Ok here goes,

The spice mix, coriander 2 parts, cumin  1 part, paprika 2 parts, curry powder 3 parts (swartz), tumeric 4 parts.

Use of green chilly. 1 and a half very finely sliced birds eye small green chillies was added to the aubergine curry. this went in with the chopped onion right at start. the huge heat almost distintigrated the green chilly leaving little trace in end result , impressive!.

Bay leaf and cinemon sticks were visable in veg dishes and taka dharl. Fennel was also in jars on shelf.

I noticed two tubs full of green leaf. 1 was methi, i assume the other is chopped curry leaf.

New technique..after 5 mins of cooking chef poured boiling water over curry then evaporated this off just before serving taka dhall.

Safron base improvements... add butter(optional), no paprika, no potato. rest of recipe got thumbs up from bir chef. 

Chef spoke of yello ginger. i think he meant tumeric? do you guys agree?

Use of galic... some dishes it was sliced clove of garlic quickly browned off in first minutes of cooking, before adding anything else. Else, it was pre blended garlic paste.

Technique: 'drying out' the curry via evaporation to add the flavour. This was common in nearly all dishes.

Comments welcome, and watch this space!

nice jigsaw pieces Derek.

will definitely try the spice mix out. not sold on swartz - will use my prized rajah.

have not tried frying the green chilli so again a must try.

i put bay (and cardamom, anise) as a whole spice in all the bases now - interesting they were visible as i remove before blending.

i presume the tubs were fresh. if so i will have to try fresh methi as i've not really been sold on the dried to date. i hope the other tub was coriander - i've only used curry leaves in garam masala and stopped that practise as the leaves don't taste very good at all.

adding water is in the Admin's jalfrezi method which produces the fantastic BIR result. i add the water to the base after it's cooked as a preference.

safron base was always going to be difficult to tweak - i'm gutted on the paprika though. for a while i've though my soup part of the base ie the bulk veg was fine. it was the spice and oil which weren't upto BIR. tasting the BIR oil compared to mine illustrated the point fully. having done side by side comparison i'd concluded paprika and turmeric are the main spices in the base. the recent BE base left the paprika out. this weekend i'm making base and intend to over spice on the paprika - will report back.

"sliced garlic" - heaven - my 2 fav dishes (i think they are actually the same) sylheti garlic chicken and special garlic chicken both have a high concentration of garlic and those very special browned slithers

Sounds like you really know your stuff Jerry. I learnt quite alot from time spent with traditional indian cookery a year ago. however the bir beast is much harder to tame! I will be interested to hear about your paprika experiment. 

i just read a lot of the posts on this site even going back well in time - i supoose the site's no 1 bookworm.

i come from the midlands and brought up on curry. i love cooking generally and bought the KD book long time a go but it never really captured my heart.

as u say this BIR is not an easy subject to crack. i do feel invigorated having found this site though - all those members little grey cells churning away.

i've surprised myself how far i've got already - served 2 friends from brum CK's CTM and Admins Jalfrezi last week - they felt it was BIR. i think just like Haldi in terms of that missing taste - it's still not quite their.

the paprika i hope is going to go the way i hope (much stronger tasting reclaimed oil). i've dropped the punctured chilli idea given Booby B's thoughts which are always spot on and the absence of a strong chilli taste in the real BIR given your comments on what it's like. i'm also going to check hoe the amount of chilli i put in (the frying sounds a good idea). whenever i eat BIR the difference in heat is always quite apparent - i guess it's because we don't naturally use chilli. i made a slightly hotter madras last week and i felt there was something their.

struck gold

QuoteThe spice mix, coriander 2 parts, cumin  1 part, paprika 2 parts, curry powder 3 parts (swartz), tumeric 4 parts.

Derek,

this spice mix looks the part "golden". wow it's fantastic. i'm totally converted - your chef really knows his stuff. u need to post this in it's own right in the spices section

Ps i added a little chilli powder as i fried the spice for each dish. I also used my treasured Rajah Hot Madras Curry Powder (not actually hot)

this is another area of BIR troubling me and we need to give it some more thought - i started to do so a while ago but got side tracked by the BE base (was trying to work out what spices mixes go with each type of dish).

i've used LB for a good while now and very happy with it. i think your mix is better.  this is where i start to come unstuck. i mainly make madras curry sauce and these spice mixes are spot on.

but if u make admins jalfrezi u need the Kushi spice mix (i tried the LB and it's no good).

something like CK's CTM does not seem to matter as it relies mainly on the tandoori masala for the spice.

i don't think this is something easily cracked but just needs keeping in the back of our minds ie how do BIR's vary the spice mix for the individual dishes.

there seems to be a split based on the amount of tomato in the dish the Kushi goes best for no or little tomato

I like the BE spice mix, and I also use the kushi which I have a jar of when I run out of BE.

Jerry - what do you notice different/better with this mix?

-- Josh

it's a bit similar to BE's in that the proportion of turmeric is relatively high - which i'm starting to gel with. the main feature though is that the taste is rounded with no one spice overpowering the rest. i really don't like too much cumin as i feel it pushes toward the authentic cooking taste. overall it seems to go well with a tomato based curry which is what i love. It also contains paprika which BE?s excluded and which I feel crucial to BIR taste. the colour is golden and seems to enhance the colour of the final dish.

certainly one to add to you stock. i'm well sold on it.

Thanks for the positive feedback Jerry. i will add that spice mix to relevant section shortly. Some thing i find interesting, is that the bir has a separate whole tub of ground tumeric. it must be really important to justify a whole tub, right next to the cooker. the tubs by the cooker are only for frequent use ingredients. Next base cooking sesh,  i will do a tumeric based curry, and report back.   

i've had to steadily backtrack on turmeric. when i made KD base before finding this site - i'd thought by trial and error that it did not add much and as i did not like the taste i ditched it.

since then i've starting using it more and more. i can't believe it's used that much in the final cooking on it's own unless their spice mix did not include it (which it does of course) - i'm happy with it in the base and in the spice mix and i suppose for those into rice it's a must for colour.

i've ventured into my local TA with success (trying to find where to post results)

Ok some more info after chatting with the chef at my local bir last night. He said the seasoned iron pan is a must for the flavour. new pans he felt were no good. he said the base is very important to the taste. "a good base is the key". tumeric was used mainly for colour, he commented. also 2 or 3 carrots in base, and no potato was his advice. he was a bit reluctant to tell me the secret to a great base. although he did ask where my safron base recipe was, as he was going to review it once again. unfortunatly i did not have it with me, bugger. Its probably worth all of us showing base recipies to bir chefs, to gain insights into how they would improve them. even if they dont share how they make there own base, its invaluable to hear how they would improve one of our base recipies.