Topic: BIR Myths..........Seeing the Wood for the Trees

[Peripatetic Phil]

i see no need to improve 4 off mains

If you could tell us which four they are, Jerry, and exactly which recipe you are using for each (with local modifications if appropriate), I am sure we would all be very grateful -- four main courses cracked, with complete satisfaction, is an excellent achievement and well worth recording for posterity.

** Phil.

[JerryM]

Phil,

the 4 are curry2go's mogul, panpots "ashoka" jaipuri, 976bar kashmiri, parker21 CTM

the 10 ish being bahar, pasandra, jalfrezi, curry sauce "madras", vindaloo, sylheti or South Indian Garlic, pathia, butter chicken, biryani, roshney, bengali delight.

of the 10 (all of which are pretty good as is) there are various reasons for not being upto scratch (not necessarily the recipe). admins jalfrezi being a good example this is already top notch - i just feel by trying out a few different fresh chillies it can become "best" which is what i'm after. many like the roshney i just need to practise on.

i believe the version of the recipes i use are all posted (can check if needed).

links:
mogul http://cr0.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=8821.msg78864#msg78864
jaipuri http://cr0.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3925.0;topicseen
kashmiri http://cr0.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3585.0
CTM http://cr0.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5567.msg54771#msg54771


ps one further thought on "seeing the wood..."

the more times i make a dish or ingredient the more my taste buds are able to understand the dish and contemplate if i've got the taste right or if not how it can be improved - ie to deliver best in BIR class.

take a simple example like bunjarra - the last but one make i thought it was done in 2 hrs but in the mains i could tell something was not quite right. on the last make i reverted to my norm 3hrs and problem sorted. simple mistake even for me after making probably something approaching 50 off batches overtime. in short i really think sometimes we can be very close yet fail only down to not being familiar enough with what we are trying to produce - which we all know is a very tricky thing. BIR's don't suffer this as daily repetition works. taste everything!

[Peripatetic Phil]

Excellent, many many thanks Jerry.  I look forward to the day when "Madras" makes your list of "cannot be further improved", because that really is my curry of choice, all of the others being something I will eat for a change but could not make a staple (perhaps dhansak apart : that is a close second to Madras, but I could not eat it every night).

** Phil.

[jalfreziT]

This Post Has Been put together By JerryM and I have posted this on behalf of him for all to read as it has important content.  Orignal post here http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3122.0

Re Claimed Oil
There is no discernable difference in curries cooked in fresh oil c/w reclaimed oil and no advantage of recycling curry base oil into the next base

Observations:
Malik?s webcam shows oil being taken off the top of the base to cook the curry dishes. It also shows base oil starting the next batch
The oil from the base has significantly greater taste than fresh oil and it?s intensity increases as it's recycled through batches of base
The practise does for some raise hygiene questions and the practise may not be widespread across BIR?s.
It delivers a step change in the curry taste

Conclusion: FALSE Myth (reclaimed oil is significant)

I would like to open this one up, if that's ok.

There is no doubt that BIRs use old oil in their cooking. I think this is 5% to do with adding additional flavour and 95% to do with solving the problem of what to do with old frying oil.

In the early days, they had someone come and collect it. This probably cost something and they needed to go to the trouble of draining it back in to barrels and arranging for someone to be around when the waste oil collection guy called.

Then some bright spark thought:  Hey, why don't we kill three birds with one stone, by getting our own customers to cart away our waste oil? Genius!

They managed to turn a waste product in to something they could sell. And as anyone whose been involved in the operational side of business knows, tackling waste is the quickest route to cutting costs and making more coin.

After all, what extra flavours does old "spiced" oil bring, if you're adding those same spices, and frying them, in your dish?

[littlechili]

I think CT has already mentioned using Popadom oil is fine, anyone working in the catering industry would be aware you can no longer recycle used oil from multiple use items (Wheat/Gluten/Nuts Restaurants chefs have infact killed with there poor knowledge of cross puduct contamination in the last few years..

https://allergytraining.food.gov.uk/english/

[mickyp]

Oil used to cook Onion Bhaji's will be ok if they are made with Gram / rice flour and freshly ground spices, i do keep my Bhaji oil for further use.

[littlechili]

Oil used to cook Onion Bhaji's will be ok if they are made with Gram / rice flour and freshly ground spices, i do keep my Bhaji oil for further use.

Yes correct they would be fine cooking at home, unfortunately in a TA setting it seems only the Poppadoms that are generally cooked in isolation. There was a few high profile cases of Indian restaurant cross contamination/use of alternative products n the MSM last year, I understand the sentencing is quite harsh as responsibility generally falls on the chefs or owner. I would imagine the word is now finally out amongst the trade that using an unwashed pan/spoon or recycling multiple use oil will possibly land you jail time.

[mickyp]

God knows where that trail starts then, when i was restocking from my local store a fair few packets of ground spices stated " This product is processed in a factory that also processes nuts, while every effort is made to control.........trace elements may etc etc, so do restaurants have to get their spices from controlled sources?

[littlechili]

God knows where that trail starts then, when i was restocking from my local store a fair few packets of ground spices stated " This product is processed in a factory that also processes nuts, while every effort is made to control.........trace elements may etc etc, so do restaurants have to get their spices from controlled sources?

That