Doing it the lazy way?

[StoneCut]

This past weekend I dreamed up a little Bistro with my wife. We even started designing the menu, where we made sure to re-use as many core ingredients as possible. Apart from various other dishes, we came to the conclusion that we'd need 2-3 essential curry dishes, too.
First off would be basic Chicken Tikkas which we'd also put on a Pizzas, Pitas, Salads and whatnot. They'd have to be made on a flattop, oven or pan, though.

Based on the Tikkas we'd probably offer a Chicken Tikka Masala but also a Madras (using pre-cooked chicken and/or king prawns, though). So, in the end there'd be a CTM, a Chicken Madras and a Prawn Madras. I'm hesitant to do a Prawn Massala as we'd have lots of king prawns marinated and we're unsure how well they would sell. Better leave them unmarinated for cost reasons, I guess. The frozen Prawns can just be chucked into the Madras sauce and that should work fine.

Anyway, while thinking about the amount of labour involved with all of our other dishes, and ways to minimize this labour, a couple of questions/ideas popped up in my head:

• CTM: If I use pre-cooked Tikkas and a pre-made Massala sauce (without the base gravy) - why not simply prepare a ton of finished Massala sauce that already contains the gravy ? Ideally I'd just ladle some finished CTM sauce into the pan, heat it up well, toss in the prepared Tikka and heat that through, too. Done. Is there anything wrong with this logic ? Would this work ? Please keep in mind that Curries here in Germany are terrible and that we'd probably still produce a better curry than most restaurants IF this even works.
• Madras: Here I have a similar logic - wouldn't it be possible to cook the Madras sauce separately from the meat (with the base gravy in) and just chuck it all together when an order comes in and heat it up ?
• Keeping in mind that this needs to be kept as simple as possible I would actually change my usual course and prefer recipes that use Patak's pastes and as little ingredients as possible -> which ones would you recommend for this scenario ? CBM ? C2G ? Dipuraja ? Any others ?
• Do you reckon there should also be a King Prawn massala after all ?
• Which dish is DEFINITELY missing ?
• Which vegetarian dishes should go on the menu ?
• Has anyone every tried marinating beef mince in a Tandoori marinade and just fry it off ? That'd be interesting for a Sandwich if it worked/tasted good.

[Malc.]

There is nothing wrong with the idea of cooking separate dishes until you consider how you are going to store it, how much you are going to make and how long it lasts before you have to bin it and replace it. Not forgetting that a base is used to make a variety of dishes including your vegetarian option as well as the masala dishes etc. So unless your going to make small batches of everything which would be very time consuming, i'd suggest either freezing portions or sticking to the BIR methods already in place.

I can't advise on the pastes.

I always order King Prawn when available on a menu.

Korma is also a popular dish but you could opt for passanda, also biriyani.

Vege in my opinion should include sag aloo, chana masala, dal samba, veg curry, what about rajma masala, this will afford a chilli con carne too

Never tried minced beef in that way, but would instinctively stick to lamb as it lends itself to many things.

Sorry if it's vague but without knowing what menu it's going on, it's hard to say.

[Derek Dansak]

Interesting post.  I agree with axe, stick to bir methods.
    Alternatively you can make up large batches of curry sauce by making 3 large tubs of
1) blended onion
2) blended carrot
3) blended tomato

for madras you might add only 1 and 3   along with the spices and lots of oil

for balti you would add 1,2 

its easy to scale this up to 30 portions and makes a smooth sauce.

The curry  needs a long slow cook and develops a great taste. I would add the chicken to the sauce for
30  minutes then remove it and keep it in fridge. This improves the curry sauce flavour.

This approach is worth considering if you run a business.
If i opened a bir restaurant i would do my ctm like this and balti.
then use bir method for madras and rogan josh, and bhuna.
I dream of opening a restaurant one day !!   

[DalPuri]

2) blended carrot

I made a chicken curry last week and was a bit short on shopping so added a few fillers.
A couple of potatoes and a med - large carrot.

The carrot ruined my curry! 
So i had a quick browse and found this : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dont-Put-Carrots-in-Curry-Its-Wrong/208578693402

[StoneCut]

Many thanks for sharing your thoughts Axe and Derek Dansak, I really appreciate it! If anyone else has any ideas please fire away! I think looking at things from a business view and wanting to minimize costs and labour gives a new twist to some of the things we talk about here.

Anyway, regarding storage of prepared sauces I thought that they would probably be fine for up to a week provided no meat touched them while in the fridge. I'm not sure about that aspect, though. I guess I'll need to test it out (and report back here). Another idea would be to freeze some of the prepared sauces.

You are right that we'd be much more versatile with just the BIR approach, of course, but I fear that curries would not be as popular as they are in the UK so we tried to restrict ourselves to two or three that are very different from each other in order to minimize costs (keep in mind, this is more of a bistro/pub sort of thing we had in mind and not a restaurant).

The reason why there's no Korma on our fictional menu is my personal impression that a Korma tastes *similar* to just using "german" curry powder blend on meat. I'm willing to be persuaded that I do need it, though Vindaloo and Phall are completely out of the question, though. Much too hot for the average german. If someone wants a really hot curry I'll just toss an extra teaspoon of chilli powder into their Madras, I figured.

Axe, you said you always order King Prawn - do you mean as King Prawn Massala or any other curry? We're trying to minimize the different cuts of meat and fish we need, too. Hence why we have only Chicken or King Prawn (actually, me and the wife are not too found of fish and/or prawns ourselves but we know how people love them even if they were frozen and because they cook so quickly).

I'll need to take a closer look (meaning: cook one) at a biryani, I've actually never had one. If the end-result is *considerably* different (taste-wise and looks-wise) from a Madras or CTM then that sounds like a nice candidate.

The veggie choices so far already included a Sag Aloo but I didn't mention it purposely (didn't want to restrict other's thoughts). The "Rajma Masala" you mentioned is an awesome idea (previously unknown to me, too) because we both love kidney beans - do you have a BIR-style recipe you can recommend (or any other)?

I had a look at some "Dal Sambar" images and I fear that it just doesn't have the looks of an appetizing meal (similar to a Tarka Dal). I realize this has nothing to do with taste at all but I think it might be important for people who've never ordered it before and see some "brown stuff" on their neighbor's plate. I want the dishes to look great - and the veggie ones even more so as they are often just tacked onto menus. The indian cuisine has so many excellent veggie dishes that even I could turn veggie. And I want to show that potential. Chana Masala is definitely going on the menu (btw: has anyone tried these MDH packages for Chana Masala? - any good ?)

As for lamb: Lamb is fairly hard to get here in Germany. It's either minced and frozen (what I call "brain mince" due to how it looks once it gets filled into the package) or fresh but then only available from, say, a Turkish butcher. Since you cannot rely on them having fresh lamb available on a constant basis I'd rather not use it all.

Derek - I'm not sure I understood your idea correctly. With "Blended onion" do you mean sort of a base gravy ? If so, then that's actually kind of what I meant to say but a little more broken up then my idea. There are actually a multitude of possibilities for, say, a CTM:
1) Tikka get chucked into pan along with fully-prepared Tikka Massala sauce (including base), heat it, done ? - as outlined in first post
2) Tikka gets chucked into pan with base gravy and separate "masala sauce", add prepared "Tikka Masala" spice mix. Done.
3) Full-on BIR style (separate gravy, masala sauce, separate spices and so on)
When you say cooking the chicken in the sauce I'm guessing you mean the "blended onions"? If so, I guess that'd be my "pre-cooked chicken" right there, correct? That'd be a sound idea.

Any ideas on how any of the members would run such a business that needs to minimize work and costs (but still taste good) are more than welcome. While we did throw together this *hypothetical* menu we do indeed intend to start a food business at some point in the future (say 5-10 years down the road).

If anyone is interested in the menu we came up with please let me know and I'll translate it and post it. We even went as far as classifying where each ingredient would go (fridge, freezer, pantry and so on) and which ingredients would be on our shopping lis (not finished yet, though, missing curry base and sauce ingredients).

[Malc.]

You must remember that all the procedures and techniques we discuss here are already optimised for a for a business to run. Deviating from these methods will not afford you the same results which is the ability to cook a variety of dishes in a quick cost effective manner.

For cooked preparations, I am fairly sure the maximum shelf life is 4 days without preservatives. This will include cooked meats and base sauces etc. But you should check with your Food Standards Authority for relevant policy.

I understand why you didn't include Korma now, which is very popular here in the UK. Perhaps a sagwala would be more appealing? Only you can answer these questions though, what flavours is it that Germans like to dine on?

My reference to King Prawn is in relation to having the choice of prawn or king prawn i.e. for a puree. If you wish to reduce your stock then I would go with prawn only.

You might consider that rather than offer sauces and a choice of fillings i.e chicken, lamb, prawn, veg etc., that you tailor the menu down to producing specific dishes. Pick out what you feel will be popular, for example, chicken tikka masala, lamb madras, prawn sagwala, vegetable curry, etc. Keeping in mind that this is not a dedicated curry restaurant.

Happy Chris posted a recipe for Rajma Masala, I posted some pictures of my attempt it. It could be made to BIR specs I feel, but this particluar recipe wasn't.

The Dal Samba in my local is basically a Tarka Dal with mixed veg, different to what you find on Google but I hear what your saying about presentation. Again if your reducing the menu you probably won't want it but one dish I absolutely love is the aubergine bhaji or brinjal bhaji. It has a fantastic curry almost chocolate taste and not forgetting samosa of course.

Biryani is a different animal altogether, being a dish of rice cooked with meat or veg within it. Up side, is that you could use leftovers as stuffing for wraps, tacho's, or even samosa etc.

[StoneCut]

I realize that the very definition of BIR with its base gravy is already a shortcut to indian food, so to say. However, these BIRs/TAs mainly cater for people wanting indian food and hence need to offer much diversity by varying the base gravy with additional spices etc.

I believe this is where our place would be fundamentally different with offering only a couple of different curries (mind you, if people will eventually only order curry - and lots of it - then I'll change the business model in an instant, hehe).

Going purely "Indian" as a German would not be very effective, I believe, you also wouldn't be able to sell much D

[chonk]

Hey StoneCut!

I really love pulses and legumes in general, and Rajma is one of my favourite curries aswell, but if I had to choose only one last dish, I would go for the whole urad bean and one nicely cooked "Dal Bukhara" / "Dal Makhani" / "Kali Dal". They call it also "Dhaba Dal" in India (Dhaba meaning roadside restaurant), because it's THE signature dish of the small punjabi vendors, that made this curry popular around the world, right after the partition.

Greetings!

[Malc.]

The Masala thing through me for a while when I first started getting into cooking curry. I believe it simply means spice/s and not directly aimed at a dish with a red coloured, coconut flavoured sauce. So technically, chicken tikka masala is pieces of chicken in spices, the fact they have added bell pepper is irrelevant, if you see what I mean.

The Lamb Pujabi is a tandoor cooked dish so it's effectively lamb tikka but not what you'll be expecting from a British dish of that name I would expect.

The butter chicken on your menu will be Murgh Makhani.

Sounds like a good excuse to go visit the restaurant for a curry.

Here's the Rajma Masala that Chris posted.

[StoneCut]

Chonk, I fear that noone over here really knows about "Dhaba Dal" and I have the same problem with it as with other lentil dishes: They simply don't look very good (I KNOW that they taste good, but ...). I want people who happen to pass by to think "Wow, that looks tasty. What is it?". So, it needs to be colourful in some way (and be it through condiments). Also, I'd need to buy black lentils from an asian shop and I want to minimize specialty ingredients as much as possible (well, spices and so on will stay, of course). But the suggestion itself is a really good one. Especially as there'd be a little something to talk about with the street vendors and all. So please keep it coming.

Axe, Masala simply referring to a spice mix is known to me (more or less), but I didn't know how else to refer to the sauce for CTM that I actually meant. I guess that's quite confusing, sorry.

Isn't "Murgh Makani" just the indian name for "Butter Chicken" ? From what I read about it it's more of a traditional dish hence why I asked whether that would be made with a gravy. I'm thinking no.

I definitely need to try some of their other dishes (only had a Madras from there so far) AND make the Rajma Masala. Thanks again!