Topic: Chef's Spoon

[Razor]

This was me last night, experimenting with a banana curry;



recipe to follow :

Ray ;D

[DalPuri]

yeah, poor old cheeta
smokin and drinkin into his 70's 
he will be sadly missed

[curryhell]

This was me last night, experimenting with a banana curry;



recipe to follow :

Ray ;D

I just knew i recognised you from somewhere Ray ;D

[mr.mojorisin]

i got a chefs spoon too...whoopedoo
....doesn't make me a chef
same as I got a pair of Adidas trainers
....doesn't mean i can run a marathon

[ELW]

i got a chefs spoon too...whoopedoo
....doesn't make me a chef
same as I got a pair of Adidas trainers
....doesn't mean i can run a marathon

....swiss army knife?

[spiceyokooko]

It is a logical approach to things, where else would you start?

It's not a logical approach to things at all, it's learning by 'mimicry' and not by 'understanding'.

You see a BIR Chef put a 1/4 chef spoon of white powder into his base gravy - what are you going to put into yours by copying him? How do you know what flavour or effect he's trying to achieve if you don't know what it is? It could be a ground spice like garlic or fenugreek powder which will alter the flavour of the dish. It could be a seasoning such as salt, it could be a flavour enhancer such as MSG, it could even be a thickening agent such as cornflour or even plain white flour. How do you know?

How does copying him without the understanding of what he's putting in his dish help you to replicate the same effect or flavour he's getting or trying to achieve? Or are you so good, that you know by instinct and experience what it is?

How do you know that it does, based on a few members accounts of how they have said that they do things, from time to time? 

First of all, I said 'it seems to be'. That's not a definitive statement either way, but it is the over-riding impression I get based on reading through many of the threads here. Clearly there's people here who cook by understanding, knowledge and experience but the majority merely seem to copy them, without really understanding what it is that they're doing.

One of the reasons I hold that view is because of the sheer number of people here who think it's perfectly acceptable practice to take a base gravy from one person and combine it with a 'spice mix' from someone else. Why? What logic is there in introducing so many uncontrollable variables? Does it not occur to people that base gravy's are designed to work with the spice mix's that go with them?

Curryhell's recent 'supposed' comparison of ifindforu's spice mix (designed to work with his own base gravy) and Ashoka's Spice Mix (designed to work with Ashoka's base gravy) is a good example of this which produced fairly inconclusive results. Yeah I wonder why? What logic (or usefulness) is there in using one base gravy to test two different spice mix's when the predominant flavour of the dish is produced by the base gravy and the spice mix is used to fine tune the final dish?

Someone commented on that thread they were surprised that the two spice mix's produced such similar results - well there's your answer why. What's even more laughable about that comparison is the way Curryhell so tightly controlled the timing of cooking both dishes to try and remove any variables, yet completely ignores the funadamental problem of using the same base gravy to compare one spice mix designed to be used with it and one that wasn't! No wonder then that the results were inconclusive - like so many results here. Hopeless.

I boil my onions whole in a base, Why? because I saw Chewytikka do it, monkey sees, monkey does? no, not at all.

You do it, because you know with 100% certainty, logically and by deductive reasoning that most if not all BIR Curry base gravy's use boiled onions, garlic and ginger as their predominant ingredients. You don't have to see someone else using these ingredients to know why to use them. After all, you wouldn't try and make a base gravy out of water, flour, yeast, sugar and salt any more than you'd try to make a loaf of bread out of boiled onions, garlic and ginger.

Spicey, did you not join this forum in the hope of finding the ultimate curry recipe?

I joined in the hope I'd finally be able to solve a 20 odd year mystery 'smoky/sweet' flavour that's always been missing from my curry's. I've got closer to achieving that, but I'm still not there yet. The forum is useful, but it's a shame it's so cliquey and there's as much misinformation and fluff as there is useful information.

[George]

It's not a logical approach to things at all, it's learning by 'mimicry' and not by 'understanding'.

One of the reasons I hold that view is because of the sheer number of people here who think it's perfectly acceptable practice to take a base gravy from one person and combine it with a 'spice mix' from someone else.

I agree. A similar example relates to the number of monkeys who work in places like garages and follow instructions without really understanding what they're doing, e.g. when trying to diagnose and fix problems with an air conditioning system. They know to push the red button and if the dial goes above X to push the blue button on a machine, or something like that, but very few have an in-depth knowledge of refrigeration systems and all the issues involved. It's a recipe for disaster and over-billing. Here, it relates to a reduced chance of making much progress.

I also agree about the unscientific approach of mixing one base with another spice and final curry.  Of course, it it produces a great tasting curry, then who cares, but it would still be muddled thinking which turned out well by chance.

[curryhell]

I joined in the hope I'd finally be able to solve a 20 odd year mystery 'smoky/sweet' flavour that's always been missing from my curry's. I've got closer to achieving that, but I'm still not there yet. The forum is useful, but it's a shame it's so cliquey and there's as much misinformation and fluff as there is useful information.

Well at least the thread remains on topic.  Looks like the clique has really managed to stir things up here, with a chef's spoon of course .  The forum's not cliquey.  It's simply many of the members resent your high almighty attitude and some of find it difficult not to show it, myself included.  If you were as accomplished as you'd like people to believe you are, compared to the rest of us, you wouldn't be here looking for the answer.  Other than "empirical" discussions, using the term very loosely,  which have contributed nothing concrete as yet, what's your contribution so far other than an awful lot of hot air and antagonising people?  Regarding my thread, i am happy to contribute, obviously not in the true sense of the word according to our resident expert, and i expect questions, comments, suggestions and of course constructive criticism. Obviously i would not expect that from your goodself.  Being an expert, and the experiment being flawed from the outset, why did you waste your precious time reading it when you knew it would be of no worth anyway.  Save yourself some time in future, don't bother reading my threads  because obviously you'll learn nothing from them.  Maybe your time would be better spent writing your own and imparting some of the wisdom you have and tell us how it's all done.  That way there may be some benefit from it for us all .  I won't hold my breath though. I apologise to all other CR0 members in advance for my outburst, but sometimes you just got  to get things off your chest.  I'm sure they'll be some further comments from the other members of the "clique".  That said, i'm off for a nice banana smoothie ;D

[curryhell]

I also agree about the unscientific approach of mixing one base with another spice and final curry.  Of course, if it produces a great tasting curry, then who cares, but it would still be muddled thinking which turned out well by chance.

Well that's a contradiction if ever i read one . But then again this site is full em :.  If people didn't break the mould and think out of the box and try different things we'd still be walking around naked dragging our knuckles on the ground.  In our case we'd still be eating from Vesta packets.  The theory doesn't always come before the practice.  In many cases the results of a discovery lead to investigation, understanding and then the theory.  But what do i know?

[ELW]

I joined in the hope I'd finally be able to solve a 20 odd year mystery 'smoky/sweet' flavour that's always been missing from my curry's. I've got closer to achieving that, but I'm still not there yet. The forum is useful, but it's a shame it's so cliquey and there's as much misinformation and fluff as there is useful information.Report to moderator    Logged

same for me Spicey, & probably a few  of those names at the bottom of the page who never post anything for the reasons stated. I'm only trying to produce flavour present in every curry i've ever bought, but not my own efforts. Once I've solved the fundamental problem, I may well keep on trying to improve. There are a few good testers & members on here who frequently post information which pre empts my questions.  I've never been in a bir kitchen, Im not claiming anything as fact, Im certainly not selling anything on here. Its a free forum right? Im also not afraid of asking relevant questions, especially of people who are in the business & thus may or may not have motives, which is fine. The cliquey nature of the site must be holding back lots of new information, but it wont stop me doing what im doing. The other curry forum is just as bad, but with even less posters. You re clearly an outsider in here ;D

on topic, I like to know what im doing also, then I can reproduce it & rule out flukes. But I think i may be looking at this one-pot cuisine a little too closely. I use a serving spoon(2.5 tbls water) size to scrape the pan only, measuring spoon to set everything out beforehand. Imbalances in bir cooking can be tolerated, which is what madras/vindaloo/ garlic-chilli-chicken etc are & they work. Im looking forward to c2go's ebook hopefully later this month, as Iv spotted a couple of things in Julians techniques which may fill a few blanks for me personally.

ELW