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.
Topic: Chef's Spoon (Read 57691 times)
