Topic: Starting at the beginning

[fogar]

As i said in my introduction, there is a wonderful world of cooking out there and not only in Indian cuisin. If one could put time aside to learn from scratch I am sure they would be rewarded for their efforts. When you can get to the point of experiementing in the knowledge that you are in full control of what your trying to achieve is a wonderful situation but it requires learning the basics of Food and individual ingredients.

The first lesson in any subject is History and its forgotten that Food was not invented for gourmet values but to survive and carry on the Species. With that in mind, the Body was equiped with Taste buds on the Tongue to warn of any danger from the World outside. These tastes were Salt, Heat, Bitterness and Sweetness, which combined gave the red or green light as to its edible content without knowing the ingredient. Eons later and our taste buds still use the same process and while there may be differences in peoples limits, them limits are small in reality, that is why too much of any becomes unappealing to the majority as a repast. You may ask why do some People love a certain Restaurant while others loathe them, well its all to do with the individuals Salt levels which vary from person to person, add the heat factor and hence the difference from Venues. When it comes to Indian Restaurants, they are unique in using heavy spicing which Traditionally came about from disquising rancid Meats and Vegetables in order to make them edible, most Countries poor had some way of making Food last longer.

In this Day and Age its not needed anymore and a refinement of how to use condiments is at the pinnacle of Cooking good Food. No matter what the Cuisin, base sauces are all cooked with one thing in common and that is its name, base. Adding too many ingredients and Spices only complicates things that later ties one's hands in influencing a dish. Remember the Four major influences and always be careful not to add them in any base sauces, Indian or other, they can all be successfully added later on in the individual Dish, where you will have more control on where you want it to go. Of course ingredients will have a variety of Tastes that you must be wary off adding, for instance the pith of Sweet Peppers can give a very bitter flavour to sauce, thats why you must keep things very basic at early stages.

More later, I'm a very slow Typist.  :

[mike travis]

Interesting  look forward to reading more...  ;D

[Yousef]

Interesting reading.

The only time i have ever managed to get some info direct from a chef on the base sauce was in New Zealand, i know not quite BIR Style but he did elude to the fact that they used 2 base sauce (yes 2);-

1.  Clear onion base sauce
2.  One tomato based, base sauce

The idea behind it it that these sauces do not have much spice in, its added at the beginning of the cooking stage, thrown in chefs pinches directly in to the hot oil, prior to the base sauce being added.
I suppose this sort of supports your comments Fogar regarding a very non-spiced base sauce.

Stew