lets Talk Curry => Topic started by: haldi on June 12, 2012, 07:22 PM
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Any one know this book?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Cook-Indian-Takeaway-ebook/dp/B005GLEQDU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339525039&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/You-Cook-Indian-Takeaway-ebook/dp/B005GLEQDU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1339525039&sr=1-1)
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Far too cheap for me ;)
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I have this Haldi and i thinks quite informative, from what i have read of it so far, about 15 percent, but for 77 pence you cant grumble.
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Haven't got this one but I brought something similar recently...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooking-Curry-Indian-Restaurant-ebook/dp/B004AYDJCI (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cooking-Curry-Indian-Restaurant-ebook/dp/B004AYDJCI)
Not bad for the price but nothing we don't already know.
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Many thanks, I bought this book about an hour after you mentioned it and had a look at it. Not surprisingly it doesn't seem to contain any truly new knowledge which isn't already on this forum. Moreover it is not really BIR-style since it doesn't use neither a base gravy/Garabi nor a restaurant masala/spice mix.
However, at the price you really can't go wrong. I found it to be quite interesting and the recipes appear to make sense even if not true BIR-style. Their advantage is that they require relatively few ingredients. The book is 187 pages so you get a lot of value for your (very little) money plus you help someone with a pretty devastating illness (Social Anxiety Disorder) earn a living. I actually enjoyed all the non-recipe content the most (Basics, Info about Ingredients ("Spiceopedia"), Methods, Shopping List, Curry Heat League Table, How to Impress Friends).
Here's one of the recipes so you can get a feel what the book is like:
TANDOORI CHICKEN
A most popular starter with its lightly spiced bright red chicken pieces blended with yoghurt. Marinating helps to make the chicken succulent. Serve with a green salad.
Spices
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic
1 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
Other ingredients
1 dessertspoon natural yoghurt
2 dessertspoons of cooking oil
A dash of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 dessertspoon tomato ketchup
A drop of red food colouring (if you want to create the restaurant look)
2 breasts of chicken left whole or sliced into thick strips.
1. Put all of the spices into a cup and add a little water. Then mix into a paste.
2. Add two dessertspoons of oil into a pan and place onto a high heat.
3. Add the spice mixture and stir constantly for five minutes. Reduce the heat setting if the spices stick and add a little warm water from the kettle to avoid burning.
4. Drain off the oil and allow the spice mixture to cool.
5. Add the spices, salt, lemon juice, ketchup, food colouring and yoghurt into a mixing bowl and blend to a creamy paste.
6. Add the chicken to the spice mixture and blend the mixture together.
7. Prick the chicken with a fork to allow the marinade to seep into the meat.
8. Allow for marinating in the refrigerator for at least two hours.
9. Place the coated chicken pieces onto a foil lined grill pan and grill for twenty minutes on a high heat turning occasionally.
10. Transfer to serving dish and serve with fresh salad.
While I was at Amazon I also bought another book I found there while browsing:
Kenny McGovern - The Takeaway Secret
This one follows the base gravy/spice mix method as BIRs. Again, not really any new knowledge which is not on here somewhere but I really do like this book for some reason.
There's also a specialized edition "The Indian Takeaway Secret" available by the same author but the same content is included in the "full" version, too, so I recommend getting the full one instead because the extra stuff is quite interesting to me at least (Indian & Turkish Kebabs, chip shop recipes, chinese TA recipes, Pizza stuff, sides/salads/sauces as well as drinks & desserts). It makes for a nice change ;)
Here's the Base Gravy recipe from that book:
BASIC CURRY SAUCE
(INDIAN RESTAURANT STYLE)
Makes enough Basic Curry Sauce for 7?8 Curries
This curry sauce can be frozen in batches and used in a diverse range of finished curry dishes. With the basic curry sauce prepared and ready for use, any of the curry dishes in this chapter can be created in around 10 minutes.
75 ml (2 1/2 fl oz) vegetable oil
2 carrots, chopped
1 1/2 large Spanish onions (around 700 g or 1 1/2 lb peeled weight), chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
2 1/2 litres (4 1/2 pints water)
2 tablespoons tomato pur?e
1 tablespoon garlic and ginger paste
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 tablespoon garam masala
1 large handful of chopped fresh coriander leaves and stalks
200 g tinned chopped tomatoes
25 g (1 oz) creamed coconut block
1/4 teaspoon salt
Heat the oil in a large stock pot and add the vegetables. Stir-fry over a medium heat for 5?6 minutes.
Add the water, tomato pur?e, garlic and ginger paste, coriander powder, cumin powder, turmeric, garam masala, fresh coriander, tinned tomatoes, creamed coconut block and salt.
Bring the pan back to the boil on a high heat. Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer for 1 hour.
Using a hand blender, blitz the sauce. Continue blending for 2?3 minutes until no vegetable pieces remain and the sauce is completely smooth.
Return the pan to the heat and simmer for a further 15 minutes. Add a little more water if necessary. The finished sauce should have the consistency of a thin soup.
Allow the sauce to cool and pour into freezer safe storage tubs. Freeze in 200?300ml/7?10 fl oz batches for up to 3 months. Each batch will provide enough basic curry sauce for 1 portion of curry.
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From a quick read-through, this was the only worthwhile info i gleaned from these two books.
quote from Kenny McGovern
(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/bb93ea54bfa8cfeec8356e063c0af756.png)
quote from Neil Faulkner
(http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/imagehost/pics/7badb9335f36a7f553b3c134b4649f33.png)
Frank. :)
p.s. I haven't tried any recipes.
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Neil Faulkner's quotation is very interesting : I suggested exactly the same thing in another thread (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=6106.msg61066#msg61066), and Ray queried the logic, which I confess I was unable to defend. Nonetheless, empirically, increasing the spices in proportion to the root of the portion size does seem to work (for me, and for Neil Faulkner, at least).
** Phil.
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Phil, but what if you don't want to double but make tenfold portions ?
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Phil, but what if you don't want to double but make tenfold portions ?
Well, Neil and I are suggesting similar forumulae, and extrapolating both gives around four times the spicing for ten times the portion size; I have never gone beyond double portions, so I cannot offer any guarantees that this will work out correctly, but as with all cookery, tasting is the key : start with (say) four times the spicing, then test for flavour and increase if necessary; I am reasonably confident that four times the spicing won't be too much, but it might be too little. Also bear in mind that you don't necessarily want to adjust all the spices by the same ratio; I might well put in more (pro rata) cumin and methi than I would chillies or Bassar curry masala.
** Phil.
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Hhhm, good point. I guess I'll attempt to cook multiple single portions without meat until almost done, then later toss them all together and put in the pre-cooked meat with a final fry just to be safe.
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Hi Phil,
Yes, I did query the logic of your suggestion, and continued to query it for some time. However, I did actually put it to the test and to my suprise, you was absolutely spot on. I should have come back and acknowledged this on the forum, so my humble apologies for that :(
What I did find at the time that yes, doubling up on spices did take the dish in the wrong direction but for me, the biggest impact came from the garlic and ginger paste, so much so, that I reckon you could get away with a single measurement of GG paste, even in a 'doubled' up dish!
Ray :)
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From a quick read-through, this was the only worthwhile info i gleaned from these two books.
p.s. I haven't tried any recipes.
If you haven't tried any of the recipes, how can you possibly know if the information is worthwhile?
Also, those 'nuggets' of information are hardly new, so where have you been, if they're somehow of particular interest to you?
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Yes, I did query the logic of your suggestion, and continued to query it for some time. However, I did actually put it to the test and to my suprise, you was absolutely spot on. I should have come back and acknowledged this on the forum, so my humble apologies for that :(
Absolutely no apologies needed, Ray, but good to hear that you can confirm my hypothesis.
What I did find at the time that yes, doubling up on spices did take the dish in the wrong direction but for me, the biggest impact came from the garlic and ginger paste, so much so, that I reckon you could get away with a single measurement of GG paste, even in a 'doubled' up dish!
Because my recent offerings had rather lost the way, I have now gone back to my Kris Dhillon roots, and as you will know, she uses no g/g paste at all. And now, neither do I, and I can still turn out a mean Chicken Madras !
I have also pre-cooked some remaindered chicken livers in Kashmiri Masala (plus oil, turmeric and a little base) and will be experimenting with these over the weekend.
** Phil.
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From a quick read-through, this was the only worthwhile info i gleaned from these two books.
p.s. I haven't tried any recipes.
If you haven't tried any of the recipes, how can you possibly know if the information is worthwhile?
Also, those 'nuggets' of information are hardly new, so where have you been, if they're somehow of particular interest to you?
I thought they might've been of interest to the forum George. If you browse the forum via recent posts, you would've seen this came directly after somebody had asked about cooking in bulk.
Frank. ;)
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Phil, but what if you don't want to double but make tenfold portions ?
Well, Neil and I are suggesting similar forumulae, and extrapolating both gives around four times the spicing for ten times the portion size
That makes absolutely no sense, whatsoever. Just do a though experiment:
a) Imagine cooking two "single portions" of curry and combining them. You now have (without question) two times each of all of the ingredients in your "double portion" (including all the spices, garlic, ginger, etc).
b) Now imagine cooking a double portion, in the way that you suggest. You no longer have the same quantity of ingredients in it as in a) above.
Therefore, they cannot be the same!
To my mind, if you want to cook a double portion (or 10 fold portion, or an "x" time portion) then you must double (or increase by 10 fold, or increase by "x" times) all of the ingredients.
It is totally illogical and unscientific to suggest otherwise.
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To my mind, if you want to cook a double portion (or 10 fold portion, or an "x" time portion) then you must double (or increase by 10 fold, or increase by "x" times) all of the ingredients. It is totally illogical and unscientific to suggest otherwise.
It is neither illogical nor unscientific : rather, it sis simply that we do not yet understand the logic or the science that underlie the facts. But facts they are, proven by independent experiments by at least three researchers : Neil Faulkner, Ray, and myself. Whilst I fully accept that neither you nor I (nor Ray) yet understand why one should not increase the spices (g/g, etc) pro rata, the fact remains that increasing them in a lesser ratio leads to better results. Rather than simply saying "I don't understand this, therefore it cannot be true", why not try the experiment for yourself and then report your findings. That would surely be both the logical and the scientific thing to do.
** Phil.
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Phil,
It's illogical and unscientific for the very reason I suggested.
If you beg to differ, then some other factors must be coming into play (with your cooking). Like size of pan, size of heat source, etc.
But, if you really believe that adding a "single portion" amount of garlic and ginger (for example) to a "double portion", gives the same result as two individual portions combined (with, therefore, twice as much garlic and ginger in it as in a single portion), then good luck to you! But please don't try and convince others of it and try to sell it as an "empirically proved fact"! ::)
Rather than simply saying "I don't understand this, therefore it cannot be true", why not try the experiment for yourself and then report your findings. That would surely be both the logical and the scientific thing to do
I do it all the time, Phil, and what I personally find is that if you want to make double the portion, then double ALL of the ingredients. If you want to make x times the portion, then multiply ALL of the ingredients by x.
The only caveat, in my opinion, is that, to get the same result, you must have a heat source and size of pan that are capable of replicating the same cooking conditions.
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Texting Az as I know he often cooks 3 or 4 portions in 1 pan if a table orders multiples of the same dish.
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Texting Az as I know he often cooks 3 or 4 portions in 1 pan if a table orders multiples of the same dish.
That would help settle it chriswg & from anyone else with kitchen experience. There must have been 10-20 portions of each dish at a buffet I was at recently & that was at lunchtime
ELW
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This does make me smile. :) Some of us slogged our way through this proportional scaling thing six years ago. We didn't really get anywhere, in terms of a consensus. I'm a bit embarrassed to post the link, as I lost it a bit during the debate, ::) but here it is anyway:
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1037.0 (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1037.0)
Worth a read, if only for a laugh. I'd be interested to see what Az says.
:)
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Some of us slogged our way through this proportional scaling thing six years ago.
"Plus ca change" :-)
** Phil.
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It's illogical and unscientific for the very reason I suggested.
I believe that the Church said much the same about the heretical theories of Galileo Galilei.
If you beg to differ, then some other factors must be coming into play (with your cooking). Like size of pan, size of heat source, etc.
I agree. But not necessarily that the other factors are those you mention. I'll explain my own hypothesis below :
But, if you really believe that adding a "single portion" amount of garlic and ginger (for example) to a "double portion", gives the same result as two individual portions combined (with, therefore, twice as much garlic and ginger in it as in a single portion), then good luck to you! But please don't try and convince others of it and try to sell it as an "empirically proved fact"! ::)
Three swallows do not make a summer : and the findings of Neil Faulkner, Ray and myself are not necessarily the same findings as those that a far wider panel of researchers might reach. But let me address your earlier point, because a priori your argument seems very sound, but I believe that it contains a fundamental error [1]. Let me try to explain. Suppose that a single portion of curry is made with 3/4 pint base, 5 tbsps oil, 8 oz chicken, 2 tsp chillies, 1 1/2 tsp cumin and 1 tsp methi (a basic KD-style Madras). Those ingredients are present at the start of cooking. But what is in the finished dish ? Some water will have evaporated, but more importantly, the chicken will have cooked, acquiring a distinctive flavour in the process (because it has absorbed some of the essential oils from the spices), and all of the ingredients will have melded together to yield a curry ("a curry is far more than the sum of its parts"). You would not be able to take that curry and remove from it (say) the base; nor would you be able to remove any of its constituents. So what you have after cooking a single portion is no longer 3/4 pint base, 5 tbsps oil, 8 oz chicken, 2 tsp chillies, 1 1/2 tsp cumin and 1 tsp methi; rather, it is a Chicken Madras a la KD. Now, if you add that Chicken Madras to another, identically cooked, portion, you will indeed end up with a double portion of Chicken Madras. But now consider the other side of the equation : suppose you start with 1 1/2 pints base, 10 tbsps oil, 1 lb chicken, 4 tsp chillies, 3 tsp cumin and 2 tsp methi, and you cook them as you cooked your single portion, but adjusting cooking times (etc) to allow for the larger quantities involved : what you will end up with is still identifiably a Chicken Madras, but (in my experience, and that of the other researchers cited) it will be excessively hot, and noticeably out of balance. Why ? I don't claim to know. All I do know is that there is a definite non-linear relationship involved when it comes to spicing, and sadly the one person I knew personally who might have been able to explain this was buried last week [2].
** Phil.
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[1] The error is that your argument begs the question. You argue that, because adding two single curries after cooking will yield a double portion, you would get the same results (modulo heat, temperature, duration, size of cooking vessel, etc) by doubling everything up in the first place; but you do not demonstrate why this must be the case other than by arm-waving, and in so doing you overlook the very complex chemical reactions that take place when food is cooked.
[2] The late Professor Jack Pridham. His famous "Chemophilia" web site is no longer online, but fortunately the Way Back Machine has an archived copy (http://web.archive.org/web/20100427044548/http://chemophilia.org.uk/).
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Some of us slogged our way through this proportional scaling thing six years ago. We didn't really get anywhere, in terms of a consensus. I'm a bit embarrassed to post the link, as I lost it a bit during the debate, ::) but here it is anyway:
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1037.0 (http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=1037.0)
An interesting non sequitur (or perhaps an unintentional faux pas ) in one of the sources cited :
On topic: Thanks for the link, Merrybaker. I was looking for one too and found this:
http://allrecipes.com/hints/scaling.asp (http://allrecipes.com/hints/scaling.asp)
This includes the lines:
?If you are doubling a recipe, expect to use only about 1 ? times the original amount of seasonings. If you are tripling a recipe, expect to use only about twice the original amount of seasonings. If you are dividing a recipe in half or to one-third, then use a little less than half or a third of the original amount of seasonings.?
If you use less seasonings when scaling up and when scaling down (as the author states), then the end result of this after multiple iterations would be "homeopathic cuisine" ("Ah, wonderful curry : I do find that Bassar curry masala works best at a potency of 30C (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathic_dilutions#Potency_scales)") !
** Phil.
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I'm sorry, Phil, but when you can drop all the flowery (pretentious) words, Latin, French, etc. And when you can summarise what you're trying to say, in far fewer, clearer, words, then maybe I'll make more of an effort to try and read and understand what it is that you're trying to say, and respond accordingly. Until then, I'll let it ride. ;)
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Bum! Against my better judgement, please name me just ONE area of cooking where you would not double the ingredients if you were making twice the amount (with some sort of scientific, not religious or mystical, rationale)? I can honestly think of none.
Coffee?
Tea?
Toad in the Hole?
Victoria Sandwich?
Stew?
Casserole?
etc,
etc?
I can also think of no chemical, or physical, reaction where that is the case.
I await your response with acute anticipation (NOT constipation! ;))! :P
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Bum! Against my better judgement, please name me just ONE area of cooking where you would not double the ingredients if you were making twice the amount?
Curries ? :)
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Weak, Phil, very weak ::)
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I'm sorry, Phil, but when you can drop all the flowery (pretentious) words, Latin, French, etc. And when you can summarise what you're trying to say, in far fewer, clearer, words, then maybe I'll make more of an effort to try and read and understand what it is that you're trying to say, and respond accordingly. Until then, I'll let it ride. ;)
Adding one cooked curry to an identical cooked curry will give you a double-sized portion of that curry. Nothing in that statement supports your hypothesis that adding the ingredients for a curry to an identical set of ingredients will give you the ingredients for a double-sized portion of that curry. When the ingredients are cooked, the results is /not/ the sum of the ingredients.
** Phil.
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Slightly off topic chaps and descending into a game of ping pong ???
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Slightly off topic chaps and descending into a game of ping pong ???
Perhaps it is slightly off-topic, SL, but wouldn't you agree that it is a very important point?
Haldi has raised the question as to whether anyone has seen this book. DP has cited "two nuggets" of valuable (to be taken at face value?) information in it; one of which is this topic.
I think it's a VERY significant question and very worthy of sensible debate (but should maybe be debated elsewhere, granted).
Haldi has gone to great lengths to make a full size curry base and it seems to have drawn a bit of a blank. But, perhaps, goes someway to answering some of these questions.
Many members have questioned the issue of scaling up and scaling down.
Clearly many members have very different opinions on this topic (but, as you say, should maybe be debated elsewhere).
But let the "debate" continue! :)
PS: why are some of you guys so reluctant to debate some of the salient issues around making BIR curries at home? Because they are contentious? Sorry, but that is where the true mileage lies, in my opinion.
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Slightly off topic chaps and descending into a game of ping pong ???
Agreed. Perhaps Moderator George would be kind enough to move the sub-thread into a new thread of its own, or perhaps merge it with the 6-year-old thread cited earlier.
** Phil (who far prefers the older 21-point game to this modern 11-point nonsense).
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Here's a couple of interesting websites on scaling up within recipes.
http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/9458/is-there-any-truth-to-the-idea-that-you-shouldnt-multiply-seasonings-when-multi
http://kitchenscience.sci-toys.com/scaling
Although what CA says may be true, Its perhaps wiser to err on the side of caution and increase if necessary.
Most people wont be thinking of surface to volume ratios and have a 20 inch wide catering cauldron to hand.
:D
Can you imagine someone cooking 10 or more portions of your CTM in a 5 or 6 ltr(9" base) tall stockpot Cory? ;D
Because i think thats what most people would use. Then wonder why its so OTT.
It might not be the right way to go about scaling up but its going to be a lot safer for amateur curry cooks
to cut back a little on spicing.
Frank. :)
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Maybe the best thing to use for 10 portions or more would be a large paella pan outdoors? :-\
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** Phil (who far prefers the older 21-point game to this modern 11-point nonsense).
Blah; you'd lose either way! ;)
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Although what CA says may be true, Its perhaps wiser to err on the side of caution and increase if necessary
Increase what, DP?
Can you imagine someone cooking 10 or more portions of your CTM in a 5 or 6 ltr(9" base) tall stockpot Cory? ;D
Huh? I do that all the time! And I multiply ALL of the ingredients accordingly. And, as I said, provided your pan and heat source are up to it, that should (scientifically and logically) be the case.
However, if our cooking conditions are not up to it, then we will start making all sorts of spurious adjustments to compensate!
And what you don't need is some mystical, religious, or illogical response getting in the way of scientific and logical reason (which is the exact opposite of what Phil was trying to suggest with his Galileo reference)
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Perhaps Moderator George would be kind enough to move the sub-thread into a new thread of its own, or perhaps merge it with the 6-year-old thread cited earlier
But George promised to remove spam, only, didn't he! ::)
PS: I'm off to watch The Voice, it's more scientific and interesting! ;)
PPS: This forum seems very slow again, and that's also p*ssing me off! :P
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Increase what, DP?
spices and seasonings
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Adverts.... ::)
But what about onions, garlic, ginger, curry base, water, stock, whatever? :-X
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Adverts.... ::)
But what about onions, garlic, ginger, curry base, water, stock, whatever? :-X
Ok, and/or any/all of the above :D but i thought this was only about spicing?
It's not that hard to adjust things as you cook.
Imagination and Inventiveness ;)
p.s. Had a feeling you'd be back in the ads :D
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please name me just ONE area of cooking where you would not double the ingredients if you were making twice the amount (with some sort of scientific, not religious or mystical, rationale)?
Stew?
Casserole?
Funny that you should ask this CA, as up to this point I was siding with the 'double the ingredients' camp. However, a little while back last year I made a casserole choosing to double the ingredients only to find that the doubled quantity of herbs I had used, which in this case was Rosemary & Thyme, over powered the dish. I had no explanation for this and remained completely confused. Since then, I am careful only to add in a little more of the herbs if I increase the quantity of main ingredients such as meat, veg, cooking liquor, etc.
This also happened to me when I made a chilli con carne following my own recipe for 2 people. I simply doubled the ingredients to make enough for 4, only to find that it was much hotter than usual.
I still can not explain why this is but it does seem plausible that strong herbs and spices may actually carry their flavours alot further despite having been effectively diluted.
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Texting Az as I know he often cooks 3 or 4 portions in 1 pan if a table orders multiples of the same dish.
Was there an answer from Az...? I'm intrigued to know which side of this, uh, discussion[1] is correct.
[1] argument
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Not this old chestnut again!
Consider this.
If I make two identical curries and then mix them together in a single pan does the new double sized curry become magically ovespiced? Of course it doesn't, it'll tatse exactly the same as a single portion and yet there can be no disputing that there is exactly twice as much spice in it as in a single portion.
And, to take this crackpot theory to its logical conclusion, if I make, for example, a pot of curry that is about a hundred times the recipe volume of a single curry I wouldn't have to use any spices at all (well maybe a few grains!).
If you believe that increasing the recipe volume increases the potency of spices the answer is simple; you've changed the cooking method, whether you know it or not.
Madness.
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Not this old chestnut again! Consider this : If I make two identical curries and then mix them together in a single pan does the new double sized curry become magically ovespiced?
Making two identical curries and then mixing them together in a single pan is NOT the same as cooking a double-size portion. That seems so abundantly clear that no-one could fail to appreciate it, yet this same weak argument gets trotted out again and again and again ...
** Phil.
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Not this old chestnut again! Consider this : If I make two identical curries and then mix them together in a single pan does the new double sized curry become magically ovespiced?
Making two identical curries and then mixing them together in a single pan is NOT the same as cooking a double-size portion...
Precisely my point. If you make two separate curries and adding them together doesn't change the result (obviously) but making double the volume in one pan does, then you've changed the cooking method, unwittingly or otherwise.
I've cooked double and treble quantities with no resulting difference in the final dish to that of a single portion and with exact doubling and trebling of quantities. And that's because I'm careful to regulate the heat to achieve the same cooking technique for the larger volumes.
To say that the spicing quantity needs to be reduced if you double or treble the volume is pure fiction, although Phil, I'd be interested in your scientific analysis of why the spice needs reducing if that's your stance.
What is it exactly that draws out more spiciness from the ingredients just by by increasing the volume of curry being made?
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I agree with SS here. I always pro-rata every ingredient in the same way. Anything else seems irrational to my way of thinking.
I make the same curry gravy most of the time. It uses just two onions and is something like 1/24th the original recipe posted on this forum. I reduced every ingredient to 1/24th as far as I could gauge. The spicing seems near-perfect to me, whereas it would presumably be way out, if the other way of thinking was correct.
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I agree with SS here. I always pro-rata every ingredient in the same way. Anything else seems irrational to my way of thinking.
Well, I normally pride myself on being a rational person, and behaving rationally, so when I recommend reducing the spicing (pro rata) if one doubles or triples the size of a portion, then I do so on what I regard as a rational basis : that basis is "experience has taught me, and others whose judgements I value concur, that if the spices (and particularly the hot spices such as chilli) are increased pro rata, then the resulting dish is too hot". I do not claim to be able to explain this : I simply report it as a fact.
** Phil.