Hello all,

I received a email from Ganesan about this site and the interest in the Nipoori cooker/tandoori cooking generally and thought I would try and add something if i could to the discussion. I thought it best to do a introduction on the new to forum section so will introduce myself properly there but just as a brief intro..I have been working with Ganesan to re-introduce the Nipoori cooker to the UK and went out to Malyasia to meet him some years ago...great guy btw.

I bought my Nipoori back in 2001/02 more out of curiosity since I have a real interest in live fire cooking and have been brought up around tandoors pretty much my whole life. I come from a Sikh Panjabi catering family and growing up was always fascinated by the big burning drum of fire that I was told to stay away from. As I mentioned I will do the full introduction in the proper place and apologise if I should have done that first or if i have transgressed this sites forum etiquette in anyway.

I thought it may be helpful to reproduce a posting that I wrote on a BBQ site that focuses on the low and slow American smoking style of BBQ(I am a general live fire cooking nut!) because I was asked for a short overview of tandoori cooking, it isn't fully appreciated by most but the tandoori cooking form is a style in its own right with huge variety, unfortunately it gets cast as the starter but it has always been a plan of mine to one day open a exclusively tandoori restaurant showcasing this overlooked rich tradition of cooking.

I will come back to my restaurant experience in the intro...anyway here is the post I hope someone finds something in there useful and I would be very happy to answer any questions should i have the knowledge to do so. Thank you.

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Let me be the first to say I do not advocate one Q style over another that's like saying chicken's better than beef. Completely pointless. I love all Q and sometimes nothing but low and slow will hit the spot and sometimes I hanker for the singed smokiness of the tandoor and other time's it has to be the grill. What is great is applying the knowledge and techniques from one style of cooking to another, marinade injected Balinese spiced chicken,  or pork shoulder with a mediterranean rub both cooked in the tandoor as example. Their is a uncommon tradition of flavouring the smoke in tandoori cooking, I have used wood pellets in combination with a very simple marinade to good effect. The point is that there are many possibilities.

The tandoor cook's in almost the opposite way to the smoker, the very high temperatures, around 400 C, blast the meat with intense radiant and convection heat this causes the marinade and juices to drop down onto the coals and send's up smoke which flavours whatever is on the skewer, the skewer itself is heating so the food is being cooked from the inside at the same time.I would say that the key to good Q is always preparation but this is even more so when it come's to food cooked in the tandoor, intense heat and quick cooking time's mean it has to be properly tenderised and marinated sometimes requiring a three-four stage process over a number of day's. Having said that if you get into brining for smoking it can be days of effort too, I suppose its a labour of love to want to produce a better result every time.

It could be said that the most important aspect of the prep for good tandoori is the tenderising process, its a sad fact that a lot of commercially available tandoori food doesn't have this done properly..I have seen pre-deep fried meat that is then cooked in the tandoor to save time. The fact is that it takes time, knowledge and effort and a lot of restaurants/take away's lack one, the other or in some cases, all three! Its also fair to say that a lot of them have gotten away with selling poor tandoori food for such a long time its just the accepted norm...anyhoo enough restaurant bashing..

Because the tenderising process is such an important aspect, the tandoor chef would have a number of options which can be used on their own or in combination depending on the meat or recipe. Basically there are two groups that work in this process, acids and enzymes. As example raw papaya gives us the enzyme papain which breaks down protein, you may find it easier to buy pineapple which has a similar enzyme called bromalein there are others. The other group is the acids. Most often seen used is yoghurt, its active ingredient being lactic acid (the yoghurt itself is prepared in at least three different forms to suit specific recipes) then there is the citric acid of lemon's and limes and the acetic acid of vinegar. As I mentioned it is not uncommon to employ a number of different tenderisers at different point's of the whole marinating process.

Either after or during the tenderising process you would introduce the other flavours like onion, ginger, garlic and chillies almost always in their raw pureed form. In combination with these we would find the spices, which are too numerous to list here. Many you would know but there are a few you may be unfamiliar with.

These spices are best bought whole and ground at home after heating and cooling in a coffee grinder. Another important ingredient in a lot of recipes are herb's like coriander, fenugreek and mint. Flours also play a part in some recipes as well, both for flavouring and texture these include wheat, chick pea and cornflour. For some recipes these are used to create a 'bark' like outer surface to the meat. Some other preparations call for things like dried flower petals, asafoetida(a dried tree sap),saffron,dried mango powder, seed's(whole,crushed,pasted and powdered) cheese and a variety of nuts used whole crushed and as a paste.

The oils and fat's used for basting and marinating are again numerous and used specifically in different recipes for flavour these include ghee(clarified butter), groundnut oil and mustard oil amongst others.

Another very important aspect of tandoori cooking is the finishing masala. These are ground spice blend's that are made to compliment the original marinading ingredients. These are sprinkled on top of the finished dish and there are dozens of different concoctions. This step is almost always omitted when you visit a restaurant in the UK.

If anyone has any specific questions, please ask and I will do my best to answer. If anyone is interested in the actual cooking process, I could give a overview on that.

Its great to see the interest in the tandoor as a cooker and its with this in mind that I feel I should declare a interest. In my first post I did allude to me pursuing a business interest involving grilling. I don't want to use this space to advertise or plug what I am considering and will try to word what I write very carefully. Should admin not be happy with any part please feel free to delete the entire post or edit as you see fit.

As I mentioned I have been around tandoors and tandoori cooking most of my life and have owned a number of traditional tandoors. The restaurant style units are simply not suitable for the domestic user. Weighing 150Kg plus they take a lot of energy to get going and require a good deal of TLC.

Recently I have noticed a smaller version of the traditional tandoor advertised on ebay and elsewhere these again are very unwieldy often weighing in excess of 80kg, they take up to two hours to come up to operating temperature retain that optimum temperature for only 40 minutes or so and the clay liner is very susceptible to damage. The heating and cooling process requires care to avoid cracking and storage in the winter month's requires care. Its important to note the clay add's nothing to the flavour, the unique tandoori taste is a result of the searing temperature and self basting smoke.

Although I had a couple of tandoors at the time (one small gas one bought in India and a small one of the ebay variety..i had a restaurant unit in my garden for many years but it was just overkill for anything other than a large party) I noticed a unit in around 2001 that was being advertised in the UK as a modern take on the tandoor.

It had been designed by a tandoori loving British engineer who wanted to re-create the tandoori dishes he loved at home. It weighed 15kg, came up to operating temperature in half an hour, was made of cast aluminium so had neither the heating, cooling, curing or storage issues. To boot it was fully portable breaking down into two pieces.

I bought it more out of curiosity and wasn't expecting too much. In short it did as good a job as any tandoor I have ever used, its only drawback was that you could not cook breads inside it easily.

So impressed were people that saw it that I ended up becoming something of an unofficial sales guy, selling to friends and friends of friends and ...you get the idea. Anyway in around 2004 they stopped production and I could never understand why? I did at various times make enquiries as to what had happened but always came to a dead end.Coming to the point...I recently managed to contact one of the patent holders and very long story short there may be a deal to restart production.

Our current situation is that if we were to give the nod now, we wouldn't see units delivered until around September..my thinking is that although the tandoor is a all year round cooker most people buying something like this would look to purchase in the summer. So at the moment I am leaning towards waiting until next year...I would really appreciate any opinions that you guys may have with regard to this..

Admin. I hope I haven't breached any rules. I intentionally left out brand names and other references and as you will have read from the post the situation is far from solid so advertising at this stage would be very premature. If you are not happy with this in anyway please delete or edit. I joined the forum because I was looking to order a new smoker, I just thought It was best for me to declare the potential interest now, it may never happen!

BTW AWG I haven't forgotten about pic's I will post some up soon.. I will post pics of my OTHER tandoor not the one that I may have a future business interest in.
Last edited by Khalsarule on 24 May 2010, 15:00, edited 1 time in total.
Khalsarule


 
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