Topic: Happy now .

[JerryM]

emin-j,

not disbelieving what u say are u sure it was cassia.

the reason i ask is when i started curry cooking i first used cinnamon (KD1 book Garam Masala). i then became aware of cassia and felt i preferred it's taste more than cinnamon and dropped the cinnamon. recently i started making onion paste and ended up using cinnamon and liking it.

given what u say i feel i might just have to give the cassia another go in curry cooking.

[emin-j]

Hi JerryM, yes definitely Cassia Bark , it still had enough flavour to compare with the Cassia Bark I have at home.The only thing was when I broke the cooked Cassia Bark open it was a Pinky/Red colour inside but I would think that could happen during the cooking process.
Changing the subject slightly ,watching some of the Restaurant Video's I noticed when the Chef adds the spices he uses the Chef's spoon to 'scoop' the Spices out of the container ,comparing my 'teaspoon' measurements they must be putting a lot more than a teaspoon of each Spice in for a single serving.

[JerryM]

emin-j,

many thanks, will give the cassia ago as soon as i can (doing an as spec base next).

interesting thoughts on the chef spoon amounts of spice. there has been an earlier post on how much the "side" of chef spoon equals - will try and find it. i don't think there is anything on the "tip". i'll have a go at measuring if search finds nothing.

i too use teaspoon measurements - using pretty much a standard 2 tsp per 200ml finished portion. i 'm starting to think though that less might be more in terms of getting closer to BIR. this being down to making CK's madras recently and liking it more than my own madras. i don't know yet if it was down to the base that i used (rajver) which is sort of heavy spiced and therefore made up the difference in CK's but over spiced my madras. i also had TA last week which pretty much suggested real BIR to be lightly spiced.

the only difficulty i have is a while ago i made Bruce Edwards curry which requires 1/2 tsp spice mix per portion. at the time i remember upping the amount and feeling it tasted much better.

it's certainly something to work on a bit.

[emin-j]

Had a Madras from our local T/A last night , can be a bit hit and miss tho ,and it was a miss  Almost flavourless other than being very Tomatoey  Cant wait til Saturday to make a 'proper' Curry.

[JerryM]

emin-j,

nice to know others are having a bit of hit and miss. was it the same chef. my fav TA has a stand-in chef. curry's are very good from both but u can tell the difference.

i have a habit myself of using too much tomato in madras (adding both puree and passata). when it's right it works but as u've pointed out it can go downhill if not careful.

have attached link to info on chef spoon (sorry forgot)

http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=3071.msg27433#msg27433

my measurement suggested 1/4 chef spoon to be 3 tsp. the post by parker21 lower down suggests tip is chef's pinch. i believe although not totally sure a chef pinch to equal 1/3 tsp. i know for a fact my chef spoon level is 4 tbsp.

i use 1/4 tsp of salt per 200ml portion and would therefore tend to agree that the tip is sort of ~ 1/3 tsp.