Another Demo Bengal Cuisine, Brick Lane

[pete]

Hi Pete,

I have already tried to email them and guess what! No reply. I don't know why because they were so full on and attentive during lesson. It can't be where they are so busy, because before lesson I emailed them loads. I'll try again though.

Same here, cq, same here!
Do you think we have been duped?
The curry gravy isn't right is it?
When you make your Bengal curry sauce, does it turn out? thicker than mine?
Being as that makes a very large proportion of the vindaloo, it has got to be exact, hasn't it?
The main flavour will come from it.
I feel like giving up.
How many hours do we spend on this?
I think we have the several correct curry bases on this site.
But in the restaurants they are adding to the pot all the time as they salvage the oil off the cooked dishes.
If you bought a curry on the first day they make the base, I bet it would taste like one of ours.
I'm trying a few of the recipes from this site tonight.
I've gone back to the base that uses the 600ml of oil.
That seems very hard to beat

[curryqueen]

Hi Pete,

Yes my gravy did turn out thicker than yours.  Please don't give up - although I know you really don't mean that! 

I think that we should get on the the Bengal and have it out with them.  Having said that, they might get suspicious.  I suppose we could be just friends or neighbours, couldn't we?  I do feel very cross about the gravy, but I do feel that the green pepper enhances the smell and flavour.

What do you think then?  Shall we accost them or not?

[Yellow Fingers]

Did anyone who attended the brick lane demos actually eat in at the Bengal BEFORE going on the course? This is what I would have done because if their curries have that special flavour and I then made the same one on the demo and it didn't, I would be pretty miffed. I really think that they are just doing enough to make it all look authentic, but they are actually missing something out.

Also if these guys have e-mail it's almost certain they have googled for their course or restaurant name and will already be watching this group, which could explain why they are not responding to your e-mails. They don't want to be pestered for the missing technique/ingredients perhaps?


A note to the admin(if you read this): why have you got an american spell checker on a British web site?

[pete]

Hi Pete,

Yes my gravy did turn out thicker than yours. Please don't give up - although I know you really don't mean that!

I think that we should get on the the Bengal and have it out with them. Having said that, they might get suspicious. I suppose we could be just friends or neighbours, couldn't we? I do feel very cross about the gravy, but I do feel that the green pepper enhances the smell and flavour.

What do you think then? Shall we accost them or not?

I don't see what we can do if Bengal has misinformed us.
They don't seem to reply to emails and they are too far for me to casually visit.
The staff all seemed so nice , though.
I am surprised.
If anyone else goes on this course, they must be very careful of this curry gravy issue.
Taste the stuff in the big pot and check if it has the flavour.
If you can't get this right, then you can't cook it at home.
I wouldn't mind making the gravy in the same quantity as them.
It freezes ok, I've tried it with loads of curries.
The main ingredient goes a bit soft, when thawed, but it still retains that delicious flavour.
I would have two months worth of gravy, made in one go.
The demonstrated curries at Bengal are very easy to cook.
That leaves only two possibilities of error.
The curry gravy is wrong or
You can't get the required heat on your cooker.

[pete]

but I do feel that the green pepper enhances the smell and flavour.

and yes, I think green peppers are an important ingredient.

[Mark J]

The trouble with asking to see the base sauce cooked at these places is that you will always have a scaled down version, also maybe they are expecting people to just request demo's of the various standard curry dishes and never imagined people would request the base? I suspect a failry unskilled chef could reproduce most BIR curries given a good base

[curryqueen]

Hi Pete, 

You do need to have a decent amount of oil when making the base and also when you are making a curry.  Curry gravy plus 3 to 4 tablespoonss of oil will give a curry the exact consistency of that of an Indian restaurant/take-away!

I think I am going to do what you have suggested and that is to put excess oil (or some of it) from each curry I make in future back into the pot of gravy.  Trouble is when it is all used up then we will have to start from scratch again, unless, we keep a new batch on the go topping up the original.  I made a prawn vindaloo and prawn pathia this weekend, so we will start with those.  One thing you have to bear in mind, is that if you only make a couple of dishes the flavour probably would not be the same if you were making say 20 to 30 dishes or more like restaurants.

Glad you like the peppers, they do give a certain aroma of their own to the base.  One day, just one day, we will get there!

[ghanna]

hi ,curryqueen
they used only 0.25 pint water in the gravy that they showed you ,this is why it is thick .
you need to use at least 2 pounds of water ( 1 liter ) i.e the same weight of onion.
this is the classic proportion of onion to water as i have been told by different chefs,
but in the restaurant when they showed you they couldnot use this amount of water because it is going to take a long time to evaporate, the water measurement is not that important you can add more if you find out that the onion is still raw and not yet cooked.
i am sorry it didnot work for you this time.
thanks
ghanna

[curryqueen]

hi ghanna,  I know they only used 1/4 pint of water.   I posted the recipe just as they had shown me.  Anyone on this site would know that it's not going to work out if they know about gravy/base's used.  I always use 2pounds onions to 2 pints water to 1 pint of oil or so.  You are the only one that noticed this and remarked on it.   I wonder how the others got on?

[ghanna]

hi, curryqueen
i have been tricked and deceived by so many chefs, cookery book writers, formulas on the net, because of that i am very careful now.
thank you
ghanna