I've read many different reports now about the acrid fumes created when the chilli powder gets cooked or singed.
Fumes that are strong enough to get people coughing.

I've never experienced anything like that after cooking a few hundred curries. Now I don't use more than 1 tablespoon of chilli powder ever but does it mean I'm not cooking it enough?

I was also intrigued at statements made recently that when the chilli powder is cooked "properly" it imparts a greater heat to the dish. I never knew that.

So how many people achieve the acrid chilli fumes when cooking their curries?

Cheers

Paul

An old proffesor friend of mine who has now sadly departed us, always use to use Chicken livers in his curries as he loved the stronger flavour. Me personally, I found a bit to overhwelming but he loved them

Hi PP,

If it's anything to go by, when I made the garlic chilli chicken on Tuesday, not only was I coughing but everyone who was in the kitchen was coughing too and all left the kitchen except me....

Eyes watering and that burning sensation in the back of my throat along with the coighing, told me it was about time to add the base sauce

Works everytime

Hi

@976bar - Must confess the idea of a Chicken liver curry is making me feel a bit squeamish!

@PaulP

With regard to the fumes, last nights effort managed to produce fumes that made the wife start coughing - and she was in the dining room!

This was the result of only 1tsp Abduls mix, 1tsp standard chilli & 1tsp kashmiri mirch.

Very hot pan in with the G&G for about 15 seconds to brown, dumped in the spices blasted up the heat, frantic stir for until detected the smell and look of the spices really change to a deep red brown colour, tip in 1 x chef spoon of diluted tom pur

Me too Solarsplace.

I like pate but that's as far as it goes for me!!

Thanks for the replies guys, I can see I've got my work cut out now to achieve this.

I tasted a friend's chicken liver tikka starter at the posh new eastZeast restaurant in Liverpool a few weeks ago.
It wasn't too bad but I'm not really used to liver.

Cheers

Paul

Hi PP,

That sounds disgusting!! lol 

Quote from: Salvador Dhali on February 23, 2012, 03:08 PM
Couldn't agree more with you on the recycled roast (been there, never again!) and chicken breast front, Phil, and I was also referring to the self-same pale, souless slabs of synthi-chick you mention above.

I'm unexpectedly in between jobs at the moment and this is purely a cost-to-flavour thing with the turkey. I try to buy free range and even organic when I can afford it, but decent free range chicken breast is pretty pricey, and as for good quality lamb, which is my all time favourite meat for curries, well that's even more expensive.

OK, understood.  But one thing worth looking for (in Tescos, probably elsewhere) is Buxted free-range chicken.  Fixed price  of GBP 6-00 regardless of weight, so I snapped up the 2Kb bird from Tesco (Tovil) today.

QuoteBut whenever I've got a few quid spare I'll go halves with my equally curry mad brother and we'll get a whole lamb or goat between us from the rare breed farmer up the road. (If you haven't tried goat in curry, I thoroughly recommend it.)

Oh yes, goat I love : when I peripatetically lived in Smethwick almost 40 years ago, it was virtually the only meat on sale in the Indian butchers !

QuoteFor the moment though I'm looking forward to trying your "curry powder as nucleus" Madras later. I shall report back with the results on the morrow!

Excellent, do please let us all know how you get on.

** Phil.

Quote from: solarsplace on February 23, 2012, 03:43 PM
@976bar - Must confess the idea of a Chicken liver curry is making me feel a bit squeamish!

Oh, SP, you don't know what you're missing.  Try to find a Nepalese restaurant and try it there : the Nepalese really do know how to cook chicken livers to perfection.  Or, if you want to try a non-spicy version and you are in London, have a chopped liver sandwich from Gabi's (Jewish) Delicatessen (sady threatened with demolition, after over 40 years in business, by the soulless developers and planners of London's metropolis) in the Charing Cross Road.

P.S. Braised sheep's hearts for dinner this weekend ...

** Phil.

Quote from: PaulP on February 23, 2012, 03:21 PM
I've read many different reports now about the acrid fumes created when the chilli powder gets cooked or singed.
Fumes that are strong enough to get people coughing.

I've never experienced anything like that after cooking a few hundred curries. Now I don't use more than 1 tablespoon of chilli powder ever but does it mean I'm not cooking it enough?

In a word Paul, YES.  You can hear the coughing going on when i was cooking my phall and it's even more audible when Solarsplace get the vindaloo singeing.  I can always remember the chefs cooking my dish years ago.  They i could hear them choking in the kitchen :

Quote
I was also intrigued at statements made recently that when the chilli powder is cooked "properly" it imparts a greater heat to the dish. I never knew that.

Neither did I until last Sunday week.  Having watch my dish being cooked  a lot of times and having seen the relatively small amount of chilli powder going into the curry, i always wondered how the hell it was so hot.  They must be using extra hot chilli powder.  I tried the stuff and still couldn't get that type of heat.  Then when i cooked the phall under Az's instructions, and he watered the curry down why it was cooking, he got me to try the sauce to sample the heat having singed the chilli.  Wow, that's how it's done.  Watch the phall video and you'll see Az and me trying the sauce to assess the heat.  There was only 3/4 level chef spoon in there of ordinary chilli powder and that was very hot stuff.  Az said to me over a cigarette "you have to burn the chilli to get the heat out of it".  And he knows far better than I what needs to be done ;D

Quote
So how many people achieve the acrid chilli fumes when cooking their curries?

Knowing what i know now, if i don't get this, i am dubious of the results straght away