Topic: curry for thought

[goncalo]

Hi gagomes

Hope Dave won't mind too much me answering on his behalf:

FYI, the assistant is actually the main head chef at Zaal. Az mainly does front of house these days and usually only cooks when the restaurant is uber busy.

As far as I recall the cost was 60 pounds for the session. For that we received around 4 hours really intensive tutoring and then sat down for a late lunch and sampled all the food we cooked plus a couple of extra masalas that Az cooked.

Do I consider it good value for money and time well spent? - would I go again next week if there was another session? - too flipping right mate - in the drop of a hat!

Look around - you will struggle to get guitar lessons for less than 15 pounds an hour! someone offers you a deal like that go for it!

Training in anything is not cheap these days. Just finished a SQL Server performance tuning course for work - that was 2 thousand pounds for a weeks course! something like 70 pounds an hour! time is money

Cheers

Thanks for your insider information solarspace!

I am familiar with training costs and you are right, especially as you get to eat some of food while at it, so that's a good deal.

[curryhell]

Do I consider it good value for money and time well spent? - would I go again next week if there was another session? - too flipping right mate - in the drop of a hat!

Definitely echo those remarks Russ.  I think we'd all be up for a reunion
Re. the garlic/ginger ratio mix up, Az mis-heard what i said.  He thought i meant a 60/40 ratio in favour of ginger.  Both chefs were adamant - more ginger.
Re. the base video, there are two vids covering the two processes:

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,8198.0.html

And Solarsplace has posted the full method including pics here for everybody's benefit:

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php/topic,8871.0.html

It was a hectic 4 hours for all of us, and the guys did the vids in between getting involved in the activities that were going on.  The footage taken by Solarsplace, Natterjak and JB was a good supplement to JB's write-up of the day's events and recipes.  It certainly sparked a hive of activity on the site for all the right reasons, the like of which, sadly has not been seen since, but for all the wrong reasons  . 
A year ago last weekend, how time flies  :

[JerryM]

the only place i would go to would be Az's. i been well impressed not only with Az himself but all the learning that came form the visit along with the kindness of sharing it.

would i pay elsewhere - No. the info on the site gets up way behold. if time and money is at a premium then ackers might shorten the path.

(ps - not even for another book - i might just get curr2go's 2nd though - the one intended to go into more BIR recipes)

real reason for the post is the thought of why some chefs do well at some dishes but not at others - it's something i've experienced a lot (both in the northwest and the midlands). i've put it down to the extent of "passed down" knowledge but i've also thought it might be down to what they like to cook. my fav restaurant in the midlands now does at lot of work on recipe improvement (from competing in the national curry awards) so things may well change in the future.

i am (in hope) pretty sure it's not down to the ingredients or condiments so to speak - time will tell.