Topic: What Ingredients are we missing

[JerryM]

CA,

i use fennel a lot. the cumin is cumin. u're quite right the photo is not good enough. I've looked at them this morning and note that the fennel is bigger and has more light and green contrast. the cumin is quite dark in comparison but not black - more a brown.

DD,

the colour of the oil is from reclaiming. i'm not exactly sure what makes the difference in colour but i think paprika and tom's/puree have a big part. if u look at maliks their oil is not red - it's what i call yellow (the colour it looks when it's on a spoon). for a long time i thought the red oil (like u get on u're TA tray) was what was needed in the base and produced the better tasting dish. i also thought that it was better suited to madras etc related dishes. i now realise that it's at dish frying stage where the colour of the BIR oil changes to what we see in the TA carton. if u look closely the oil in the carton is yellow whilst the oil in the dish is red (not for all dishes of course i guess korma would not be red for example).

[parker21]

hi guys thought with all the talk of defining what the missing ingredients are has anyone tried e-mailing the owner of Maliks to ask if he could tell us the ingredients on show? there are no secrets as it is all on camera!
regards
gary
ps this is just a thought

[JerryM]

parker21,

i think SnS emailed them in the past without success. i was hoping we might have got a list of "mayby's". if we could get such a list to go with what we know it might just prompt a reply.

[Cory Ander]

Following on from gary's suggestion, better still, why not GO there, BUY and TRY their curries (and determine if they are actually any GOOD) and ASK them what the missing ingredients are.  I imagine they would be only too happy to allow you to watch them cook your order!

I'm still troubled/amazed/astounded/perplexed....I'm not sure what the correct word is....that people are putting SO much effort into these curry webcams without having a clue what the curries taste like!  And how anyone can possibly determine (with any certainty) what one white/brown/red/dark/light coloured ingredient is from a cam is totally beyond me.  It seems like complete (and unnecessary and probably unhelpful) guesswork to me   

[JerryM]

CA,

i do have it on my list to do. it's going to be more like summer when i get there as our reason for visiting stoke is purely down to waterworld.

i know what u're saying on ask. trouble is my local TA is the best u'll find anywhere. i am very good customer and this would be the placed to help me if any BIR would. i remain very sceptical - on answering our needs - we are too close for comfort in a nutshell.

i also agree there is a limit to what can be gained from cams. the trouble is we have very few lines of enquiry open at the mo. as i say i can't really pinpoint what my gap is. given that most of what i do is from u it would be interesting in  how u would describe your gap or is the ingredient list definitive or not.

if at least i can close the door on ingredient then i will know (i am pretty sure) my gap lies with spice mix and i need to take u're aka and follow Mikka's idea of a spice trail to better understand the intricacies.

[Derek Dansak]

For me there is one huge missing thing. namely the smell that real TAs give off. especially the good bengual ones. i have never had a smell like that in 4 years of trad indian cookery, and 2 years bir cookery. when you remove the lid off your TA, bam it gives off a unique unmistakable odour. what the hell is that? a vegetable? surely it cant be from a dried spice? or can it? its not the base, as i have purchased real bir base from a top bengual bir. and my curry tasted the same as normal. oddly they had pumpkins in the bir kitchen i visited? although i doubt its significant.

[JerryM]

DD,

i am pretty sure the smell is down to smoke in the cooking which is down to heat. i have never been able to get the smoke in my kitchen. there is a chef and a stand in chef at my local TA - u know who's cooking well before u pass through the doors.

on the dried spice - i know it sounds wacky but i'm going to try Mikka's idea of tarragon next week. who knows but if u don't try. pumpkin is defo not BIR for me but each to there own.

[Derek Dansak]

yes good idea to try tarragon. there are numerous other spices in many indian grocers i am curious about.

[Stephen Lindsay]

yes good idea to try tarragon. there are numerous other spices in many indian grocers i am curious about.

I was a member of Pat Chapman's Curry Club when Bruce Edward's articles came out and as I recall the chemical analysis he got done on a Vindaloo contained some tarragon.

[chinois]

For me there is one huge missing thing. namely the smell that real TAs give off. especially the good bengual ones. i have never had a smell like that in 4 years of trad indian cookery, and 2 years bir cookery. when you remove the lid off your TA, bam it gives off a unique unmistakable odour. what the hell is that?

Have you never got the smell when you've left a curry for later or when you've returned to your house after a while? I got whiffs of it when i was cooking every stage of the last curry i did with reclaimed oil. I even got it when i was frying only onion and green pepper in that oil. I tipped the pan so the vegetables came into contact with the direct heat which helped.
Granted it's not as strong a smell but i really think if i cooked a few curries, bagged them up with some naan and popadoms etc and took them to someone's house who hadnt been cooking they'd think it smelled the same as a BIR.
Eating some of my curry later makes me realize 'i done well'