It's important to cook the curries on a on a high heat with minimal stirring in an aluminium pan.
You've got to cook just like the takeaway.
The aromas coming from the pan are amazing
There is a pureed chillie/oil mixture
That stuff really adds to the dish
I got nothing but compliments from my family
The whole process may be long, but it's so simple
The base is pretty much all onion and it gives a brilliant background taste that other flavours can be suspended in
It's weird the way you can actually pick out the taste the lemon juice , fenugreek and garlic ginger in the curry
These must be very similar recipes used by BIR's in the 60's & 70's

Ajwain has a /very/ different taste to cumin :  the former tastes very strongly of thyme (it contains substantial quantities of the essential oil thymol), whilst the latter tastes of, well, cumin ...  I cannot see a 1-for-1 substitution working, but introduce a little ajwain into Indian snacks (pakora, aloo tikki, ...) and it can lift them to a whole new level.

** Phil.

Quote from: jb on February 23, 2014, 08:03 PM
Haldi the base calls for whole cumin seeds to be added,I'm just wondering if you managed to blend these in? I keep seeing Ajowan seeds in my local Indian shop,I've also seen them in my wholesalers.I wonder if it's these that are used by some chefs and not cumin seeds,they're definitely using them in something. Also the madras recipe uses spiced oil,did you use this and if you did how was the oil made?

the cumin seeds blended fine with a stick blender
I was reading from the book and it didn't say spiced oil, so I used fresh
I think there have been 3 updates to the book, this was the first one

Quote from: PaulP on February 24, 2014, 03:36 PM


Hi Haldi, thanks for posting this. So did you buy the e-book and make everything to spec? I've also bought the e-book and was thinking of giving it a go as I've stopped trying to make BIR curries for around 18 months due to a lack of success.

Did you make the (ginger heavy) garlic/ginger paste to spec and also the green chilli puree? Did your food have the aroma you've been seeking?

Regards

Paul

The ginger garlic paste was pretty much 50:50
I made too much when I did some tikka a couple of weeks ago
I was using it up

I made the chilli puree fresh though

I quizzed Martin Why Not (he's the one who sends you the pdf) about using vegetables or other ingredients
I made Veg madras, Prawn Madras and veg vindaloo

Everything smelt and tasted very close to a bought curry
They might even be an exact match to somewhere
They taste professional
The best results I have had in years, and it wasn't using manky old oil
I never was happy doing that
It definitely is important to not stir the pan very often, when cooking the curry
It needs to "catch" on the bottom of the pan

These recipes are also quite light on the tomato puree and g/g

I had stopped making curries at home, because I felt they were sub standard
I feel quite enthused again, and will use these recipes again

Given the simplicity of these recipes I can't see a repeat success being hard to achieve

The tandoori paste in the vindaloo (it's in the red sauce mix) really lifts it

I think the book only costs two pounds  50p
The best curry money I have spent in a long time

Quote from: jb on February 23, 2014, 08:03 PM
The base seems so simple compared to some that I've used over the years.I've been looking through some of the accompanying videos to the ebook,the curries certainly look the part.It's strange the base contains no ginger/garlic,although the guys from my local favourite restaurant insists theirs doesn't either.Haldi the base calls for whole cumin seeds to be added,I'm just wondering if you managed to blend these in? I keep seeing Ajowan seeds in my local Indian shop,I've also seen them in my wholesalers.I wonder if it's these that are used by some chefs and not cumin seeds,they're definitely using them in something. Also the madras recipe uses spiced oil,did you use this and if you did how was the oil made?

Some of the original recipe's & book recipe's are a bit muddled jb, though there are videos for each on YT.
There should be loads of spiced oil from the precook methods.
Base is pretty similar to the old Ashoka on here, minus the G&G.
As with Ashoka there are no mix powders used, instead getting spice from the
base/pre cooked meats, imo is an easier way to do it. Either way they end up in the curry all the same
Catch the video of the bhuna being cooked in the t/a if you can, using only a chefs of gravy, but still ending up with the usual amount of curry served
Cheers
ELW

Quote from: Dajoca on May 07, 2014, 06:38 PM
I need to try it for myself, but can I assume from all the positive comments about the recipes, that it's omission is beneficial to the taste?

I think one of the main BIR flavours is onion
And onion which has has been boiled, for a very long time
That is more important than any spice

In my opinion, with or without coriander would make little difference, but I had success without it