Another take on the 5%

[Bob-A-Job]

We have all read this topic (which I can't find a consistent thread for - move this comment to it if you know it) over the years and thrashed it to death with opinions and possible explanations and some people have claimed to have come close.. and so I throw my hat into that ring with an observation from earlier this evening that immediately reminded me of this subject!

I have enjoyed many days out over the years and when it came to early evening, the aromas coming from 'Takeaways' and restaurants firing up ready for the evening trade have always made my mouth water, even if I couldn't immediately distinguish one style from another.

Earlier this evening, I was making my favourite from curryhell, which is the only recipe I have come across that uses a particular ingredient... during the final cooking process I used the opportunity to take some rubbish(refuse) out to the bin(garbage) and being a particularly warm, pleasant and clear night, I spent a few minutes staring up at the stars.

And so returning to my opening point, as some have discovered, we suffer from sensor overload whilst over the pan and curries have 'tasted' better the day after and food prepared by someone else always tastes better...

So maybe the missing 5% is all of that, being cooked by someone else, no sensory overload and a particular ingredient we associate with our favourite restaurant (I am sure they all tried to be unique and used more/less of some ingredients, 2 I remember well, 1 used way too much salt, the other too much ginger, yet some people liked them enough that one is still going strong 40 years later).

Add in a smatter of fondness of memory and all the vagaries that brings and I wonder.. was there ever a 5% or just some smell we associated with our favourite restaurant/dish/end of the night out?

Slightly off topic but when I used to go abroad, I could never get a 'proper' cup of tea until I was back in England.  So if you never had BIR, trying to explain it and the taste of it, even if perfect might be impossible and not as palatable as your currently much improved takeaways or best home efforts to reproduce have rewarded you with.

Conclusion.  The missing 5% does not exist, it is subjective.

[bhamcurry]

I think you're spot on. Sensory overload from being right over it, plus trying to recreate some memory holed ideal results in that elusive "extra".

I am happy with the curries I am making, but I think part of that is making the Curry Guy base gravy and using chicken stock instead of water - it adds a subtle depth to the flavour that is very pleasant indeed.

[curryhell]

Earlier this evening, I was making my favourite from curryhell, which is the only recipe I have come across that uses a particular ingredient...

Bob A Job, you've now got me intrigued.  I'm racking my brains trying to think of anything i've used in a recipe that I haven't seen used elsewhere during my curry journey.  Do put me out of my misery 
As for the elusive 5%, there are several interesting threads discussing this, all offering plausible explanations of what may be the final missing piece of the jigsaw, if it really is missing.  As long as people are reasonably happy with what they are producing, albeit not the curry of yesteryear that they remember with such fondness, that's more than half the battle.  Given that most cooks on here  are most likely able to produce something very close and likely better than that produced by an average BIR, is a testimony to the wealth of information on this site, which over the last few years has been supplemented by more information from genuine authentic sources, rather than simple replication of information that has been available on here for years.  And we all know who the culprits are 

[George]

Conclusion.  The missing 5% does not exist, it is subjective.

I agree. The misguided thing must be that there's 5% missing from anything anyone tries to make. No, I suggest each dish needs to be considered, individually. If I tried to make a Madras, there would be a lot more than 5% missing because it's not something I have ever had in a restaurant, and I would not be able to assess what I was cooking. But with two of my favourite dishes, chicken dhansak and chicken biriani, I worked on recipes for each, several years ago and reckon what I ended up with is probably better than anything I have ever had in a restaurant. So they may be 5% better, rather than 5% worse.

Another myth which I disagree with is that Indian restaurant food in the 1970s and 80s was better than it is now. I disagree, and reckon many places now serve food with superior flavours to around 40 years ago.

[bhamcurry]

one of the big changes in cooking generally since the 70s is freshness of ingredients, as well as provenance. I think that if everyone takes a "nose break" before eating, you'd discover that *your* curries are mostly *better* than the ones you get at restaurants.

[Peripatetic Phil]

I think that if everyone takes a "nose break" before eating, you'd discover that *your* curries are mostly *better* than the ones you get at restaurants.

I think that few would dispute that, but the point that some of us seek to make is that "our curries are mostly not better than the ones we used to eat in restaurants in the 1970s".  In fact, they are in general, significantly poorer, but perhaps not as poor as those found in the vast majority of today's BIRs. 

[bhamcurry]

the 70s restaurants probably cooked everything in ghee 

[Peripatetic Phil]

And they undoubtedly used chicken carcases (etc.) to make the base ...

[bhamcurry]

And they undoubtedly used chicken carcases (etc.) to make the base ...

I've been using home made chicken bone stock instead of water to make my base gravy (Curry Guy recipe). The curries I am making are definitely delicious - my recent Rogan Josh was *banging* - so I find this completely plausible, that part of that elusive 5% is chicken stock in the base gravy.

[Peripatetic Phil]

I'm fairly sure that I reported this many years ago, but in the "good old days of yore" (i.e., the late 60's / early 70's), a good test for whether a BIR was above average was whether one could tell that the lamb (or mutton, goat, etc) curries used a different base to the chicken ones.  I am reasonably certain that, for those that did, animal bones were an integral part of the stock, and there were at least two difference stocks — whether there was a third one for vegetarians is somewhat moot, but given that vegetarianism is endemic to some parts of India, I would have expected the best BIRs to respect this.
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** Phil.