Topic: punjabi medium chicken curry

[chewytikka]

Firstly, It would be good if you could keep your topic all in the same place, like you agreed.
Instead of all over the place.

This curry and chips you cooked, using this girls Punjabi red gravy recipe
http://www.crazy4veggie.com/punjabi_red_gravy.php
was always going to be crap, because her gravy is obviously overspiced crap to start with.

Whatever happened to your curry website, when you posted as "the Ham"
www.baltirecipe.webs.com -dead link
Would have been interesting to read your take on Balti, or maybe not.
Your curry base post, back then got CA fired up.
http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5346.msg52429#msg52429

Anyhoo my Garabi recipes, of which I have many, are all 110% Restaurant taste.

I'll tell you My Secret, at exactly 47minutes 22 seconds I put on my Top Hat and grab my cane,
spin round three times and moonwalk out of the kitchen, not forgetting to tweak my right nipple three times on my return.
There you go! The secret to my success. Free!

ChewyfewBeers.hic

[jamieb728]

I don't know about you lot but i find that a takeaway curry never tastes quite as good as if i'm eating in and i think this is all down to perception as you walk up to the restraunt and have the smell coming out of the large extractor fans the mulitued of dishes, breads, starter, tikka tandoori that have been cooking for hours this get the senses going what i'm saying is for me i don't think i'll ever replicate a restraunt dish 100% because of this my senses don't quite get the same stimualation at home as they do when i'm out but what i do cook at home is just as good as what i get from any takeaway

[Nick D]

Sorry, was my birthday last night, went out for a curry had way too many Cobras,
I agree not a fair response just a general one regarding a lot of publications that claim to reproduce the restaurant taste.

The gravy is something I have been trying to get right for years as the subtlety of the taste is carried through to the final dish, especially in a simple madras.

I have been behind the scenes on quite a few occasions including restaurant gravy demos in two different restaurants.
Again have had dozens of gravy samples from loads of different places and unless you compare this side by side with what you have cooked you will never know you?re missing a difference.

I find stevejet66?s approach refreshing.  I?m happy for those of you who have achieved 110% restaurant taste.

Nick.

[loveitspicy]

Anyhoo my Garabi recipes, of which I have many, are all 110% Restaurant taste.

I'll tell you My Secret, at exactly 47minutes 22 seconds I put on my Top Hat and grab my cane,
spin round three times and moonwalk out of the kitchen, not forgetting to tweak my right nipple three times on my return.
There you go! The secret to my success. Free!

ChewyfewBeers.hic

Ha ha ha ha aaaaaah ha ha ha side splitting made me laugh Chewy can you get all the moonwalking nipple tweaking on your vimeo channel - what a laugh - love it

best, Rich

[loveitspicy]

CBM  can you confirm your gravy recipe will recreate the restaurant gravy taste 100 %?

Thanks
Nick.

And which restaurant gravy taste would that be exactyly, your local or mine? : Not a particulary fair question, don't  you think?

Here here! CH i agree what none sense every chef in every takeaway restaurant has a basic recipe then uses a different approach to cooking a base and different amounts of ingredients - what i would ask is - is there a specific taste for a base - NOPE!
A base is a base it should be subtle and unless there is a strange amount of cinnamon or some other ingredient added how can the base taste carry through to the final dish - its a base and a base is to build the flavours on. I'm sure this will cause an argument but hey ho - I cannot detect and base flour in my madras or vindaloo..... I leave this one open to discussion I'm sure its gonna run and run -
plus heres another question how much base does everyone make at a time?  A small pan full. I know some make a reasonable amount on here.

best, Rich

[Micky Tikka]

I knew I was doing something wrong
I was tweaking the wrong nipple
Thanks again Chewy

[jb]

Very few of us will ever have the opportunity to taste the restaurant gravy

Well I have and the sample I was given is still sitting in my freezer waiting for a comparsion cook-off with my own gravy (or should I say the near identical base I use from CBM's little India video).

I can tell you most definitely that the gravy I got is nowhere near a 'finished' curry sauce,the kind that Stevejet66 is describing.It is just a basic mildly spiced onion gravy that is versatile enough to be used in all the dishes.Whether some places do their gravy in a different manner is quite possible,ie make it so it's nigh on a finished curry sauce,but my local BIR certainly produces top notch food using the gravy I described.So to me no magic ingredient in my base,sorry.

[jb]

Things the bir's don't want the public to see are probably rats, cross contamination, yogurt on the turn.

** Phil.

Sorry if I'm going off topic slightly,but cross contamination is not just confined to BIR's.I bet if you saw half of what went on in some of these top kitchens it would put you off for life.I watched Saturday Kitchen recently with the famous Michel Roux.The guy may have numerous Michelin stars but I wouldn't go anywhere near his food.After he had litterally massaged a raw chicken with a marinade he then proceded(without washing hands)to get a cooked one out of the oven,pull it apart and serve it to the guests! You wonder what goes on in his kitchen...Anyway back to the topic in question....

[jb]

What smells a little to me is the amount of vegetable ghee buckets(yellow ones) i've seen in the kitchens, yet there isn't much about its use coming to light, for whatever reason. I suspect it may be used extensively in my neck of the woods rather than oil. I would also like to hear from anyone who has used oil from the catering sized drums for home cooking & noticed any difference?

Regards
ELW

That's a very good question.I'm always told BIR's use veg oil to make their curries,yet out the back of one takeaway near me there's always at least a dozen of these empty yellow ghee buckets.Apart from brushing naan breads with the stuff what else could they be doing with it I wonder?

[Cory Ander]

I must say that I find some of the responses in this thread rather annoying (and often rather arrogant). 

But, I'll try and be nice  :

• To my mind, whether an individual believes that they can, or cannot, truly replicate decent BIR curries really depends on their yardstick (e.g. the era that they are relating to, their locality, the quality of their local BIR curries, their experiences, their expectations, etc)
• I strongly suspect that hardly anyone on this forum (I would hazard a guess that it's actually no one - to my personal yardstick - but I guess I will never know unless I actually try them - no offence guys) can TRULY replicate a drop dead, top of the range, BIR curry (with respect to smell, depth of flavour, texture, etc).  I certainly know I can't!
• If you accept the last point (and I'm sure many members won't), then I'm sure you must also accept that there are still some "unknowns" (call them "secrets", "magic ingredients", "magic techniques", or whatever).  The fact is, in my opinion, that they still remain "unknowns" (otherwise we would all be turning out topnotch - not just "nice" BIR curries)
  
• It may be that we know all that there is to know (regarding ingredients and techniques) but we simply cannot (and will not) reproduce them at home, due to the scale, volumes and repetition inherent in BIRs.  However, I have never believed this, and I stubbornly refuse to believe it,  unless those aspects can be clearly identified, quantified and articulated

As Donald Rumsfeld (in)famously stated "there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns"!

Anyhow, my 2 cents worth, for what it's worth....