that's great alarmist thanks for posting this - am assuming the ? mean 1/4?

Gonna try this at the weekend - do you ever make it with fresh musrooms?

 I'm a bit confused Alarmist10 do you mean the Zaal technique and not the Zeera technique???

1st week of trials is done. intend setting out observations in case it prompts any grey cells.

observation no 1 - infusion

had 2 off sample each containing ifindforu mix powder. 1 off was heated the other just left. each being shaken and tasted each day. the 1 off heated was by far the best. infusion for me is a no.

this sort of raises another unknown which needs to be kept in mind "parked" for now. i mod tom sauce by adding chilli powder (1 tsp per 500g bottle). the taste seems to improve over say 3days which i'd thought down to infusion. i've recently added a 2nd variety adding mix powder to sort of make a curry sauce version ie i have 3 off bottles of tom sauce in the cupboard: plain, chilli, curry. for the chilli powder you could put down just to the time to mix through. not for the mix powder though - simple mixing would not develop the flavour.

from what i've seen this week infusion is not the mechanism. so leaving something longer won't work.

observation no 2 - oil seems to suck up some spice better than others

had 1 off sample of combined tgad/Zaal chef garam and 1 off jalpur. the jalpur is in a different league in getting to the BIR oil taste.

i currently can't understand why the step difference - yes the black cardamom is a factor but there are other really good spice in the tgad/zaal which are not coming through into the oil - a wet finger taste of the powder and they are there but not in the oil. again a unknown and parked for the moment.

question now being is roasting as good as infusing fresh whole spice ie akhni. my current thought is that they are the same or equivalent. this needs to be resolved - which is best or do they perform different functions

ps have abandoned the freezing. the pure oil unlike the pukka reclaimed defrosts too quickly. have reverted to dipping handle of tea spoon. it's difficult to switch tastings though.

next week:

intend to look at increasing amount of spice and if possible carrying forward oil into the next sample. going to use the tgad/zaal as making this work seems the real challenge.

A few points of clarification on the Mushroom Bhaji recipe, if I may......

Stephen:  I'm really pleased you had success with the recipe!  Apologies that the quantities didn't all appear correctly in the posting of the recipe.  To avoid confusion, it should be "quarter of a green capsicum....", half a tsp of salt, and half a pint of basic curry sauce.  I use tinned mushrooms because we can't easily get fresh ones here.   As a help to others who might make the dish, how many fresh ones did you use??

jb:  of course you are quite right.  Old age, stupidity, and recent reading/viewing of CT's video made me put 'Zeera' when I should have typed 'Zaal'.  Sorry for the confusion.

JerryM:  "bhuna with amplitude".....what a great phrase!!

CT:  sorry to confuse you with the Zeera reference (see above).  The T/A in Sunderland was a small one on Hilton Road but I can't recall the name.  It used to do a brilliant Chicken Vindaloo as well.

Happy cooking.

al.

alarmist10,

it's not immediately apparent but i think your recipe turning up here might just be key factor in my oil trials.

at the moment i limiting to simple & basic tests. trouble is at some point i need to try ideas out and using pukka base would be a nightmare. this simple and quick recipe can be my control so to speak. to prove or not intend making it with water down to having no base and leave ingredients out that would be wasted ie the mushroom.

well pleased and looking fwd to 1st go.