Topic: Our recent lesson

[jb]

Recently I was kindly invited(along with Dave Curryhell) by Natterjack(Chris) to a Sunday afternoon curry lesson in Chris' local restaurant.It was a bit of a journey for Dave and I,but obviously any chance to get behind the  scenes in a BIR is a must. The lesson was advertised as 'making curry gravy' but in the end we did this and much more,each of us taking it in turns to cook our dish of choice with the head chef looking over our shoulder.There were a few other people with us,but we naturally occupied the best position in the kitchen to see exactly what was going on;the poor chef and owner was bombarded with our questions!!

There were no real suprises,the chef made the gravy by boiling the usual suspects;onions,carrot,pepper and potato,along with garlic/ginger and some turmeric and salt.He then did the second stage,or 'tarka' as he called it and combined the two.Interestingly he added some whole spices(including ajowan seeds which I haven't seen many recipes use) straight into the gravy.He wasn't worried about them when blending the gravy,his industrial size blitzer soon took care of everything.His garam massala was freshly made,I didn't get a breakdown of quantities but I took a couple of pictures of what he puts in,the smell actually reminded me of the Jalpur garam massala,very fragrent indeed.





For me the most important thing I saw was the constant use of spiced oil by the chef.Chis actually asked the owner whether the chef used any such oil and the answer was no,only fresh veg oil is used(actually he said the chef used olive oil for health reasons but we all thought this was a bit of a red herring).It was only when the chef started cooking some dishes(there were a few customers in the restaurant) that I noticed him taking a spoonful of some spicy looking oil out of a tin,not only did he take some of this to start the dish but he added some halfway through cooking the actual dishes.We asked him how he made it,it was a bit vague but it seems when he makes his pre cooked chicken he adds oil and spices,after the chicken is cooked the residue is then topped up with oil.Whether this goes into his vegetarian dishes I don't know.I just wonder how many other chefs/owners who claim they only use fresh veg oil actually do use spiced oil in some way,I'm always told by my local favourite restaurant that they only use fresh oil.

We cooked our own dishes and then sat and ate them.We made a bhuna,vindaloo and I made a pathia,all using the gravy that we had made earlier.I have to say they were all very nice indeed!!

Everything seemed to happen so fast while we were there,I managed to get the recipe for his chicken tikka(which I'll post),hopefully we'll be able to get back in there pretty soon.Chris has some footage which he'll hopefully sort and upload.

[goncalo]

Excellent report JB. It's a pitty there isn't more information obtained regarding the oil. I look forward to the tikka recipe

[DalPuri]

Nice write up JB. 

Its going to be a very brave chef that admits they cook with used oil. 
You only have to watch through the viceroy videos to see that even Ali's chef uses spiced oil.
Not all dishes, but you can clearly see the colour difference in some videos and its NOT a trick of the light. 

[curryhell]

A good summary of the trip JB.  Hopefully, we'll get back soon to question the chef  a little more in depth re. that oil and a few other things we see

[Peripatetic Phil]

We cooked our own dishes and then sat and ate them.We made a bhuna,vindaloo and I made a pathia,all using the gravy that we had made earlier.  I have to say they were all very nice indeed!!

Tell us about the bhuna, JB :  this is the one that many of us would love to be able to create.
** Phil.

[Malc.]

Hi JB

What a great opportunity for you, I noted that you didn't mention tomato in the base ingredients. If it doesn't contain tomato, I would be very interested to learn of the recipe for it.

Looking forward to the tikka recipe too.

Cheers,

Malc.

[curryhell]

If it doesn't contain tomato, I would be very interested to learn of the recipe for it.

Sorry Axe, but this, in the form of blended plumb tomatoes, went in the tarka and was then added.

[natterjak]

Credit for this rests with Dalpuri as it was he who first spotted that Zaman of Datchet were offering cooking lessons. I have some raw footage which I need to re-order into the correct sequence, will try to do so by Monday. However be aware this is somewhat choppy due to there being up to 12 people in the kitchen and lots happening in parallel, so the recipes are not captured in full. 

For anyone wondering why this wasn't mentioned in advance there was in fact a thread last year asking who was interested and JB and Curryhell were the first two to respond. Zaman only offered three places hence JB and CH were the only ones I could invite along.

[DalPuri]

Ahhhhhhhhh nice one! I was going to ask if it was that place.  ;D
Glad you got in there. 

[RubyDoo]

Excellent and thank you for so openly sharing the experience for the benefit of us all.