Topic: What When and Why

[JerryM]

would appreciate all thoughts on how you can jump from standard "good" BIR to best.

i feel i need CA to achieve this and prepared to await his return. i know there are quite a few respectable members who will be able to help too.

i feel i pretty much know enough of the what & when. yes i've still got much to learn but only best will do.

i think i need to focus on the why but before embarking on such an onerous objective would very much appreciate blinkers off ideas.

essentially why can some BIR chefs produce those memorable dishes. the word memorable is stolen from peter reinhart who associates it with best pizza. i'm after the equivalent in curry.

[goncalo]

Hi JerryM,

I think "memorable" curry is not always due to the chef's abilities, but due to a number of planets that aligned, if you know what I mean. I don't understand exactly your reference to CA, why do you need to wait for him and why is he gone ?

I suppose one area we don't really discuss much is how make our curries look nicer/accurately (though a number of members does get  this right consistently) as it is a known fact that if the curry does look right according to what we would expect from a BIR it will cause us to enjoy it better.

Goncalo

[JerryM]

goncalo,

much appreciate your thoughts.

it's really got me puzzled - i find that these "memorable" dishes are in few BIR's and the same chef can produce spectacular for these dishes yet the rest of the menu is nothing special.

CA is very technically minded in his approach and i feel this will be needed. a general and foot soldier combination.

the look would be the icing at then end. i do take your point though that i may have to do blind testing to evaluate a result when the difference between say 2 dishes becomes very difficult to call. i'm not looking for huge step differences just a series a fine tuning that collectively will deliver that extra mile - turning very good into best.

[JerryM]

given the low feedback thought i'd spice the request up a little that hopefully is easier to understand.

so say i am a BIR manager and been so for 30 ish years. my chef produces a few curries that are very popular and i sell a lot of them (he calls them chef specials, i call them best you can produce). a lot of the menu just does not seem to attract the same amount of attention though.

the equipment and technique used by the chef are fine. i could get my veg cut a little more fancy "consistent" and maybe make the dishes look a tad better but we wish to stick to our roots.

there are several things that i'm not prepared to do:
1) go Michelin star on the presentation
2) sell standard and small portions
3) change the menu
4) change the oil
5) change the chef

the question is where do i need to look to raise the standard of the mains so that all become popular.

things i have on my mind are:
1) is my base not good enough
2) are the mains recipes not good enough
3) do my pastes need improvement
4) do i need more/different pastes

you can convince yourself on either or all of the above - hence the dilemma - where to look 1st to make all best - in short how do some BIR's step up from the norm on the high street.

[spiceyokooko]

...in short how do some BIR's step up from the norm on the high street.

The answer's easy, achieving it isn't.

All restaurants, BIR's included (and given their sheer number, it's harder for BIR's) operate on a profit basis, otherwise they wouldn't stay in business very long and many of them don't. Producing profit is a simple equation, you have to produce more income via sales than you spend on overheads but the problem with many BIR's and particularly today is that overheads are increasing. Salaries are increasing, rents are increasing and food costs are increasing, so they cut corners, they use cheap ingredients and pay low wages.

To increase quality, you need to spend more on wages in terms of better qualified staff and more on quality ingredients, but that then means your unit costs goes up, it's a fine balance, which is why an awful lot of BIR's cut corners and use lower quality ingredients and essentially line cooks.

All BIR's could up their quality, but it would also mean their end prices would go up with it and not many would probably be prepared to spend that much more. You do tend to get what you pay for.

[JerryM]

spiceyokooko,

appreciated you trying to help.

i'm now convinced down to the lack of input that no one really has an answer. i myself don't have a clue and the reason for the post.

i will go on my gut feeling on how i can produce "best" from where i currently am:

1) most is down to recipe, i perhaps need a few more pastes
2) there is some improvement left in the base but not a lot

what's behind the post is having 5 off dishes that i can cook at "best" quality yet something like 6 or 7 mains that are well short.

an example of the shorts being perhaps rogan josh or pathia. not 1st to come to mind as special dishes but most TA versions disappoint yet i know they can be cooked to meet very high expectations. they are lovely dishes.

i'm happy to plod through a backward pass of the BIR process focusing on 1 & 2 above to if not answer the why's at least get a better understanding of them.

just one example being that i use whole lemon in base (many thanks to Axe) - i know from general cooking that only the rind is good - so should i in future grate the lemon. it's that kind of detail.

[Malc.]

Hi Jerry,

I hadn't commented on this as I wasn't really sure exactly what you were getting at and didn't want to waffle on without direction.

I honestly think the biggest problem today lies in the differences between old school and modern cuisine. My recent discussions with Ali the owner of the Shanaz have been quite interesting. I asked recently "so there was much more going on in the kitchen back then?" the reply simply "you have no idea!". My understanding is that many of these processes that once existed in BIR are no longer practised today. Restaurant owners want to cut down the work time in the kitchen and chefs want to be able to meet the high demand in an already busy kitchen on a Friday night.

It stands to reason that if they have consolidated some of these practises they will have less control over the final dishes that they wish to make. Which is why I feel that many dishes seem to be similar or lack that 'memorable' quality. Ending up with an array of acceptable dishes, with just a few really good ones.

So for me, I would suggest looking at the current recipes and what it is that gives them their character. Then work out if the ingredients in my base and spice mix are totally compatible with them. Remove the spices which don

[spiceyokooko]

i'm now convinced down to the lack of input that no one really has an answer. i myself don't have a clue and the reason for the post.

Umm... it's hard to give you a definitive answer because no-one really knows what you're trying to achieve. What is best? Who's best? Your best? My best? His best? Atul Kochars best? What I consider to be good might not be what you consider to be good and so it goes on. It's hard to define.

What is interesting though, is that both Malc (Axe) and myself have given two quite different answers to your question because we've interpreted what you were after differently, yet, they both contain the same central theme or core. That's no coincidence because we're both thinking and looking at this from a similar perspective.

I talked about the need for modern BIR's to balance inputs and outputs with profitability, because without profitability, they either won't or wouldn't want to stay in business. BIR restauranteurs are not philanthropists, they won't provide a product or service without making a profit on it. But to enable them to do this they have some compromises to make, they have to streamline their processes to minimise their inputs and maximise their outputs.

Malc talked about the same thing and more specifically how old school BIR's did things quite differently to the way modern BIR's do things and the reasons for why they do them differently is as we've both explained - the need to remain price competitive.

As home cooks trying to replicate what we might consider to be a 'best', we're not constrained by how modern BIR's have to operate to make profits, so why do we adopt and emulate their streamlined processes? To replicate those flavours? Why if they're not the flavours we really want to replicate, which by many accounts (but not all, some are seem happy with modern flavours) many want to recreate the flavours of yesteryear?

This seems to be the point where many people have become stuck and are scratching their heads trying to understand why the dishes we're creating are falling short of what we consider to be 'the best' we can remember having, for many of us, dishes created 20, 30, 40 years ago. This is essentially why, because we're emulating or adopting modern practices to recreate those flavours we remember yet not fully realising that those dishes were simply not made with these practices.

I've found this myself, base sauces and corresponding mix powders dominate whatever dish you try and make with them regardless of how much variation you introduce in the dish construction stage. It doesn't really matter how much twiddling at dish construction stage you do, or how many new spices or ingredients you introduce, the base sauce and mix powder will still dominate the dish.

So to get away from this we have to go back to basics or how the early restaurants prepared these dishes which most certainly was not one base sauce and one mix powder. I've always believed that early restaurants used more than one base sauce and nothing I've read has made me want to change my mind. All dishes made from one single base sauce is simply expediency to maximise profits and cut down on work.

In the old school days you had pretty experienced chefs doing the cooking, now dishes are made and churned out by what is little more than line cooks just following a basic recipe. That in itself should highlight and show you the difference in quality between dishes made now and the dishes made 30-40 years ago.

Sadly, it's back to basics for a lot of us, myself included. Simplification and not complication seems the name of the game.

This is just my take on all this, I'm not saying it's the right one and I'm hoping it will stimulate some useful debate and discussion on what is for me a fascinating subject.

[Derek Dansak]

Its so true that bir cut corners to make profit, and usually compromise taste. but not always.

I know of 1 bir in the poorest local village that produces the taste at 4 quid for madras , and its top notch.

and they have been in business for over 15 years

never let me in the kitchen though ! 

so i am not convinced its all down to expenses. 

[spiceyokooko]

so i am not convinced its all down to expenses.

Hmm.

Does it taste like a Madras from 30-40 years ago though?