Here is a theory about this "BIR" flavour, which seems so elusive in the hands of home-bound chefs, genuine Indian mothers and grandmothers and in recipes concocted by people such as Madhur Jaffrey, Kriss Dillon, J. Sainsbury or Fred Tesco!

Do the restaurants use some forbidden and deeply secret ingredient? Just as we watch a conjurer intently as he performs his trick, never able to see what he does that makes the difference; so we watch a BIR chef and attempt to duplicate his motions without the longed-for success. My previous best ever curry, made after reading this forum, missed the mark I was aiming for.

BIR curries are swimming in oil. The gravy medium IS oil. The taste is imparted to our mouth via oil (and is so intense!). OK, this oil may be concealed (disguised) in the thick base which is composed of mostly reduced onion and tomato, but oil is the medium in which the cooking took place and water was excluded (or at least highly controlled) so far as was possible.

Almost always, we use water for our cookery. The water extracts the essences from the ingredients (inefficiently), brings them to (approximately) 100 degrees C and does the heat exchange that is needed to cook the meat and the veggies at that temperature. Sure, we may start out frying but ultimately the meat and the veggies get simmer-cooked in water at the stated hundred degrees and with predominantly water interfacing the meat & veggies.

My opinion is that the BIR difference is tied to oil cooking vs. water cooking.

Suppose we substituted oil for the whole process? I tried as follows:

Fried onions till golden brown, fried garlic/ginger pur?ed in oil, fried those spices which can stand frying without losing their aroma, fried tomato paste (NOT crushed tomatoes because they will contain too much water) and, keeping the whole awash with oil at a temperature above 100 degrees (but never so hot as to carbonize or burn badly on the bottom), finally I slow fried the meat and whole veggies at close to 100 deg., adding the more vulnerable spices right near the end. Doing it this way I accomplished two vital things (1) cooked at a temperature above 100 degrees C which got a 'smoky taste' into the oil from the onions (2) then efficiently extracted the essential oils of the spices with an oil medium and transferred it to the meat and veggies via oil interface - and, finally, the flavours dissolved in the oil (which were able to go into the meat far more easily because they were much more concentrated in the oil than they would have been in water) and then the same flavours hit the mouth via the oil medium with such a huge TASTE compared to our water-cooked curries!

I'm not totally satisfied but I felt this was a quantum leap (for me anyway). I should have liked more smoky taste and I would have liked more aromatic spice bouquet, like cardamom especially, but the taste was the closest I have ever managed (in 1000+ attempts) and it was only a first go.

After cooking this way, you can by all means skim off oil for re-use, just as the restaurants do - and the recycled oil of course makes the next curry even tastier. Because there is a lot of reduced onion and tomato paste in the sauce, the extra oil is less easy to see, more easy to hide! But of course it is there and it's none too healthy either ? I suggest that is why oil cooking is kept as a secretive technique and those who enquire come away with a recipe guaranteed to do water-cooking. That also is why you shouldn't eat too much of this stuff and why Mdm. Jaffrey is so healthy.

Spotty,

really like your style. the theory behind it all has got to be one of our best opportunities for mastering the art.

we need to include a further leg to the picture on the observation, "BIR curries are swimming in oil". yes many are but the best restaurant curries i've tasted aren't. for sure the oil is the medium but "adding more" certainly isn't the whole picture.

i remain very interested in the theory as i feel it might just improve technique and ultimately consistency and flavour. please outline a bit more why u think the smokiness came from the onions. i don't know where the smokiness comes from hence the interest. nothing that i've experienced suggests that it comes from the onions either in the frying during dish cooking or pre frying as the initial stage of making a base. 

Jerry said:

<sup>the theory behind it all has got to be one of our best opportunities for mastering the art.

we need to include a further leg to the picture on the observation, "BIR curries are swimming in oil". yes many are but the best restaurant curries i've tasted aren't. for sure the oil is the medium but "adding more" certainly isn't the whole picture.

i remain very interested in the theory as i feel it might just improve technique and ultimately consistency and flavour. please outline a bit more why u think the smokiness came from the onions. i don't know where the smokiness comes from hence the interest. nothing that i've experienced suggests that it comes from the onions either in the frying during dish cooking or pre frying as the initial stage of making a base.</sup> 


Jerry:

Thanks for entertaining my theory.
Let me expand a little and also try to answer some of the points you raise.

But could I first ask, has anybody here tried to consciously cook a curry with oil predominating?
I am adding more oil for the valid scientific reasons I am re-stating below, and I am saying that you can't get BIR taste unless you contrive some way to do your cooking in oil. Water cooking produces lovely non-BIR curries but we complain:

(1) no BIG taste!!!
(2) no smoky taste
(3) the spices still taste and smell raw (eg. garam masalla-ish)
(4) the taste hasn't got into the meat - it's like a Sainsbury's TV curry!

The fundamental point I am making is that essences, bouquets and flavours (including the smoky one) have to be transferred from the raw ingredients, deep into the meats, whole veggies and the sauce and  I am saying that it is the oil that is doing the bulk of this transfer (chemically, because the partition coefficient of these taste components is much greater in oil than in water).  Furthermore, on this site we have talked a lot about the need for high temperatures at certain stages of the cooking - some have used burners that look as if they came off a fighter-jet! If you exclude water, which limits your upper temp. to about 100 degrees, then you can get high temperatures without a huge burner.

I thought initially that if you cook throughout in oil then you'll end up with crispy deep-fried meat, but you don't - it remains soft and tender.  Also, I didn't mention that I added a can of thick coconut milk at the end of my curry - that is mostly water and it becomes emulsified with the oil and further conceals the presence of the oil. I have seen that done in BIRs too (including my absolute best ever which was Muthus in Singapore) but I suggest there is always more oil in there than we like to believe!

On smoky taste, and following my theory still, no, it's true, I can't prove it comes from the onions but as you cook with the oil technique, there is a continual light carbonizing on the bottom of the pan, after the meat goes in especially, and you need to keep scraping this or you'll have a burned bottom. I suggest that this light carbonizing is the source of smoky taste.

What I can assert is that I have a curry here, made by following the above, which is by far the closest I have ever come to BIR - smoky taste as well, I sniffed it just now!  AND, the taste is deep in the meat.

Spotty

I think a lot of people agree, the oil does it
One chef I spoke to, said some curry houses, only use oil spices and onions in their base.
I've not seen that so far, but the oil is definitely the carrier of flavour

I buy a veg curry sometimes
The veg used is frozen, but the curries are very tasty because they cook with curry gravy oil.
And this oil has nearly all the taste

I'm glad you've had some sucess
Some people feel the Ashoka recipes give a 100% result
They rely on the oily fried onion paste
Have you tried them?

Spotty,

thanks for reply - much appreciated.

i too am convinced the oil is key. i don't believe u need to totally exclude water - in fact i believe it helps.

i'm totally sold on the light carbonising. this is what i first noticed on using the chef spoon (the handle's more flatter than my home spoons so the yellow "oil/carbonising" is more (very) visible). if u taste it u know it's got something about it.

it's good that u've been able to start to get the smokiness without high heat burner. i've not been able to do it on my 2.9kw hob.

i still don't know what it is that produces the smokiness. i've managed to get it with tom puree and spice alone ie without onion so it may be down more to the process than ingredient.

the onion paste for me is a piece of the jigsaw only.

Spotty, old chap, many thanks. I?ve always known (sort of) that oil is the key ? or perhaps one key amongst others.

A breakthrough comes, sometimes, not in an Archimedes moment of inspiration but in a confirmation of an idea that comes from a source that you believe has credibility. Your scientific rationale for the cooking medium of oil has that credibility (although I did have to look up ?partition coefficient?).

I also need your thoughts ? and anyone else?s ? about the base gravy in Kris Dillon?s new book which substitutes olive oil for plain vegetable oil (at a ratio of 50%). The conventional wisdom has always been that olive oil is anathema because of its strong flavour but she recommends it because it eliminates the pervasively strong cooking smells.

Full disclosure: I haven?t cooked it yet so I can?t comment. Any thoughts?

I asked to buy oil, or anything they could offer, to get that taste, and they said there is nothing to sell to help with that. they said its all about preperation, technique, and a life time of erradicating certain flavors in a curry and improving the good flavors bit by bit over many years. i believe this. i have seen their oil, and it is just veg oil. i have purchased there base, and it is a very plain greenish veg stock with virtually no spice. Its a lot plainer and less spiced than safron base. cooking with their base made no improvement to my curry. it certainly had no trace of any illusive taste. although we all think we are spice gods, its bull :-X, WE ARE NOT. we are merely just at the starting gate of this quest. i am sure some bir do use flavored oil more than others. but my local bir gets the taste we are all after, and they just use veg oil.

I am with you there DD, I have tried hundreds of recipes and techniques, with spiced oil or without and while there are subtle differences nothing simply adds the taste.  I know some restaurants don't reuse oil some do so to me that can't be the key, it is all skill and practice I am sure, given how many currys a chef would make a night they would likely master the art a lot quicker than us part timers.  Saying that I think mine are restaurant quality, do they have the taste, I can't be 100% sure as I am to much of a critic but I know I would prefer one of my own to over half the BIR's in my area and thats good enough for me.

Hi CK, its reassuring to hear someone else shares this belief. I do use spiced oil, but after reading your comments, i think i will focus more attention on the balance of spices and ingredients and technique in the future. For me, this is the way forward. Although i do also think spiced oil is a solid start for a tasty curry. But as you say, not the missing taste. We are all aiming very high. Its likely that good bir chefs are natural cooks, coming from families of chefs, that pass down secrets over many generations. so we should not be too hard on our selves ! The head bir chef at my local is 18 years old. he must have learnt to cook great bir cuisine from an elder, surely? 

Quote from: Derek Dansak on April 01, 2009, 12:42 PM
i think i will focus more attention on the balance of spices and ingredients and technique in the future. For me, this is the way forward.

me too. i can use same ingredients and "same" technique and get completely different results. i thought other people who have said this could not be right but i now know they are - another 10 yrs eh!