I've never tried making a so-called Handi curry but if we're talking about curries from scratch versus curries from base gravy, I've recently reverted, like you perhaps, to preferring curries from scratch. I find they're easier and more tasty, with no need to store large amounts of base sauce.[/quote]
Me too, one reason I've not been on this (still excellent) site recently: the Misses & I subsist mainly on what we call 'scratch curry', that is curry cooked from scratch rather than BIR-style. The whole BIR thing (as we all know) is just supposed to be a time saver to enable BIRs to serve-up finished dishes in short-order, essentially assembled from pre-cooked parts.
Whilst I still love BIR-style food, I tend to make curries now from scratch becasue I get tastier results, and by the time base sauce and other pre-prepared stuff is taken into account, BIR is not really any quicker. I remmeber one one the members here saying that a BIR chef they had spoken too saying essentially the same thing (it might have been in a thread comparing different types of onion for base sauce)
I still love BIR food, it's just they are different, kinda like filter coffee compared to instant. I happen to like Nescafe Gold Blend, I just prefer the stuff made directly from ground beans!
I now believe I can surpass any of my locals with my own BIR style stuff, but the 'scratch' curries taste better still.
As a parting shot I would say (just as Secret Santa has suggested in the past), that I have NEVER been able to equal the flavours I found in a Pakistani BIR back in 1982-85, near Leeds Univeristy. It was a cheapo place, all the dishes were virtually identical, but it did not have to be other, because the taste was amazing.
Topic: Inferior 'gravy' based curries... ( 14,685 )
