Hi George,

Yes, it's very interesting in there. I'm out of the kitchen at the moment waiting for the new restaurant setup to be finished.

I've actually found it the other way round though, in that what I thought would make big inconsistencies haven't. For example some days the spice delivery might not have come through. We use whole spices in the gravies, in the onion gravy for example there's cloves, big/brown cardamom, cinnamon sticks and curry leaves. The base gravy missing 2 or three of these items would have tasted quite different I thought, but to me it didn't and still produced great dishes.

That being said though, the chef always tastes and adjusts if the flavor is not quite right. I mentioned that as being one of the big secrets, ie tasting, but I don't think I fully conveyed what I meant. The chef will taste it and if it is not quite right he knows what needs to be added to correct it. I can taste the gravy and know that it is not quite right, but have no idea as to what/how to fix, I can try things but it would probably go around in a big circle whereas he will say add this or that etc and get it right.

Cheers,
Mark

not wanting to embroil this bhaji oil yes or no discussion. i've only tried it once and with hindsight the oil i used was very strong and well outside the usable envelope for curry. the bhaji oil was taken from my 2nd fryer which is used for bhajis and fried chicken. it really did make a difference. in fact it was far too much for me and put me off. i got a sort of x2 over my normal hot frying result.

the other factor for me is that my local TA start every dish from oil off the top of the base. i've never experimented further with bhajis oil.

it's also very true that you can produce a very good curry from plain oil - i've had no choice to do this on many occasion when i've run out of reclaimed.

the difference between plain oil and my reclaimed oil is not huge but there is a difference. the oil whether bhajis or reclaimed has to have enough strength though to work.

i'm currently revisiting this. in the past i found this strength improved if leftover oil was carried forward into the next base. at the time i was limited by the life of the oil in the fridge and timing of my next base. i'm now switched on more on what will freeze.

what i'm trying to understand better is which works best: increase oil strength in base batch or permanently carry forward into the next (the sourdough principle). it's all good fun.

I did an experiment this morning to make some seasoned oil. Heated about 600ml of Rice Bran Oil (very light flavoured high smoke point) with a good chunk of Indian Ghee and about half a cup of mustard oil, then deep fried a finely sliced medium onion until caramelised. Then I removed the onion "crisps" and when the oil cooled slightly, put in about 1/4 tsp of garam masala. When cold I funneled it off into a 750ml heavy glass Aussie Beer bottle, which by good fortune it just fills.

Already tasting awesome, my home brew Monday pissbuddy  : will be around for a few pints this afternoon so I'll reheat the oil and actually run up some onion bhajis, then readjust back to 750ml.

That should sort it out I reckon,  ;D - made a heap of dry mix this morning plus about 300ml of garlic ginger paste, all to C-2-go's specs. Going to marinate some chicken breasts so tomorrow is the day

Mark, off topic but I got a pack of that Geeta Medium madras, very very interesting - As well as the usual Cumin et al it has all sorts of minor unexpected stuff like black pepper, star anise, fennel, nutmeg and smells incredibly complex.

Quote from: beachbum on April 23, 2012, 04:34 AM
That should sort it out I reckon,  ;D - made a heap of dry mix this morning plus about 300ml of garlic ginger paste, all to C-2-go's specs. Going to marinate some chicken breasts so tomorrow is the day

Sounds like you've been busy Bb.  Looking forward to hearing the results after all your prep mate

Will report for sure

I did onion bhajis to C2go's recipe and I can't even begin to ..............

They were half sized as I wasn't using a pukka deep fryer. My usually talkative drinking mate was just making some low growling noises as he ate.

Now to get the pressure cooker out and make the next lot of base gravy for tomorrow, using the oil. Fortunately I have a shtload of Coriander in the herb garden 

How we suffer for our art 

Quote from: JerryM on April 14, 2012, 10:09 AM

7) check out the rice technique - just felt i'd mastered it myself adopting washing as the way to go - heck

i tried the method "pressure cooker" - of course i have not and used my pan with lid.

did not work. rice was hard.

i was happily going to give another go. last was 4min fry, 4 min heat-up and 10 min stand. gut feeling was increase the heat-up to say 6min and it might do it. the boss has overruled and i'm going back to the old method.