Topic: what i learned from my cooking lesson

[madpower]

I seen a advertisement in my local health food store were i buy my spices offering curry courses ,so i thought why not and booked myself in,the chef teacher was a bangladeshi and he was showing us how they cook meals at home ,not bir style,i must admit i experimented the once,i blended some of the sauce and used it as a base and made my best madras yet                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The beginning of cooking is vital and it is what gives the curry the flavor,this recipe is to serve one but dont increase the quantity of whole spices to much when cooking for more
warm a saucepan up and add enough olive oil just to wet the bottom of the pan,add 2 tsps off finely diced onion and cook slowly until you see  them starting to turn brown Do not stir or move them,now add,3 green cardamon pods,1 star anice ,3 cloves, 2 one inch pieces of cassia bark (not cinnamon) and one tej petta leaf,drop them in spreaded apart over the onions DO  not stir ,put a lid on and cook on a low heat for about  20 minuets,you want all of the onion to be a dark brown ,then gently add a desert spoon of gg paste and a desert spoon veg oil,try not to stir to much,now stir in 1 onion along with 1/4 of a cup of veg oil and salt to taste,cook onions slowly until turning brown and then add 1/2 tsp each of roasted crushed coriander seeds,cumin seeds  and fennel seeds,leave the spices to sit on the top of the onions for about 15 minuets without stirring,now stir in 1 diced tomato and cook  until broke down,then stir in 2 desert spoons of mixed powder(,he also had ginger powder and fenugreek leaf in his mix) and 2 desert spoons of yogurt,cook out gently for 15 mins,then add enough hot water to cook gently for 40 minutes  before adding your meat until cooked,finally add coriander herb and garam masala,the secret is not stirring the spices when cooking them with onion,i think you will be surprised at the results 

[pete]

thank you. So did this have anything like a BIR taste or was it totally different?

[madpower]

No it is not much like a bir but does have a quality nice flavor running through the sauce.
Today i think i made the best dish i have made yet,it beats most of the birs i get around here.I removed the whole spices from the sauce and liquidized it and then cooked it for a further 10 mins,in a frying pan added about 6 slices of onion and the seeds from 2 cardamon pods,again without stirring,once the onion had browned a little i fried green pepper,chilli and then tomato,i added pre cooked chicken,and then i added the curry sauce a sprinkle of garam masala and coriander herb,it was delicious and i cant wait to make it again.

[livo]

                   .....     this recipe is to serve one but dont increase the quantity of whole spices to much when cooking for more

I'd like to know more about this point. It goes towards a topic discussed in other threads about spicing levels for increased servings.  Were you given any reasoning here or advice on how to scale up?

[madpower]

Yes i did ask him this,he said do not increase the whole spices you use at the beginning to much as it could become over powering,you should use a maximum of 5 cloves and 6 cardamon pods,add another small piece of cassia but no more star anise or tej petta,this amount should flavor a large pan of the sauce,about the dry spices he did say once you are confident you could experiment with your favorite spices

[livo]

This is a very interesting point and it is actually consistent with information given to me by another chef and my own research.  There will be others here who disagree but this is a common point that keeps coming up, ie; non linear scaling of spices.

I will give your recipe a try and thanks for posting.

[madpower]

you are welcome Livo,i very much doubt that you will be disappointed,without looking back i am not to sure if i mentioned how important it is that all of the water evaporates so that you get the full flavor and a very nice smell also

[bhamcurry]

just a note here from a cooking nerd: cassia is what most people think of as "cinnamon". True cinnamon is not found in nice little cheap containers of ground spices in your local grocery store.

Tej patta is the leaf of the cassia plant. It's called "bay leaf" but it's a completely different plant - European bay leaf is a laurel leaf, and has only 1 large vein running down the middle. Tej, cinnamon cassia leaf, Asian bay leaf, or sweet leaf has 3 veins on the underside.

[Peripatetic Phil]

just a note here from a cooking nerd: cassia is what most people think of as "cinnamon". True cinnamon is not found in nice little cheap containers of ground spices in your local grocery store.

Well, I don' think that that is invariably the case.  I don't normally buy "nice little cheap containers of ground spices in [my] local grocery store", but in practice buy somewhat larger packs in speciality Asian grocers or Asian supermarkets,.  But because I use so little real cinnamon (I use cassia bark in my curries), I did buy that locally, in a nice little cheap container (I forget in which shop