Topic: Dagad phool

[Gazzer63]

Hi all.

If I may pick your brains. Anybody tried using using this herb? Black stone flower/ stone flower / dagad phool.

All the best

Gazzer63

[DalPuri]

Yes, revolting! The dominant flavour of Natco GM.
Its most probably a Marmite herb, you either love it or hate it.
I can't liken it to anything other than its another perfume flavour like coriander, kewra, rose etc..

[chewytikka]

Gazzer63
Do you actually have some of this black stone flower. Very obscure,

I seem to remember Vah Chef using it in some of his early Tamil videos.
NOT a herb, its a Lichen/Fungi, with no distinct flavour of its own, another name for it is Kalpasi

It may be used by chefs in South Indian BIR, but I doubt the majority of BIR
will have heard of it, or indeed bother with it, because of its rarity and cost!

[livo]

Dagarful aka Dagar Phool. It's nice, It's "Indian". It's interesting. I like it.  Is it the "missing link"? No. I don't think so.  Will I use it again? Definitely.

[livo]

I was looking at something completely different this morning in old posts, circa 2011 and decided to do a Google search on The Curry Club.  My late Father-in-Law was a subscriber way back in the late 1980's when I first met my wife. There is little left of it other than Pat Chapman's books (which cop a fair slamming on this site).  I have none and I don't know what happened to the FIL's old stuff when he passed a few years ago.  Anyway, the Google search surprised me with a find of this very small CRO thread of only the OP and 7 replies (1 from George) dating back to 2005. Pat Chapman knows the answer to the secret

The OP, by Blondie, contains an extract from, and a link to, an article in The Guardian from 2002. 
It's curry, but not as we know it 

I decided to read it through just out of interest.

Cinnamon Club chef at the time Vivek Singh discusses the importation of special ingredients for specific dishes and here I surprisingly found this reference to "Rock Moss".

 "In common with other top-class Indian restaurants, the Cinnamon Club imports many spices directly. 'A Rajasthani dish with coriander grown in Kenya somehow doesn't taste the same,' Vivek says. 'We might serve a Rajasthani lamb curry with lemon rice from the south of India, but the Rajasthani lamb curry itself must be authentic.'
Red chillies are brought in from Rajasthan; pepper, cinnamon and cardamom from Kerala; mustard from Bengal; rattan jyot from Kashmir; and rock moss from Hyderabad. This last ingredient, which looks exactly as it sounds, doesn't taste of anything, but brings out the favour of biryanis. 'A real biryani requires a high level of skill,' Vivek explains, 'because the marinated meat is covered with rice that is already two-thirds cooked. Then it is sealed and steamed so that the raw meat cooks in the same time as the rice. It needs a large quantity to work.'

[Peripatetic Phil]

The OP, by Blondie, contains an extract from, and a link to, an article in The Guardian from 2002.  It's curry, but not as we know it 

Great find, Livo.  I read the article from cover to cover, and apart from the fact that I thought that Veerasawmy's was owned by Camelia Panjabi, not Namita, the only part of the article that worried me was this bit : 

Monosodium glutamate enhances taste and thickens sauces.

Is MSG really a thickening agent ?
** Phil.

[livo]

I read that too and had the same thought. I don't think it is Phil. At least certainly not in the quantities that I've ever used it.  Maybe they used to use it by the cup-full.

I have some Ajinamoto in the spice cupboard that I occasionally use when it is specifically called for in some Asian dishes or seasoning spice mixes, but it is generally a no show for me nowadays.

I knew a guy (now deceased) who would immediately develop a crippling migraine upon eating even the slightest amount of Flavour Enhancer 621.