Topic: punjabi medium chicken curry

[Garabi Army]

I think if a truely skilled BIR chef took one of our bases, mixes etc then the result would be better or more consistant than the majority of us, it might even taste like one of the fabled curries of old.

I would love to see an experiment like this, does anyone know if this has actually happened before?
I also believe it's the skill of the chef that turns out great food, no matter what cuisine it is.

Cheers

[Secret Santa]

A couple of people have taken their base into the BIR and had the chef cook a curry with it but I have no recollection of who they were - or what the outcome was.

[Salvador Dhali]

A couple of people have taken their base into the BIR and had the chef cook a curry with it but I have no recollection of who they were - or what the outcome was.

I know CBM (Mick Crawford) was one of them. There's a video on his Youtube channel in which a BIR chef makes a Madras with Mick's own base. See: How to make Chicken Madras

[emin-j]

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?

jb, Veg Ghee is used in some base gravy's also used in main dishes instead of Veg Oil.
Our favourite t/a used to make their Curry's using Veg Oil ( I watched while they made my Curry ) , recently they have started making Curry's with Veg Ghee this has not improved the flavour and I'm not keen on Curry's made with Veg Ghee 

[fried]

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

Why?

[ELW]

I would love to see an experiment like this, does anyone know if this has actually happened before?
I also believe it's the skill of the chef that turns out great food, no matter what cuisine it is.

There was a post i came across somewhere, may have been on here, where a chef was invited to someone's home to replicate on a domestic electric & had problems getting the pan hot enough. Anyone remember this, CBM possibly ?

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!

Yes, if the cr0 Ashoka recipe's are followed & more importantly cooked correctly, it will produce Ashoka dishes   :, If you have never tasted food from the Ashoka it's clearly impossible to make the comparison, which is a pity because these recipe's are genuine. There is a distinctive taste from Ashoka food which may not be to everyone's taste, but definite bir taste.  I reckon anyone trying to get inside an Ashoka kitchen the in the way Panpot managed would be chased down the street these days. Shame he doesn't post anymore, because he could answer a lot of questions for people.
I do suspect that making dishes from large volumes of gravy may add something extra flavourwise but i'll have to keep on suspecting. Hot pan & hot oil produces great results for me. I'm surprised hardly anyone else on cr0 has benefitted from this approach. Not once have i produced that strange taste on a low heat

Regards
ELW

[natterjak]

ELW I also cook on max heat on my 3kW halogen hob and preheat for 2 mins before putting the first G&G in. My typical method is....

1) hob on full.... Oil in pan... Wait 2 mins
2) G&G paste, stir till brown (none of this "avoid burning the garlic ginger paste" or "only cook G&G till it stops sizzling" - for me it has to be medium brown to get the right flavour
3) passata in, stir for 30 secs....
4) spices in, bubbling away - should give a toffee smell and darken a little before you quench the pan with some (not too much) base sauce
5) half ladle of base sauce, should bubble viciously and reduce almost instantly with oil separating and thicken to a paste before adding more base

Only by following these initial steps with the hob whacking out maximum heat throughout have I got what I consider to be the correct curry flavours. In some recipes I don't singe the spices so much, but some really require you to give them a good roasting!

[Peripatetic Phil]

I'm surprised hardly anyone else on cr0 has benefitted from this approach. Not once have i produced that strange taste on a low heat

I think there are (at least) two possible reasons for that :

• Some of us (myself included) believe that we can achieve the BIR flavour using a moderate heat, and that belief is supported by statements such as that of my wife who says that my curries are now better than those of our local BIR.  And that is a seriously good BIR : I wrote a rave review [1] after my first visit
• Not all of us have the luxury of a curry shed, of an outside wok burner, or of a wife who will tolerate hot spiced oil being spattered all over the kitchen.

** Phil.
--------
[1] No longer accessible; traces of it can be found here.

[ELW]

ELW I also cook on max heat on my 3kW halogen hob and preheat for 2 mins before putting the first G&G in. My typical method is....

1) hob on full.... Oil in pan... Wait 2 mins
2) G&G paste, stir till brown (none of this "avoid burning the garlic ginger paste" or "only cook G&G till it stops sizzling" - for me it has to be medium brown to get the right flavour
3) passata in, stir for 30 secs....
4) spices in, bubbling away - should give a toffee smell and darken a little before you quench the pan with some (not too much) base sauce
5) half ladle of base sauce, should bubble viciously and reduce almost instantly with oil separating and thicken to a paste before adding more base

Only by following these initial steps with the hob whacking out maximum heat throughout have I got what I consider to be the correct curry flavours. In some recipes I don't singe the spices so much, but some really require you to give them a good roasting!

Same method here NJ, I think the high fast heating of the vegetable oil also changes it's flavour dramatically, providing a good part of the bir taste & aroma. This may go someway to explain the hit & miss problem I've experienced now & again, as it's not something i can point at & say "ready". Why a slow low heat won't bring everything up to this level on a longer cook still baffles me. Theres a bit of science going on in the pan that im not going to pretend to understand



Edit- @stevejet, i've made the "Rolls Royce Balti Gravy" from 100 Best Balti Curries -Diane Lowe &Mike Davidson, which going towards a finished curry was way overspiced. The gravies on here & elsewhere are spot on -no question

 Regards
ELW

[Garabi Army]

1) hob on full.... Oil in pan... Wait 2 mins
2) G&G paste, stir till brown (none of this "avoid burning the garlic ginger paste" or "only cook G&G till it stops sizzling" - for me it has to be medium brown to get the right flavour
3) passata in, stir for 30 secs....
4) spices in, bubbling away - should give a toffee smell and darken a little before you quench the pan with some (not too much) base sauce
5) half ladle of base sauce, should bubble viciously and reduce almost instantly with oil separating and thicken to a paste before adding more base

I presume these are now the recognised norms here. I know since I have started using this method, along with an ali pan, my curries are the best I have ever made in 40 years!! (along with decent recipes and ingredients, of course)
On the plus side I can knock up a curry in 10 mins, on the minus side it takes me half an hour to clean up, plus the grief from the missus.