Topic: 50 ltr of base sauce

[merrybaker]

I wonder if that means we should be using proportionally higher amounts of spices when scaling down Mark's 35 onion recipe...  Half a full base recipe = two thirds the original amount of spices and salt?

Whoa,  please don't go making major changes in good recipes just because of something I learned in home ec class many years ago.   I just mentioned that as a cautionary tale.

BTW, the same teacher also taught us how to cook "a healthy breakfast" consisting of fried eggs, streaky bacon, white toast with butter, and whole milk to drink.  My arteries hurt just thinking about it.

[Yellow Fingers]

Can we nail this one on the head and put it in the FAQ perhaps so that it doesn't rear its ugly head again?

If I cook 10 pots of curry all with exactly the same ingredients, including the spices, and I then pour them all into one big pot, the big pot of curry will taste exactly the same as the curry from the smaller pots, right? If anyone disagrees with this then you urgently need to go on a basic science course.

So, to the question "when scaling up a recipe, do I scale up the ingredients proportionally", the answer is a very incontrovertible YES!

The only thing you would have to watch out for is different evaporation rates when cooking in different size pots.

[Ian S.]

Well, that told us. 

No one was disagreeing with anything, YF.  Merrybaker shared something about seasoning food that I hadn't heard before, and I was exploring it further.  That's all.

[Yellow Fingers]

Hi Ian

I wasn't having  go at anyone in particular, I just felt that sometimes, as in this case, common sense doesn't seem to prevail. This topic and other similar ones crop up regularly and for someone who has been with the forum since day 1 it just gets a bit tiresome.

YF

[merrybaker]

(Is it safe to come out now?)   

If anyone disagrees with this then you urgently need to go on a basic science course.

I'll have to admit, I do think cooking is more of an art than a science...  Take BIR cooking for example:  we seem to have all the recipes and all the ingredients, and yet some of us have come to the conclusion that there is an art to the actual cooking that we haven't mastered.

I know it's illogical not to scale recipes proportionately.  I just wanted to urge caution.  50 ltr of sauce is a lot to have go wrong. 
 
Here's some more info:
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/NU/00586.html 
 

[Dirtynunfishing]

Thanks Merrybaker. At last a sensible answer to my question.Your link says it all really.I have allways thought that curry especially is a personal thing,its all about amounts of spices, when you cook them and for how long and what order you put them in the pot.If cooking was a science we could all be Gordan Ramsey or Delia Smith heaven forbid.I know the wife doesn't like vindaloo unlike me and taste is a personal thing.I have been using the curry secret base and have tried Darth's base sauce.I will be experimenting more after the world cup and let you all know how i get on.I think cooking in general is an Art because we cant all do it.I know i have cooked the same curry over and over and got different tastes from the same ingredients.Has anyone else had this happen.Be honest.

[DARTHPHALL]

It Used to happen to me very often when i cooked in smaller amounts,however since ive started using my 30 Onion base things are much more predictable.

[Fat Les (Banned for removing own posts!)]

Hi Ian S

Personally, I think you made a perfectly valid observation Ian S! 

I've not seen such a discussion when delving into this site (not to say that it doesn't exist; just that I've not seen the discussion...many...most... of us have not been here that long).

However, since nobody seems to have developed that "Indian restaurant taste", it seems to me that all avenues are still open to exploration!  Good on you my man!   

Ha ha!  Let THAT put the cat amongst the pigeons!

[Fat Les (Banned for removing own posts!)]

PS:  If I were you, Dirtynunfishing (and please feel free to disagree if you wish ), I would cook several smaller pots of base (that I know give the desired results) and blend them together.  Anything else is clearly a significant risk since not many people (home chefs, at least) cook on the scale you desire.  Therefore, most comments are largely conjecture.  So.....5 times 10l or 10 times 5l (or any other combination that takes your fancy)....take your pick!

[Ian S.]

Thanks Les, but let?s keep the cat well away from the pigeon coup and tucked up nice and comfy out of harm?s way.

On topic: Thanks for the link, Merrybaker.  I was looking for one too and found this:

http://allrecipes.com/hints/scaling.asp

This includes the lines:

?Whenever you alter the amounts of ingredients for a given recipe, you may also need to adjust the cooking temperature, cooking time, pan size and seasonings.?

And:

?If you are doubling a recipe, expect to use only about 1 ? times the original amount of seasonings. If you are tripling a recipe, expect to use only about twice the original amount of seasonings. If you are dividing a recipe in half or to one-third, then use a little less than half or a third of the original amount of seasonings.?

Though whether it goes on to say that a fried breakfast of fried eggs, streaky bacon, white toast with butter, and whole milk is healthy, I can?t say!

Slightly off topic:  People on this site have been given recipes and demonstrations from BIR chefs.  We?ve tried them at home and a lot of us have remarked that though nice, they?re not the same as the real thing.  So somewhere, there?s a gap between what we?ve been shown or told and what we can produce.

We can try and fill this gap with further research (those of us that have the knack of getting into BIR kitchens ? I don?t!), with experimentation and refinement of ingredients and techniques, or even with guesswork.  Or, like hundreds of members of this site, we can sit back and hope someone else cracks it and posts the magic answer (and there?s nothing wrong with that).

If you cook 10 pots of curry and then add them together I agree they?ll taste the same as they did individually.  And, like George and Yellowfingers, I would have thought that if you add 10 times the ingredients to a pot and then cook them, the result would be the same.  Until Merrybaker made her post.   And then I thought: ?How do I know for sure that the chemical reaction in foodstuffs caused by the application of heat remains constant regardless of mass??

Alright, I didn?t. : I thought: ?One and a half times the salt? That?s interesting?.  I know precious little about food chemistry (and don?t particularly want to know more than I have to!).

The links certainly suggest, just like Merrybaker?s Home Economics teacher, that the effect of salt and seasoning doesn?t necessarily remain constant.  Whether the spices we use ? and the way we use them, in the processes of tarka and bhuna ? come under the heading of ?spices and seasonings? in the author?s mind well, once again, I?m not sure.  But having read the info, can we still say it's incontravertible that all ingredients should be scaled up in direct proportion?

BIR chefs have said that quantities make a difference.  Darthy?s found more consistent and reliable results cooking in bulk.  I agree that evaporation would be the major factor.  I don?t know that it?s the only one.

If I get into a conversation with someone and we?re kicking these ideas around, it doesn?t help to be told that we?re incontrovertibly wrong, that we urgently need basic science lessons, and that we?re displaying a lack of basic commonsense. Nothing personal, Yellowfingers, I agree ? it?s just that kind of language can create bad feeling and stifle debate, and therefore the flow of information.

Interesting that my guess about adding more than half the amount of salt & spices when halving the recipe is the exact opposite of what the author suggests in the quote above!

Ian
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