Topic: The BIR secret....

[romain]

Hi all.

Mickyp mentioned he had found glebekitchen from a post here so I thought I'd come and visit. Noble ox and Garp - thank you for the kind words. Porchy - I am glad my video helped you. I run glebekitchen as a hobby just to get people to come back into the kitchen and cook from scratch so you made my day.

Do you remember where you saw me say "creator". As surmised I meant crater and autocorrect has seemingly made me look the fool. I've been looking but there are a lot of posts to sift through.

BTW - I make no claim to have cracked any "BIR secret". I honestly don't actually believe it exists. I've talked my way into a couple restaurant kitchens and I have been cooking a very long time. My way is not the right way. It's just what I have managed to come up with over the years and it seems to work for me.

Cheers,

Romain

[mickyp]

Yay, welcome to you and your creators Romain

[romain]

Thanks mickyp! And thank you for pointing me here.

[Garp]

Welcome Romain - I'm sure you have a lot to offer this site 

[Peripatetic Phil]

Welcome aboard, Romain

[noble ox]

Hi Romaine and pleased to see you here.
There have been numerous debates on this site re secret ingredients v technique.
For me its technique the reduction of base to caramelise the onions.
There is a fine line between burning and getting the sought after aroma pushing it further and when to stop which will come with practice.
Once again thanks for sharing your kitchen experiences
Cracked it at last

[romain]

Thank you for the welcoming words.

What I have seen feeds my belief that technique is what matters. The restaurants have the same ingredients available to anyone who visits an Indian grocer. It is a largely level playing field from what I can tell.

Bloom the spices in oil. That is the same whether it's restaurant or homestyle. Make sure they are cooked enough to lose the "raw" taste. Wet ingredients go in after.

There are usually two different bases. One generic and one for creamy dishes like butter chicken. I don't much care for butter chicken so I've never bothered trying to figure out the creamy base.

Tamarind paste is your friend. So is amchoor powder. Delicately sour.

Vindaloo tends to be paste and not spice based. I've seen this more than once. That one took me forever to get through my thick head.

The only thing that dictates the juiciness of chicken (or any protein that isn't taken to the stage of collagen breakdown) is the internal temperature. That's not specific to Indian. It's food science. There is no such thing as sealing in the juices. That is also food science. What you do get from browning protein (or onions) is the Maillard reaction. You can expand the error bars by brining.

Indian food is fundamentally about browning onions. This is also Maillard. The closer you can get to this in the "caramelization" stage the better your curries will taste. You need to balance evaporation against this goal of course.

That's about all I know. No secret ingredients or techniques to offer I am afraid...

[Peripatetic Phil]

Somewhat confused as to the exact difference between caramelisation and the Maillard reaction, I did some web searching but most of the results appeared to be based on the Wikip

[romain]

That is the chemistry and certainly enlightening for those that want to go deep. For the less scientifically inclined what is important is that it happens and it is important to a lot of cooking.

Simpler view - https://theweek.com/articles/609542/maillard-reaction-most-important-cooking-technique-youve-never-heard

[jalfreziT]

The only thing that dictates the juiciness of chicken (or any protein that isn't taken to the stage of collagen breakdown) is the internal temperature. That's not specific to Indian. It's food science. There is no such thing as sealing in the juices. That is also food science.

You sir, are a breath of fresh air   
I sincerely hope you stick around.