Is this the plain Curry Gravy you bought from your local BIR that you mentioned in a post many Moons ago  ?? .

This has me confused!!!

I went to my local BIR last night. They have an open kitchen so you can see what is going on.

When they made my curry there was nothing that looked like this. First they put oil in a pan then added the chicken and what looked like a fairly thick paste They heated this for maybe 30 seconds, then added a ladle full of a clear looking liquid. I guess this is some kind of stock. This would have to be vegetable stock because it looks as though it goes into every curry (it was in a Huge catering pan). They boiled this for 3 or 4 minutes then kept adding a little more stock every now an then. I didn't see anything else being added 'cause I was too busy taliking with the manager!!!!!

At no time did I see any gravy that looked like this picture. I'm guessing every restaurant has it's own way of achieving a similar result.

Also I've seen written many times about the heat used in restaurants not being able to be achieved at home. I'm not convinced. For sure their burners in the restaurant look like rocket engines, but when I cook a curry at home the entire kitchen (and me) can sometimes get covered in burning spitting oil (little red dots of oil all over the kitchen makes me Mr popular with the Mrs ;D). Last night in the restaurant the heat looked much more controlled and nobody was running around swearing and there wasn't a burning blister to be seen ;D ;D ;D

All this leads me to believe there is no secret ingredient or technique just the correct combination of spices. I think personally I'm over complicating and over spicing my curries and it's time to go back to basics!!!!

And dont think it had to be vegetable stock either!!

Quote from: pete on June 21, 2005, 10:13 PM
IIt has a very oily feel to it and a slight smell of poppadoms
That is hardly surprising as they were cooking about fifty of them right next to the pot.

Any chance oil that had previously fried poppadums could have been used for the gravy?

Hi Merrybaker,

It may be the case that the oil could be used to make a curry after being used to cook popadums but AND THIS IS FACT, if the oil is used to cook curry AND THEN used to cook Popadums THE POPADUMS WILL TAKE ALMOST ALL OF THE COLOUR FROM THE OIL.  In my neck of the woods popadums are always very very pale almost white, so curry and then popadums does not work.

hope this helps,

Blondie