What Makes a decent BIR madras "the classics"

[JerryM]

my recent posts on "Best of BIR" and "Bhuna and Vindaloo - Why do these not live up to expectation" have not produced what i'd hoped for but they have signposted my next journey so to speak.

i'd like to be able to crack these 70 curries. this i see as not an easy task - at the moment for recipe refinement i can do side by side from my local TA but on this i will need to rely on memory and as we know that's not good.

given the interest in madras then please put down thoughts on what makes a decent  BIR madras for you.

i'd particularly appreciate thoughts based on direct experience of the 70's curry and even how we can retrace history. as an example i can remember on Wolverhampton market how there were no plastic bags of spice - they were all in tins. if you wanted a curry powder it would be made to order.

[Razor]

Hi Jerry,

Unfortunately, I never ate Madras in the 70's or 80's and only had them from time to time during the 90's and 00's, my fave being Jal Frezi.  However, I have been ordering Madras and Madras only from my local TA over the last 12 months. 

It is the best Madras that I have tasted which by my own addmission, are very few.

The main thing for me is the savouriness.  Now, the Madras from my local has no bits in it at all, no fresh chilli, no chopped onion, no coriander, no methi it is just a smooth, slightly oily sauce.  I would describe it as being orangy/red in colour,with a slight sweetness to it.  Not to everyones liking, I know but there is a definite "hint" of lemon in there.

My own Madras is quite close but I do add fresh chillies, coriander, and dried methi, so I guess it's not typical of my local's Madras.

Ray

[Peripatetic Phil]

given the interest in madras then please put down thoughts on what makes a decent  BIR madras for you.

i'd particularly appreciate thoughts based on direct experience of the 70's curry and even how we can retrace history. as an example i can remember on Wolverhampton market how there were no plastic bags of spice - they were all in tins. if you wanted a curry powder it would be made to order.

Well, I'm certainly old enough to remember curries in the 70's and even in the 60's, but I would be very hard pressed to try to answer your main question "what makes a decent  BIR madras for you ?".  The simple answer is, "I don't know" : it just tastes "right", with no one element dominating the others (this is even more the case when you move up the heat scale to vindaloo and Bangalore phal : it is vital in the last two that the chilli content does not become the only thing that one can taste).  What I do remember from the 60's and 70's is how much variation there was from BIR to BIR : this variation seems to have been almost completely ironed out, and although there are still (of course) good BIR, bad BIR, and simply average BIR, I do not think one still finds the same range of flavours for the same dish as one once did.

Oddly I have no recollection of curry powder ever being made to order, and I am not now speaking simply as a Southerner : I spent almost three years in Smethwick and the nearby Black Country, and made considerable use of the Indian shops as, at that time, they were the only ones to open on a Sunday !  I do remember trying to buy some lentils to make a dhansak, somewhere along the Hagley Road, and failing completely to explain what I wanted until I suddenly remembered the magic word "dhal".  All of a sudden I was surrounded by lentils, of every possible shape, size and colour, and a delighted shop owner who clearly appreciated the fact that at least some English people were willing to try to communicate in a language other than their own !

** Phil.

[emin-j]

JerryM ,
I wasn't lucky enough to have been eating Indian in the 60's - 70's as this was my Chinese years  and only moved up to Indian in the early 80's but for me the obvious thing with a Madras is the heat  ;D I don't seem to get that Curry hit if I don't have heat in a Curry , some times if I am ' in the mood ' I'll have a Vindaloo because I need that ' hit  ) Plus the smooth sauce and slightly sweet / sour taste.
As regarding the Currie's of the 60's/70's being apparently much more flavoursome I am wondering if the T/A used to fry their Onions and Spices rather than the boil method they use nowadays and perhaps this is why Razors Base is so popular plus this is the method used in my ' Tasty Curry Recipe ' post and that is a real winner.
ATB.   

[Secret Santa]

The main thing for me is the savouriness.  Now, the Madras from my local has no bits in it at all, no fresh chilli, no chopped onion, no coriander, no methi it is just a smooth, slightly oily sauce.  I would describe it as being orangy/red in colour,with a slight sweetness to it.

I'd agree completely with this analysis but then you had to go and add:

Not to everyones liking, I know but there is a definite "hint" of lemon in there

D'oh and Grrrrr!    ;D

But you did also say:

I never ate Madras in the 70's or 80's and only had them from time to time during the 90's and 00's

Which explains it all for me.

[moonster]

SS,

you appear to have a good awareness of what you are looking for in a BIR dish.

I have not been a member on this board for a long time but find you very interesting in the way that you very rarely share if ever your own experiances.

Cryptic springs too mind!!!!

could you please share your knolwedge of your curry experiance from the 70's/80's for us all to have a better understanding of what we may be missing from that era.

good initial thread by the way

regards

Alan ;D

[Razor]

SS,

Quote
Not to everyones liking, I know but there is a definite "hint" of lemon in there

D'oh and Grrrrr!   

Lol ;D  I could be way off the mark, but there is a definate hint of something citrus beit lemon or lime? 

smooth sauce and slightly sweet / sour taste.

Yeah, I think that, that describes it for me too, slightly sweet and sour.

Ray

[JerryM]

Secret Santa,

going to need your thoughts on this one if we are going to crack it.

[JerryM]

thanks all for some interesting starting points.

Razor is surprisingly close for me. nice to know Phil has sampled the hagley road and of coarse smethwick is the center of entertainment for me. shame on you emin-j for being in the wilderness in those crucial years.

i'll try and sum up all the thoughts when it feels that we've caught all we need.

for me madras was the dish i started out on (more aspired too down to the heat). we always had biryani but with madras curry sauce.

as Phil points out it's quite difficult to put in words what makes a decent madras.

for me the 70's madras:
1) most striking is the colour - red
2) there is oil on the surface but not too much
3) a very smooth curry with no bits
4) a hot dish - far hotter than now (but no lip burn suggesting no green chilli)
5) that savouriness
6) in balance will no real spice standing out
7) a hint of green cardamom

[Peripatetic Phil]

nice to know Phil has sampled the hagley road and of coarse smethwick is the center of entertainment for me.

for me the 70's madras:

1) most striking is the colour - red
2) there is oil on the surface but not too much
3) a very smooth curry with no bits
4) a hot dish - far hotter than now (but no lip burn suggesting no green chilli)
5) that savouriness
6) in balance will no real spice standing out
7) a hint of green cardamom

I can go along with most of that, except for the "far hotter than now"; a Madras today is (IMHO) simply not a fixed concept -- it can vary even within the same restaurant depending on the duty chef.  And of course, when we first ate curries (60's, 70's, whenever : earlier, anyone ?) even the mildest tasted unbelievably hot.  Only after we had trained our bodies to accommodate them did a Madras become comfortable, a Vindaloo tolerable, and a Bangalore Phal something to regret for at least three days afterwards ... !).  So I really don't think they were any hotter than they are now (or should I say, hotter than are now served in some BIRs on some days).

And just by way of a digression, a true story about my first visit to Smethwick and the Hagley Road.  I had a blind date with a girl who was teaching near Smethwick, and the friend who arranged our date (through his girlfriend, who originated near my girlfriend-to-be) was to drive me from London to Smethick.  Satnav, of course, did not exist.  And we joked as we drove there that if we needed to ask for directions, we would need to get a translator.  So we arrived in Birmingham, and tried to find the Hagley Road.  No success.  So I wound down the window and asked "Excuse me, can you tell me where the Hagley Road is, please ?".  "Do what, maite ?", was the distinctly Brummy answer.  "Can you telw me where the 'agley Road is ?", I asked again, this time trying to emulate the local accent to the best of my ability.  "Sure, it's roight there at the corner" said our friendly informant, and it was. (This story is completely true, but works much better when spoken than when written !)

** Phil.