Why we cannot produce that missing taste ?

[Rabbits]

We've been down this road but perhaps we all throw in ?100 each and find a Takeaway that is willing to open its doors and be filmed.

Stew

I'm in for 100!

[billycat]

Hi,

just a quickie i am wondering although wen we cook we fry our spices but has anyone tried infusing the oil with certain spices for a period before they actually use it i say this because a lot of you go on about reclaimed oil bhagi flavoured oil etc

just a thought

billycat

[Bobby Bhuna]

Hi,

just a quickie i am wondering although wen we cook we fry our spices but has anyone tried infusing the oil with certain spices for a period before they actually use it i say this because a lot of you go on about reclaimed oil bhagi flavoured oil etc

just a thought

billycat

Thanks Billy but yes I've tried it and it does nothing.

[Bobby Bhuna]

It's an ingredient we're missing that you add to the base. A simple robust ingredient, not something by the by. I'm really thinking vegetable boulion. I'll let you know how i get on.

[haldi]

I am sold on the oil thing though. Think of all the lovely flavours in the fryer oil. Pakora, Bhajis, Popadums and lots more.

Hi Bobby
The fryer oil is used for cooking the curry with
It's oil from cooking the poppadoms that goes into the curry gravy
Either way, it's all in the curries

I've been back to my local quality old school BIR tonight and guess what? I'm depressed again.
It just has flavours in it that I don't have. There are things in this curry that aren't in mine.

It's only when you do a direct comparison, that you can tell how good yours is
Yep, it can be depressing
But it inspired me to try something different

Anyhow I've now made a full sized base
It cost me about ten pounds to make it, although I do have ingredients left over.
Basically the recipe is loads of onions, a few green peppers,chick peas,canned tomatoes,salt,ktc oil after frying poppadoms,water,and garlic ginger puree.
That all goes in a large pot and cooks for about two hours.
Then add the spice and simmer for five minutes
Leave overnight, puree than heat to boil and turn off
The gravy holds it's heat because of it's large volume

Anyhow, I compared my gravy to two sample gravies
One is almost a perfect match
The other one is still better than mine but it is the closest I have ever been.
My gravy has a slightly different smell but maybe the bought one had oil added from cooked curries.
When a curry is slightly too oily, I have seen the oil skimmed off and put back into the curry gravy.
I think mine has too much garlic in and needs more oil.
I need to step back from this and have another think
But I feel definitely closer to my goal

[haldi]

Here is a visual comparison of a really good bought base to mine.
They look almost identical

[JerryM]

Haldi,

your a real hero - that stack of popadoms alone smacks dedication to the cause.

i very much like your base recipe. not sure on the chick peas but that's personal taste only.

the only thing different in the method that i use is to low simmer for 1 hr after the blending (malacara's method) and i then reclaim the oil. if u did not want to reclaim the oil then a few regular stirs will keep the oil in the sauce. for reclaim i start out with ~16% oil of the chopped onion volume. from this i expect to reclaim between 50 & 80%. this extra simmer produces for me the moorish taste which i don't get at the 2 hr point.

i also make the initial starting water 20% of the chopped onion volume and then thin at the end of cooking.

i'm trying out a derivative of the CRO2 base at mo to see if i can get my oil closer to BIR and will keep u posted ? I too have seen the chef putting cooked curry oil back into the pot.

[Secret Santa]

I don't really think we're that close to quality old school BIR atall...

I couldn't agree more Bobby. It's why I stopped participating in this forum. There isn't a single curry on this forum that I've tried that even comes close. It's not that the curries here are bad, they're not. It's just that, as you say, they are a mile off the old school style which, in fact, I can no longer find. And that in itself is sad because I can't say to someone who thinks they've cracked it, look, your curries are good, but go to this BIR in wherever and try a madras there and that'll show you what you should be aiming for.

I think haldi said recently that even with all his gear he still can't get that final 5% that makes it indistinguishable from a good BIR curry.

Bloody depressing.

[adriandavidb]

I feel the same as everyone here, I madras and bhuna are deffinately better than some of the poorer BIRs down my way (Surrey), but not quite as good as the good ones'.  It's that extra 5% I can't get to!

I also think that a lot of the newer BIRs, also so busy concentrating on doing something different and 'new', are not up there with some of the sort of thing avaiable back in the 70s and 80s!

I wonder is some of these special seasonings, mentioned here elsewhere, or BBs bouillion are the answer.  I also think there is something in this business of 'scaling-up' base quantity to BIR volume.  Someone here mentioned (sorry I forget who) that the children of his local BIR chef apparently ask him to bring home base from the restaurant, because it makes better curries than that made at home (by the self-same chef), but in smaller quantities!

There is one other point I'd like to make, which has already been stated on Cr0.  Some of the curries made 'up north' are utterly different from southern ones.  I know this only too well!  I was at Leeds University in the early to mid 80s, and often used to go to a really cheap place opposite the Parkinson Bulding called The Islamabad'  My favorite meal was madras and a paratha (an artery-furring combination for sure!).  Now it has to be said that all their curries were very similar, whether you ordered a madras, a korma, or a masala (nothing like a tikka masala), and the quality of the chicken was not very good (stringy boiled offcuts by the look of it); but the smell and flavour of the sauce was FANTASTIC, I've never had anything like it since.  There were other similar BIRs right next door as I recall:  Chakwells and Naffies.  How on earth they got the flavour I have no idea, I can't even get close!

[Secret Santa]

I am sold on the oil thing though. Think of all the lovely flavours in the fryer oil. Pakora, Bhajis, Popadums and lots more.

Hi Bobby
The fryer oil is used for cooking the curry with
It's oil from cooking the poppadoms that goes into the curry gravy
Either way, it's all in the curries

Haldi I think it's unlikely to be the poppadom oil that will make the difference. But I definitely think the oil from a whole night's cooking of bhajis, pakoras etc. would provide a big boost to the base sauce. Is that what you did or did you just use the poppadom oil?