Quote from: Bobby Bhuna on January 12, 2009, 07:55 PM

Hahaha, mine, once again, is to produce a good BIR quality Madras!

I hope u finally achieve this one. Hopefully on Panpots next visit to the Ashoka it may give us more clues. Seeing your other post (to do with the missing chilli taste) it occurred to me that making a "madras hot" vindaloo might get closer than just a pure madras recipe. i've thought about doing this myself (vindaloo hot is too hot for me as i don't eat curry every other day which u need to master the hotness). i'm going to add it to my list.

on high note my fav restaurant messed up on it's madras on my last visit. i did not want to raise the matter with them but it reconfirmed to me there is quite a variation in what's termed madras and thefor many things to many people.

CA/Secret Santa,

thanks for sharing your thoughts. CA - i will certainly keep your thoughts in mind if i'm right in summarising it as being able to cook as good as a BIR chef (a good one) - that's certainly my goal. SS as always u put it in a way that i just can't help having a smile.

I feel i'm pretty much there on my intent:
1) Reduce No off Bases in use - I currently make 5 off bases on a regular basis - i'd like to get this down to 1 or 2 at the most (Rajver, Saffron, adapted CR02, Ifindforu, Ashoka). I'd also like to revisit IvanGough's AIR. The intent being to side by side compare and evaluate the effect of the best bits from each.
2) Yellow v Red Curry Base Oil - It appears some BIR's make a base that produces yellow oil whilst others produce red. My gut feeling is that red produces better curries. i'd like to confirm or otherwise.
3) Marge - The marge effect was interesting. I want to explore this more to understand it better.
4) Spice Mix v Garam Masala at frying stage - I've been taken aback by how good the East End Garam tastes compared to what i've made/fine tuned at home over many trial and error attempts. Probably a critical part of BIR - who knows - i just feel i need to experiment a bit.
5) Burner Size - I use my 2.5kw stove now on full wack without burning. I note that new hobs typically include "wok burners" at typ ~4.5kw. I've just swapped my electric hob for gas which just needs connecting. It will deliver 3.0kw. I still intend getting (or drilling out the existing) a bigger jet for the stove to get to ~8kw. It niggles me that my local BIR does use at lot of heat initially and i'm just not necessarily convinced it's for speed of orders as i feel i could keep up on the 2.5kw.

Looks like a busy year ahead.

i've revisited the rajver base.

i was looking to see what if any effects; green pepper, tomato and relatively complex spicing in a base have on the final curry. the intent being to cherry pick good "essential" features to adopt in a "std" base.

for the last few months i've been using an adapted version of the CRO2 development base. it contains simple veg and simply spicing and it is this that i was comparing the rajver against in terms of the finished curry.

i now don't believe green pepper has a significant effect and is down to personal preference. the tomato does affect the amount of tom puree needed at cooking stage. it's not essential to include in a base.

it's too early to say on spicing but i felt i needed to scale back the spicing at cooking stage to compensate for the relatively "high" spicing in the rajver base. i'm leaning towards simple spicing as the best approach. i need to make a few other Bases to be sure.

it's been a real interesting yr.

at this time last yr i'd well exceeded my expectations - to make a decent curry for midweek to avoid suffering mash and gravy.

i now realise this curry malarkey is a bit like fell walking - what appears to be the last peak is until u get there.

i'm sorted on my last yrs (09) top 5. anyone for starting a new post for o'10.

Greetings ,

Like CA I believe ' progress ' is to be made in the Base Sauce and also feel we have all the answers staring us in the face already on the forum so my intention is to look more closely into the world of base.

Keep it simple - I can only speak on my own findings and having watched two BIR Chef's in their T/A plus a 5 Star Traditional Indian Chef in a top class Restaurant all make fantastic tasting food - none used Onion Paste or Spiced Oil in the final Curry only using the same range of Spice powders as we all use on the forum other than the 5 Star Chef used fresh roasted whole Spices which they prepare ' on site ' and unless I find a base which requires any of the above ingredients I wont be concentrating my efforts on the Oil/Paste as I do not believe they are necessary for the BIR taste.

Fresh Spices .
A previous forum member commented on how much better his Curry tasted using a fresh batch of Spice so having had a Pestle and Mortar set bought me for Xmas I will be trying my own ground Spices and see what the difference is . When you think about how much Spice a BIR Chef would get through they probably use much fresher Spices than my ' been in the cupboard for weeks ' Jobie's.

As I said to Jerry off list these are the dishes I would like to get to the exquisite level:

Chicken Korma.
Chicken Saagwala.
Bombay Potato.
Makhini Murg. (Butter Chicken).
Onion Kulcha Naan.
Lamb Vindaloo.
Chicken Madras.

My personal jury is out on only one really (Vindaloo) and thats only because a few restaurants do this with an ingredient I am not using at present. The rest fall pretty much in line. At least I'm happy with them.

More traditional cooking other than that really. Neat thread. 

Quote from: JerryM on December 26, 2009, 09:34 AM
a bit like fell walking

I did a bit of that this week. Hic!  ;D

Secret Santa,

sounds a tad like festive fell walking 

been a wonderfull few months for me on here, came here a complete novice with just a jar of mixed herbs in the cupboard. I have taking on making on curries with a huge enthusism due to all the people here.

Now ive learned a huge amount, even made a few really decent curries, spent a fortune on the initial spice store and auxillary items and even got me stainless balti dishes and a spice grinder.

But by this time next year i want to be able to achieve a great chicken tikka starter. if i get this right then the year after i want to truly perfect my curries, then i have a full 2 course meal to suprise any friends or relatives that come around.


i cant thank you all enough for your help and chat this year on my curry quest. many thx

your quite welcome jimmy and keep us posted along your way