Topic: Cooking curries - the BIR technique against lob it all in the pan technique

[Spadds]

Hello everyone and happy holidays to you.

I'd actually forgotten I'd joined this forum some time ago until recently I got an forum email.  As such it rekindled my interest into many subjects discussed here and hence my post.

In summary I've been cooking Indian dishes for some time but I've always put all the ingredients into the pan during the cooking session prior to eating.  I've never done any preparation, or made bases or pre-cooked meats etc so I am intrigued by the topics of discussion on here.

I think my main question is, why at home do people make bases/precook meats etc rather than cooking on demand?

I'm guessing it's speed convenience, or is it based totally on taste and that the pre-prepared bases etc give much more depth of flavour?  Would one of these dishes be 10 times better than my cook in 1 go curries?

I'm going to head down the road of making some bases at home and just wanted a bit of guidance/confirmation as to what I'd be doing and why I'd be doing it!

Any comments welcomed!

I'll be heading to the help for starters posts next!

cheers

spadds

[Stephen Lindsay]

The BIR approach advocated on this forum is to replicate the kinds of curries enjoyed from takeaways and restaurants which differ in preparation from curries cooked in an Indian home.

The three basic parts to a BIR curry are 1. the base. 2. the spice mix and 3. precooked chicken, lamb or veg etc. The addition of other spices and ingredients, produces the variety of curries we are used to on the Indian menu.

Some people on the forum advocate that perfecting the technique for a basic medium curry is the key to making your own curries like those from the BIR. This technique can then be applied to other recipes with successful results.

[George]

I'm going to head down the road of making some bases at home and just wanted a bit of guidance/confirmation as to what I'd be doing and why I'd be doing it!
Any comments welcomed!

You could consider starting off with an approach I now use almost all the time - I make only enough base sauce to be enough for ONE curry. Why make industrial quantities - many litres of the stuff - when it probably doesn't taste any better? After all, most of use are not running a take-away, are we? Someone catering for a family of four could make 4 times the quantity of base sauce, and still use it all up for one meal.

Base sauce preparation takes about 20 minutes or 10 minutes if you use a pressure cooker.
While the base sauce is simmering, I prepare my 'pre-cooked' chicken, normally under the grill, marinaded in advance, if I want. The base sauce and chicken are therefore ready after about 20 minutes.

One reason for pre-cooking the chicken separately is that I don't want many poultry juices in my curry sauce.

Then I make the final curry which, as you can see from numerous videos on this site, takes about 8 or 10 minutes. So that's a meal in about 30 minutes - and the whole process is little different to cooking from scratch.