Quote from: Razor on December 17, 2011, 01:04 PM
I would say that, 90% of the time I do get TA quality dishes but, everything has to be done 'spot on' for me to achieve the desired results. Timing is crucial, and knowing how far to go is too. Singing spices and burning them, is a very fine line. I take the, hot, quench, hot, quench approach for example; in goes the gg paste in hot oil, then quench with tom puree. Get the oil back to temp then in goes the spices. Again, I then quench with a chefspoon of base and bring back to temp. In goes the veg (if using) then quench again with more base and so on and so forth.
Ray
I agree with you here 100%, that's the technique I use too and I'm more than happy with the quality of dishes I'm currently producing. Are they as good as my local takeaway? Who knows, I don't really care to be honest, all I know is they're good enough for me and I enjoy eating them and that's what it's about for me. If I was objective, I'd say they were good enough to make my local takeaway redundant - I simply don't use Indian Restaurant takeaways any more, I'd much rather cook my own. What I do know is - they're far better than anything I could buy in the supermarket.
What I am convinced about is, there are no 'secret ingredients', as far as I'm concerned - it's all about technique, understanding what you're doing and cooking ability. The more you understand about what you're doing and the better the cook you are - the better the results you'll achieve with the same ingredients.
As you rightly point out - just one of the cooking processes - the frying of spices in hot oil is absolutely critical to the success of the dish, if you get this stage wrong it can completely ruin and change the overall flavour of the dish. But the reverse is also true, by getting this stage bang on the button and stopping the cooking process at exactly the right time by the addition of other ingredients and then continue cooking the next stage again for the correct period of time will ensure the dish is cooked correctly. Even the oil temperature at the point of adding the spices is critical - too hot and they'll burn before you have a chance to do anything, too cool and the spices won't cook properly and release their full flavour and aromatic oils.
The BIR/takeaway chefs bang these dishes out in no more than about 10-15 mins each, that means the use of a medium/high flame which makes, as you also rightly point out, the timing of adding the ingredients also critical. Get the timing wrong and things can go to hell in a hand basket faster than you can shout an expletive! That also means you have to have your 'mise en place' as used in the trade spot on and in the right place. That essentially means you have to have all your ingredients/spice mixes/meat or anything else going into that dish all ready to go in. I also bring my base sauce to a boil then a simmer before I start cooking the dish, so when I add it, it doesn't lower the temperature of the other ingredients when its added.
I would strongly urge all those people who don't feel they're getting the results they're hoping for, to have a critical look at their cooking techniques at all stages and be 100% sure the ingredients are being cooked correctly, before they look at the ingredients themselves as the possible cause of problems.
Just my opinion of course!
Cheers and good Karma!
Topic: Running out of ideas (read 31,351 times)
