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

[Peripatetic Phil]

i will look out for the mustard oil bassar version but i doubt it can be bought inside the EU.

Royal Tunbridge Wells was in the EU last time I checked, Jerry    And that is where my "Al Noor" BCM came from, complete with mustard oil.

** Phil.

[Peripatetic Phil]

i had a "pass me down" recipe which i think was essentially the traditional method of making curry in a pot. for info: caramelise 1 lb chopped onion in butter, add meat, add 1 tsp curry powder, add 1 off tin toms, add water, cook in oven for 2 hrs.

what i do remember is buying a jar of curry paste - this improved the dish no end.

Yes, my recollections are much the same as yours.  But of course it never tasted anything like how I hoped (and probably nothing like how you hoped, either).  The paste was a definite improvement, and for years I swore by Bolst's (I still have some of their green-topped jars), but it was only with Kris Dhillon's help that I went from "edible but nothing like the real thing" to "Ye Gods : I think I've cracked it" !

** Phil.

[JerryM]

had to do some market research in preparation - had chicken vindaloo from my fav TA. i also got portion of madras (which i buy a lot of) to make possible a side by side comparison. upto this point i'd thought the madras was very good and unlikely to be beaten (except from the occasional dish on chefs specials listing).

the vindaloo was for me a "hot" madras. i need to make CA's vindaloo again as this i rate highly in order to comapare side by side the 2 off dishes.

the TA vindaloo was exceptionally good. that something that brings this dish to life was there for sure. really loved it and future TA orders will have to change to include this dish as a regular.

i asked the chef about vinegar - "we have never used vinegar in vindaloo". i got the impression that the "we" was in fact the Bangladeshi BIR trade.

BIR madras LHS - BIR Chicken Vindaloo RHS

[solarsplace]

Hi Jerry

Those pictures have got me thinking about the sauce again.

Look at it, it is so think, it has body and a texture to it by the looks of things. The Vindaloo on the right shows what appears to be the sauce being able to hold itself up in ridges and indentations with its own consistency. What do you think gives it that texture? is it a massively reduced sauce with some onion paste added?

Watch Dip's videos for example and his finished dishes are far 'runnier' than that, although he is a serious quick get it in the pan, get it out the door kind of chef.

Cheers

[Peripatetic Phil]

BIR madras LHS - BIR Chicken Vindaloo RHS

Jerry, do these images accurately portray the colour ?  They look remarkably dark, to my eye, so I asked Picasa to bring them up to the sort of colour I would expect (see below) : which is more accurate as far as colour goes, to your eye ?

** Phil.

P.S. In my post above about pre-KD1 recipes and methods, I said "for years I swore by Bolst's"; in fact, I meant Fern's.
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[peterandjen]

I think we can say a few things about curries from Ta's from our experiances so far.
1) They'll use only one type of basic stock/sauce to create most dishes.
2) The dishes only become different from one another during the stir-fry stage.
From here we can add more...
If the finished dish needs to be thick, reduce the sauce down during the stir-fry.
If it needs to be thinner, add more sauce, or don't reduce it for so long.
Depth of flavour, if we reduce a ladle of sauce right down, then it will have more flavour, if it needs thinning add more sauce. It will still keep the added depth of flavour because of the first reduction.
Personally i think your biggest job Jerry will be in creating or finding the correct Vindaloo paste for the stir-fry stage.

[JerryM]

many thanks all.

all dishes from this BIR "hold themselves up in ridges". i can achieve exactly the same consistency at home - this is done by using much more onion in the base. i currently aim for around 100g onion per portion (can explain more if needed - i work on a bulk veg of 54% of the finished base volume by weight).

on the colour have attached a bigger file (original is 1.3MB). it was difficult to capture the pic well as using the flash caused problems on the aluminium container. the colour is a tad too dark - it was dark red. the top portion of the vindaloo in the picasa interpretation is pretty much spot on. the vindaloo was darker than the madras.

interesting on the thought of finding the vindaloo paste. i was in my local Asian store and talked with the owner about trying to make vindaloo - i asked initially if he had "vindaloo paste". his reply was yes and told me where to find it. could i find not a chance. it ended up that it was Pataks. had a look at the ingredients and nothing of a break through there. i told the owner this and got chatting about vindaloo. in short his advice was to make like a madras but to add green chilli. no paste needed. clearly the owner is not a BIR chef but he sells to the BIR trade and is Asian. i feel very comfortable with all his previous advice sufficient that as a starting point i'll follow his suggestion and see what happens.

on the herbs. i asked the owner. he sells a lot of mint to the trade (bottled, dry and fresh). the no 2 seller is dry thyme. the no 3 is dry oregano (quite a suprise). there is no tarragon at all (even for Thai will he sells to). fresh coriander is considered a staple.

[JerryM]

i've had a look through the existing vindaloo recipes (CA's, parker21, chilliprawn, dipuraja) to give indication of starting recipe which i'll post once finalised.

have re attached pic of last BIR TA vindaloo which seems to have been lost from the post. (now realised there is a temp bandwidth problem).

intend another TA this week to get thoughts clearer. will also aim for better pic in terms of colour.

only downside i've realised is that unlike other trials on mains when i might make 4 or even 5 dishes on a night my body may well limit consumption of this hot dish to 1 off per night.

[JerryM]

had vindaloo TA this week - a bit of a shocker but helpful nevertheless.

the BIR vindaloo was rubbish say a 6 - just a hot madras. i can't understand given how good the last TA from the same place was. the no1 chef was in and my wife's garlic chicken was a 10 as usual. i can only put it down to cooked by no2 chef - quite amazing the difference if this is the case. i'll pry for an answer on next visit - obviously a touchy subject. 1 st time any dish from this TA has disappointed.

anyhow i now know 100% that a hot madras version of vindaloo is not what i'm after - i'd rather stick to other dishes.

have some pics of the BIR dish to post when site allows.

hoping to have a few goes this week at making "green" chilli sauce as prep for the main dish recipe.

[solarsplace]

...snip...

anyhow i now know 100% that a hot madras version of vindaloo is not what i'm after - i'd rather stick to other dishes.

Hi Jerry

In total agreement with you. Have been to plenty of places where the Vindaloo 'seems' to be, just a spiced up Madras. The others that really shine for me seem to do something extra - what this is, I'm not sure

Did you make any progress with these suggestions? http://www.curry-recipes.co.uk/curry/index.php?topic=5376.msg53110#msg53110 - plan to give this a go with the Taz base method myself.

Cheers all