Secrets of the Indian Restaurant Curry

[raygraham]

Hi all,
First to introduce myself as a newbie to the site.
My name is Ray and I live in Keighley near Bradford which is arguably one of the great Curry Capitals of the U.K.
I am a Paramedic by profession and a curryholic in my spare time having been addicted some thirty five years ago. This site gives me a chance to while away the quiet times on nights ( not that I get many! ), to dream about the next steaming bowl of madras and appreciate the enthusiasm of fellow curry lovers around the world.
Bradford has hundreds of restaurants and take-outs and a good old madras or vindaloo with chapatis and rice will still only set you back ?4.50p at some of the smaller take-aways.
The well known Karachi restaurant still serves up great, cheap curry to many a skint student and has been doing it for forty years or more and is packed all the time.
There is a huge choice of restaurants here and some I could recommend as more than fantastic and sadly some that are a guaranteed ticket to the bog next day!

Like many I have been after the "secret" for years and have come close many a time but not quite!

While lurking around the site I have found it interesting and lively and have a great respect for the extreme and sincere dedication you all have and will share my experience where I can.
Having had an input on the in2curry website in the past I started trying the curries from the e-book "Secrets of the Indian Restaurant Curry" which is about ?20 online and found this to be very good indeed. Not spot on but good enough to rate as a close contender to the "real taste". I am writing today to ask other peoples opinions of this book if anyone else has cooked from it. If not I can post a couple of recipes if anyone fancies giving it a go.
I find Kriss Dhillon to be great for the base sauce but a bit dissapointing after adding the rest of the ingredients suggested.
Trying to cook Pat Chapman recipes takes me so far from the restaurant taste I have since given him up as a bad job.
I have taken hints from Pete on this site to good effect and am now closer than I have ever been in 30 years to the restaurant taste.
Darths efforts are commendable as he seems to live by curry alone............he must be gradually embalming himself from the inside out! Good on you Master Darth!

I believe we may not be able to completely recreate this elusive taste at home as I think the huge volumes the restaurants make takes away the margins of error we must have using much smaller measures. On the Curryhouse website it says exactly this and I think a small household pan on the stove is too small to maintain consistency in taste and thats why we rarely get the same thing twice. As much as I try I rarely get the same taste twice.
One of my locals cooks the base sauce in a huge pan that must hold 10 gallons so an odd few onions here and bulbs of garlic there isnt going to make a difference at all, consistent every time!

I don't believe it? is such a secret or there is a conspiracy to keep the secret from us but I am open to criticism on this topic. I think the technique is there for us all and can see that users on this site will find the answer one day. It is just a matter of perseverance and enthusiasm and this site has all that and more.
Another observation of mine is that curries from restaurants in the south are more rich and pungeant than those from this area. Is it me or are there regional differences. I remember when I lived down south I could rarely finish a whole curry as it was so rich and full of Butter Ghee.
As a final word my favourite curry is a Chicken Jalfrezi but I can get at least 10 different tasting versions of the same dish at my local take aways, some very dry and some with a load of sauce.

Take this contribution as a letter of encouragement to all of you out there. Keep up the efforts, don't give in and I am sure the "code will be cracked"!!

Hope I haven't bored everyone to death.

Keep up the fantastic work
Good Luck
Ray

[Yousef]

Welcome raygraham,

What a great post, i certainly agree the curry up north can be some of the best, has anyone ever been to curry mile in Manchester, that is like a little Las Vegas but all curry houses....some of the best smells and dishes i have had.

Keep contributing and I am sure we will all get there in our own little ways in the end.

Stew

[thomashenry]

I believe we may not be able to completely recreate this elusive taste at home as I think the huge volumes the restaurants make takes away the margins of error we must have using much smaller measures. On the Curryhouse website it says exactly this and I think a small household pan on the stove is too small to maintain consistency in taste and thats why we rarely get the same thing twice. As much as I try I rarely get the same taste twice.
One of my locals cooks the base sauce in a huge pan that must hold 10 gallons so an odd few onions here and bulbs of garlic there isnt going to make a difference at all, consistent every time!

Thiere seem to be two camps on this site: Those who believe the base sauce is the thinng we are not getting right, and those who think that we've got he base sauce right, but that the dish cooking isn't right.

I am very much in the latter camp. I believe both Khris Dhillons' base sauce, and  Pete's base sauce are perfectly suitable for BIR dish creation. I think those who serach for the elusive base sauce are wasting there time: I think we have that part of the riddle solved.

Being a believer in this theory also means the logically, I do not believe that the 'volume' argument has any sway. The only thing BIRs cook in huge volumes is base sauce: individual dishes are cooked individually, in the same quantities we cook them at home. I think it is a fallacy to believe that this is a problem holding us back.

The key lies in every single aspect of cooking the dish. Mark J's dish recipies can certianly give perfect BIR dishes, as a few of us have experiences this. Being able to do them consistently is a different matter. Everything makes a difference to the final taste: exact quantities used; exact temperature of the oil, how long you cook each stage for, inbetween adding ingreadients etc. Indian BIR chefs cook 50 meals a night; we cook one a night maximum, and thats if we eat nothing but curry! The practise, and the 'feel' for cooking the dishes is something we will learn slowly.

Its like any form of cooking really: noivce cooks can follow a recipie, but it will take them a long time before the intuitively know what each action they take is dfoing to the dish, exactly how hot to cook things, etc etc. This is the stage we are at really. A recipie is only a rought guideline to cooking a dish: accurate re-creation requires experience, intuition and skill, that only comes with time.

[Curry King]

Hi Ray,

In2curry seems to have died a death recently with hardly any activity at all now, east ends fault really for not looking after it properly!

Any how the "Secrets of the Indian Restaurant Curry" I have tried a few of the recipes from noticably the dupiaza which I thought was ok but as you say they are not perfect replicas.  There have been quite a few tried and tested reicpes posted on here now which I reckon are better than most of the ebooks and the like that seem to be consistantly on ebay.

Cheers
cK

[George]

thomashenry

For what it's worth, I must say I agree with most of your views, notably:
- I think we've got the base sauce right, but that the dish cooking isn't right.
- I think we have the base sauce part of the riddle solved.
- I do not believe that the 'volume' argument has any sway.

Somebody recently mentioned the possibility that the tandoor produces the restaurant smell. It certainly has the 'power' to produce the high volume of aroma, but do they really add ingredients which would produce the said smell? Most tandoors must be gas powered. I doubt if naan bread, chicken tandoori, etc would produce the smell. I still reckon it's from final dish cooking. Not from chicken stock (no way) nor carrots or any other western ingredient. When was the last time home made English chicken soup smelt like that?!

[DARTHPHALL]

Welcome my young apprentice !!! 
Yes the secret to eternal youth is through the copious ingestion of Curry .
formaldehyde should spel thus ......l Phallmaldehyde !!! (Ray.G. that ones for you !!) ;D ;D ;D

I sincerely believe that the base is Not as important as thought because in it nature of being versatile enough to make most if not all the Take-away Curries it has to be fairly non-descript in taste/smell etc.. otherwise if it was to dominant in flavor, it would only be able to be used for specific Curries .This would not be economical & be too time consuming for a BIR would it not ?

I have a suggestion for all.
We should have a recipe thread were we can post a Curry recipes.& post our results etc..bit like my Curry log !!
Otherwise we will be going over the same mistake again & again.
1 . Are we all happy with our latest base ? I think it is versatile enough to make a Korma to a Phall as long as you leave out the chili powder (remember Mark`s post, they put the Chili powder in after !).
Although KD`s is fine if lacking flavor.

[thomashenry]

I've just come off a month of curry. Out of 28 dishes, 4 were spot on, meaning the vast majortiy were not. However, it also means that 4 were, so I diid the right thing 4 times. I think next time I do a  curry month, I am going to VIDEO myself cooking the bastards. Then, when I get it right once in every 7 or so attempts, I will have a video recording of me cooking it, so I can see EXACTLY how I did it.

[DARTHPHALL]

Ever thought of having a Curry log ? ( the things you do in desperation !!). ;D

[thomashenry]

A simple log is not enough. I need to be able to have a arecord of exactly what I've done - not just a rough description of ingredients and method.

I want a record of the exact times between the addition of each ingredient, the way the dish reacted, how much it bubbled, how much falmbeing I did etc

[DARTHPHALL]

Whats "falmbeing"?. Is it a being from the planet falm ? ;D