Topic: What Makes a decent BIR madras "the classics"

[JerryM]

Phil,

yes "Oh dear" for sure. it's a tad galling as the lady in question was told not to continue with home economics at school.

[Peripatetic Phil]

the lady in question was told not to continue with home economics at school.

I love that name : "Home Economics" -- takes me right back to my mother's "Economical Cookery and Menus for Every Day of the Year" by Mrs D D Cottington Taylor !  I wonder why they haven't updated it to "Food Science" or whatever ?

[JerryM]

anyhow back to business.

made 3 off dishes (all 6/10 ish):

1) dish 1 as spec but following Domi's advice used seeds from 3 off cardamom pods adding with spices
2) dish 2 used mouchak spice mix and seeds from 3 off pods adding with g/g paste, reduced oil to 4 tbsp
3) dish 3 upped seeds to 6 off pods and ground before adding with spices. reduced bassar to 0.5 tsp (1 tsp was too much)

had real problems with the oil constantly catching fire - not had this before. possible reasons paprika or leaving oil in fridge unsealed (usually in air tight container).

given my wife's comment. i'd thought the base past "threshold". i do think the oil is too weak. to confirm or otherwise the quality base i intend to use the rest of the base on the standard CR0 recipes.

thoughts going forward:

1) need to get the cardamom right. probably needs more in the base. the ground seeds added with the spice gave best result (aka spice mix)
2) colour - the red was not deep enough. i'm thinking caramelise the onions in the base next time along with up the paprika in the base. tom puree would do it i think but it's already high at 2 tbsp
3) quality of the base - maybe too much has been stripped out. thinking carrot back in.
4) interestingly the mouchak which i rate highly was well off taste range

in summary a decent start but still well short of the real 70s mccoy.

forgot pics:

dish1


dish2


dish3

[stevepaul]

Hi JM. Hi to all.

I'm new here, but have been making curries on and off for a number of years. My answer to your question and my opinion on the 70's and early 80's madras would have to be "simplicity". The establishments back then, were, from recollection, basic to say the least, as were the curries they produced. Some of the best curries came from scruffiest joints around.

Most were run by someone from the local community who was not necessarily a chef, just someone who could cook. Someone who was out just to  make a living so to speak. I wouldn't have thought they went overboard with too many ingredients. Probably just a simple straightforward onion base along with a minimum of spices added at the point of cooking the curry.

Compared to today's equivalents, the sauce back then was always on the thin side and as smooth as could be. Always reddish in colour and plenty of oil floating on top. Nothing else in there other than the chicken which was not always breast meat.

Sadly, nowadays, these places of homage no longer exist (I blame Health and Hygiene), and along with their demise so too has the simplicity of the 70's style madras. As a poor analogy. If the `Greasy Joe's Truck Stop`  went the same way, then we'd be hankering after the old time fry-ups. Because let's face it. If you wanted the best fry-up where would you go....the fancy restaurant up the road, or the Truck Stop next to it?

One thing back then. I remember the Asian stores sold large quantities of "tomato powder". Maybe this was used instead of tinned, or puree. Just a thought.

Steve.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Strangely enough I was laying in bed last night thinking about this, having just cooked and eaten a lamb madras for dinner (using pre-roast lamb : I will return to this in another thread because I was very surprised to find that it is possible to get pre-roast lamb to soften sufficiently to both absorb the spices properly and to create the correct texture). 

And what I suddenly remembered is that there was a time when there were two quite distinct forms of lamb (or mutton, or goat) Madras : one in which you could taste the primary ingredient as integral to the sauce, and one in which you knew d@mned well that this was just pre-spiced lamb (or whatever) pieces dunked in a generic sauce.  And of course the version that most preferred was the one where the flavour of the meat also permeated the sauce.  So my next lamb curry will be made using lamb stock in the base sauce rather than water.

** Phil.

[JerryM]

stevepaul,

a big welcome sir. i can relate directly to all you say - it is exactly how i'm trying to approach the nostalgia trip.

tom powder has been raised previously and i've had no luck finding it - all my attempts have led to paprika. do you know if it is different to paprika.

i do intend to add in the chicken at some point but i want to get the basic sort of building blocks in place 1st.

i'll post next the outcome of last nights cooking so that we can reflect on where to next.

[George]

do you know if it is different to paprika.

Paprika comes from pepper. Tomato powder comes from ... err ... tomatoes!

Almost as different as chalk and cheese.

[JerryM]

got my standard CR0 recipes out last night and cooked 3 off curries (plain curry, 976bar kashmiri x2).

the good lady said she would be happy to pay for them. this was good news as it demonstrated to me that the base although not the best it can be does pass the threshold.

the stark problem now is that if these std dishes were 9/10 (10/10 with normal bases) then there is some distance to bridge between the 6/10 for the 70s madras.

out of the earlier 3 off thoughts going fwd (cardamom, colour, base quality) colour is by far the most urgent to crack. the 70s madras has a real deep red colour to it.

my only thought at the moment is to caramelise the onion either for the base (something i've never tried) or for the dish itself. this red colour is coming from the ingredients for me  and i can't really convince myself that it's down to cooking the onion.

i'm looking for tomato powder or along those lines. it's most certainly not food colouring.


Plain Curry


976bar Kashmiri

[JerryM]

Paprika comes from pepper. Tomato powder comes from ... err ... tomatoes!

George,

it's exactly as you say. i'm only going on my experiences of asking for "tomato powder" in 2 off asian stores - both led to paprika. what i'm getting at is if tomato powder does exist in the asian cooking world what is it called.

[Secret Santa]

Jerry as you probably know we've been down the tomato powder route a couple of times before now.

It first got mentioned by haldi  a few years ago when he reported that the chefs at the takeaway he was able to get a into referred to the paprika as tomato powder.   

After some debate it was finally decided that it really was paprika that they were referring to and not actual tomato powder.

Now I distinctly remember doing a quick Google search at the time and finding a few suppliers of real tomato powder but having repeated the exercise just now I can't find even one amongst the usual online suppliers. Unless you want a few hundred kilos of the stuff that is! 

Anyway, I really think this is a bit of a red herring. I honestly doubt that it will, if you can find it, turn out to be a 'secret' ingredient.

I'd bet that the red colour you refer to in the madras is down to extra tomato paste, lashings of Kashmiri (or similar bright red) chilli powder and, although you personally doubt it, red food colouring.