Al's Mushroom Bhajis

[alarmist10]

I have been trying for more years than I can remember to replicate the delicious Mushroom Bhajis I used to get from both BIRs and T/As in the early 1980s.......with very little success!  However, due to the excellent comments, tips, recipes and techniques on this site, I have finally made something that reminds me of the taste and flavour I have been looking for!!

A lot of credit for this must go to (a) Haldi for his recipe in this 'Side Dishes' section (page 2 as it currently is) which finally got me to experiment again, (b) Abdul for his curry base gravy, and (c) Cory Ander for reminding me of the 'full heat' cooking technique that I first observed in my local T/A many years ago.

So, for anyone else who might savour the delights of a BIR-style Mushroom Bhaji, here's the result of my latest endeavour......

Ingredients:

3 tbsp oil
1 heaped tbsp onion
0.25  large green capsicum cut into quarter inch strips
1 tbsp base curry sauce (I used Abdul's, but with a different spice mix - see below)
1 heaped tsp tomato paste diluted with 4 tsp water
1 tbsp garlic/ginger finely chopped (in a 60:40 ratio of garlic to ginger)
1 heaped desert spoon (dsp?) spice mix (see below)
1 tsp chilli powder
0.5 tsp salt
Half pint of base curry sauce
Small can mushrooms (drained and washed to remove the salt water/brine)
1 tsp sugar (optional)

Method:  (a B I G 'thank you' to Cory Ander for this)

1.  In a separate pan, heat the base curry sauce to a gentle simmer
2.  Heat oil in a suitable pan (I prefer to use my 'Ken Hom' wok from the 1980s if anyone still remembers him!) on high heat until almost smoking
3.  Add onion, green capsicum, and salt and fry for a couple of minutes or so, stirring continuously
4.  Add garlic/ginger and fry for about a minute, stirring all the time.
5.  Remove from the heat & add chilli powder and spice mix.  Stir and return to heat.  Fry for 30 seconds or so.
6.  Add tomato paste & fry for 30 seconds or so, stirring continuously
7.  Add 1 tbsp base curry sauce and stir for 1 minute
8.  Add the rest of the base curry sauce a couple of tbsp at a time, stirring as it is absorbed
9.  Add a small can mushrooms + 1 tsp sugar (optional).
10.  Continue to cook on high heat for 3 - 4 minutes.  Add water if it starts to dry out
11.  Reduce the heat and simmer for a further 3 minutes.  Then turn off the gas and let it "rest"
12.  SERVE AND ENJOY!!

Just a few points to note.......
Using a high heat until Step 11 makes a huge difference to the final success of the dish...just don't burn anything!!
Another key to success is to make sure that the first few tbsps of curry sauce that you add are 'accepted and absorbed' into the main body of the dish.....then you can simply pour the rest in!!
About 1 hour before starting to cook, drain the tinned mushrooms, empty into a bowl and over the next 45 minutes soak/rinse them 4 times with cold water to get rid of the salt.brine that comes in the tin.  Leave them to dry out for the final 15 minutes before cooking.
Fresh mushrooms (especially the 'button mushrooms' commonly used in the UK, for example) are not readily available here in the Philippines, hence I use the tinned ones.  As Haldi commented, a lot of T/As do anyway!  I'd be interested to hear results from anyone who uses 'real' fresh mushrooms.  How does it affect flavour/cooking time etc

SPICE MIX

As I mentioned above, I use an amended version of Abdul's '8 Spice Mix'........

2 tsp ground cumin
1.5 tsp ground ginger
4 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp garam masala
4 tsp chilli powder
4 tsp paprika powder
4 tsp curry powder
8 tsp turmeric
2 tsp garlic powder
0.5 tsp ground fenugreek

Is the end result a perfect BIR Mushroom Bhaji?  No, I don't think so.  It is without doubt the most tasty I have produced so far, but I feel I'm still missing that depth of spice taste that so characterised the dishes of the late 60s, 70s and early 80s for me.  I'm more than happy with the base sauce, ingredients and cooking method.  I'll be experimenting some more with the quantities of spices in future to see if there's any improvement to be had

Meanwhile, I hope other members of this forum will take the recipe, try it, and be inspired as I was by Haldi's original post to try to make further progress towards the taste that eludes us all!!!!

Happy cooking
al.

[chriswg]

Hi, thanks for sharing the recipe. It looks almost exactly like how I cook my Bombay Aloo (apart from adding potato instead of mushrooms ofc).

I never order these so even if I made it I couldn't tell you if it was authentic tasting but the ingredients and method all look good.

My only two thoughts you could try would be swap the oil for Vegetable Ghee. I use this for all my Indian dishes now and it really helps. Also, when you add the spices and chilli powder, add the tomato dilute straight away so it forms a paste with the powders (as you do in step 6). You can then cook/fry this paste for 30 secs with no danger of burning the spices. Frying the spices on their own is always a danger. Even 30 secs in a hot pan and they would be toast.

[alarmist10]

hi chriswg

Appreciate your comments!  It's also good to know that I can make Bombay Aloo in much the same way.  I have never cooked it before, so it'll be an interesting experiment........and also I get to eat the results!!!!

Vegetable ghee is not readily available here in the Philippines (except maybe in Manila) so I'm pretty much stuck with the usual range of oils.  Currently I use Canola oil - it's being pushed here as a more healthy option than some of the others.  But I can see that the ghee would have a positive effect on the taste.  I used to use it when I was in the UK maybe 20+ years ago and the flavour it gave to dishes was well worth the price.

I'm with you on adding the diluted tomato paste immediately after the spices.  It was the one time in the whole process that caused me to panic a bit to prevent burning.  Thanks for that tip......I'll amend my 'Method' as a result.
best
al.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Vegetable ghee is not readily available here in the Philippines (except maybe in Manila) so I'm pretty much stuck with the usual range of oils.  Currently I use Canola oil - it's being pushed here as a more healthy option than some of the others.  But I can see that the ghee would have a positive effect on the taste.  I used to use it when I was in the UK maybe 20+ years ago and the flavour it gave to dishes was well worth the price

How about using butter ghee if vegetable ghee is not readily available ?  According to the (very helpful) Indian proprietors of my local convenience store, butter ghee is extremely simple to make.

** Phil.

[alarmist10]

Thanks for the tip, Phil.  If I remember correctly there's a methodology for this in my old Madhur Jaffrey "Indian Cookery' book from her BBC series from the 1980s.  If I'm right, I'll give it a try!!
Best
al.