Onion Bhaji Group Test

[Peripatetic Phil]

OK, many thanks VC : unfortunately supermarkets are not exactly thick on the ground in deepest Kent, but there is a Waitrose in Paddock Wood and a Tesco in Tovil, so I will have a go.

** Phil.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Well, my first attempt at taking part in a group test has not proved very successful; as I feared, preparing even one batch of onion bhaji took a couple of hours (excluding washing up !), and the end results were well below BIR standard, which I blame entirely on my poor technique and not on the originator of the recipe.

I think that I made two mistakes : one was to use a wooden spoon to mix the ingredients (I notice that Dipuraja uses only his hands in his video [1], emphasising the importance of not causing the cut onions to release their moisture), and the other was to aim to produce a good firm "goo", whereas I noticed that Dip just coats the onion/spice mixture with the besan, then presses it gently in with his hands once he has formed the bhaji into a ball.

I shall have another go later this week with a different recipe (out tomorrow, so no chance then), but I don't think that my technique is sufficiently good for my results to be used in the group test.  I should have stuck to curries : I understand those :-)

** Phil.
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[1] How to make onion bhaji

[Vindaloo-crazy]

Don't give up Phil. Remember to wear rubber gloves when you're doing it or you'll have yellow fingers and bhaji batter under yur fingernails for days.

[Malc.]

What you have to understand about DIPs video is that it's not a true representation of what the batter looks like when mixed properly. He has prepared these vidoes to give the viewer an idea of the processes involved so they can be perfected at home.

Also, the differing recipes have differing consistency. When I make the IG bhaji, the batter is very sticky and I do mean sticky. When I form the final bhaji I have a bowl of water next to me and drop my hands into the water before forming the bhaji, which is then dropped directly into the hot oil.

If it's any reassurance Phil, the IG demo took well over 2 hours and they had already prepared the onions before I got there!

[Razor]

Hi Axe,

Yeah I agree.  It's a shame really that Dip kind of rushed this for the video, as Phil's efforts prove.

If he'd have just spent a little bit of time, to show us what he really does, I'm sure our efforts would be pretty good.  Unfortunately, when doing the group tests, we had to stick with what he shown us, which in my case, caused a detrimental effect on my rating for his bhaji.

Ray

[Peripatetic Phil]

Well, I am going to continue with the bhajis, but I don't think it's sensible for me to contribute to the group test simply because I do not yet have the expertise/technique to ensure that they are a success.  When I feel I've mastered the basic techniques, and can produce a bhaji that is fried all the way through and is sufficiently close to a T/A bhaji that only a regular BIR fan could tell the difference, I'll do my own comparison of the recipes, but for now I think it's best if Chris WG summarises the results he already has.

Incidentally, although DIP clearly says in his video [below] that "you can see that the bhaji is properly cooked all the way through", when he breaks it open to demonstrate that, there seem to be some pieces of remarkably white onion visible to my eye ...

** Phil.
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[Just testing if I can get a single instance of a YouTube video to show up]

http://www.youtube.com/v/hFeRuAT_gJI

[Razor]

Hi Phil,

Just watched this again, and I must say, he really lets himself down with this one.  He puts the first bhaji in a 3:40, the whole video only lasts 6:40, so 3 minutes to cook a bhaji of that size is impossible.

Such a shame, because it all looked so promising up to the point of his first cook.  However, I've used his recipe and combined it with the IG method and wow, what a difference.

Goes to show, that, for bhajis anyway, method as well as ingredients are crucial to success.

Ray

[Peripatetic Phil]

Goes to show, that, for bhajis anyway, method as well as ingredients are crucial to success.

I think, that for OBs at least, technique may be even more vital than recipe !

[Malc.]

Phil, with all my experiences in my quest to perfect the bhaji, I would have to agree with your statement.

If you get the technique right, you'll end up with a perfectly edible bhaji. Get it wrong and no matter how good the recipe ingredients, it will be sub standard.


PS. How did you get the single instance to show?

[Peripatetic Phil]

PS. How did you get the single instance to show?

Well, I started by experimenting with Vimeo, and found that that also produced two videos of different sizes when linked from this forum, so then I looked deeper and saw that for a Vimeo file there is not only the base URL but also a separate URL used only when embedding.  Using the latter produced only a single Vimeo video on this forum.  I then went back to You Tube, looked for the embedding URL, tried linking to that, and found that it too produces only one video on this forum.  I have a feeling that rather than being an artifact of the fact that videos are often offered in more than one resolution, it is rather an artifact of the fact that the embedding code uses both <object> and <embed>, with <embed> being the fallback content for <object>.

(This whole digression really warrants a separate thread in a different topic !)

** Phil.