What are you going to be cooking tonight? :)

[Petrolhead360]

Just picked up one of these from Asda's Indian deli counter

[curryhell]

Night off tonight.  Maybe tomorrow.  Last night I made CT's Madras which i haven't made for a while.  I wanted a good "simple" curry with no complications or frills that would hit the spot.  And that it certainly did. 
Made it with a couple of mods  using the Zaal base, mixed powder and ordinary chilli powder.  I upped the quantity to a dessertspoon for  a bit of a kick, added three finely chopped chillies at the end of the cooking along with a tsp of diluted  pureed sweet mango chutney.  Reduced first half of the base heavily to intensify the flavour and then the remainder was added and again reduced until the sauce was nice and thick.  The taste and SMELL of the curry was straight out of a BIR kitchen . And that's exactly how the house smelt this morning  :
Strange thing happened as i was sniffing the heavenly curry container.  I noticed not one smell but two    The obvious intense smell from the fused tomato paste, mixed spice and gravy, normally always present when things are done correctly IMHO, and also a less intense almost light savoury background BIR smell that you often get with your takeaways   Can't say i've ever noticed this before.  It was one hell of a madras, beautiful tasting and a really good heat to it.  I will be making it again real soon to see if i can get the second smell to reappear

[goncalo]

It was one hell of a madras, beautiful tasting and a really good heat to it.  I will be making it again real soon to see if i can get the second smell to reappear

Good luck curryhell. You may be well on your way to the BIR way!

[curryhell]

I would like to think so Gagomes.  I think many of us are familiar with the intense BIR fusion smell of spices being properly cooked out in oil with tomato paste and gravy.  I'm sure that this "part 1" of the BIR smell is common place in many if not all forum members kitchens on a regular basis.  But i'm not so sure about "part 2", the subtle secondary background smell which is definitely "the smell" we all can identify and wish to replicate time after time. 
I'm still going over in my mind what i did last night that was any different.  The only immediate thing that spings to mind is that it is the first time i've made this recipe using an ali pan   No special ingredients, no spiced oil, just the things you'd expect to find in a plain madras.
Re. "the smell", i'm now of the opinion that this is only present in certain dishes, not all and that it won't be found in the likes of CTM, korma or the like.  What does everybody else think?

[goncalo]

I would like to think so Gagomes.  I think many of us are familiar with the intense BIR fusion smell of spices being properly cooked out in oil with tomato paste and gravy.  I'm sure that this "part 1" of the BIR smell is common place in many if not all forum members kitchens on a regular basis.  But i'm not so sure about "part 2", the subtle secondary background smell which is definitely "the smell" we all can identify and wish to replicate time after time. 
I'm still going over in my mind what i did last night that was any different.  The only immediate thing that spings to mind is that it is the first time i've made this recipe using an ali pan   No special ingredients, no spiced oil, just the things you'd expect to find in a plain madras.
Re. "the smell", i'm now of the opinion that this is only present in certain dishes, not all and that it won't be found in the likes of CTM, korma or the like.  What does everybody else think?

Ha, I'm always using an ali pan and I can't easily attribute it anything different. I can say though that my house does have a pretty intense smell of takeaway, even when I don't have base (like today and the last 4 days) and yeah, I don't generally leave food around either.