Topic: Bit of outsider perspective

[Serum]

I've been reading loads about "the smell" and "the taste" here and though I've not tried the BIR approach to cooking I have cooked quite a lot of different food in my time and there are a few things that popped into my head.  I might be stating the obvious to the more experienced people but sometimes a bit of thought from someone who isn't too involved can help a little!

I don't think the main hit of a BIR curry comes from the base sauce, this is more of a background thing, more of the aftertaste.  In general if you put something in near the end it'll hit you hard with flavour and aroma, the longer you leave it in, the flavour has less impact as it has spread through the food.  I think the strong aroma and taste has to be something that's added during the final stages.

The kind of food that gets better when you cook it for ages and store in the fridge or freezer (soup, stew, spag bol etc) is nice but doesn't have that "in your face" flavour that BIR curry has.  For this reason I don't think a base sauce could ever give this.  It'll contribute a lot to the overall flavour but won't give that big hit.  This is the same reason a BIR curry will lose a bit of it's potency when it's stored overnight, but a home style meat curry will get better.

I think cooking at speed and certain spices blasted at a high temperature during the final stages must be the key to that strong smoky flavour.  The kind of stoves you get at a curry house kick out a lot more flame than my one at home ever could.

Maybe I'll be completely wrong and look stupid once I give these base sauces a try though!

[Curry King]

Hi Serum,

This is the mystery, another member Haldi has recently been buying base sauce of he's local and swears that the "taste" is already there.  When said sauce is made at home its not the same which holds up with the amount of times we have been told you cannot make it at home.

If you try one of the simpler bases on here that are from actual BIR's they are very bland which makes sense given the wide range of dishes they make from it. 

Anyway let us know how you get on when you try a sauce from here.

cK