Topic: Cooking Lessons with Az

[ELW]

I've no base left so I'm resetting everything I've done up until Sunday & starting afresh. If I can make the Zaal stuff work, there is so much other stuff for me to revisit & cook properly
ELW

[solarsplace]

Hi

Just to add to what Chris said, which I totally agree with:

As has already been said, Az suggested that we would be able to cook curry just like the restaurant at home, but it would take longer due to our home cookers (for most people) not being as powerful as his restaurants. However, I suspect he was not quite aware about just how fanatical we all are about BIR curry! as he suggested if we went to the trouble of pre-cooking chicken for example we might as well just go to our favourite restaurant.

The topic of the use of high heat and large burners has already been debated, and often ferociously! - but it is a fact, a fact that we witnessed - we had extreme heat, flaming pans, blue smoke that smelled beautiful while at the same time making people even over the other side of the kitchen cough (although not the other chefs - suppose they are used to it?).

They treated their ranges and pans like a blacksmith forging a horse shoe. A non-stick pan and spatula would be destroyed in minutes. Whether we like it or not, this is part of the process and happens, therefore it is a factor in the final outcome. You know when you are approaching the same thing in your kitchen because it will be full of smoke - you will need to turn on your extractor fan and open the window / door.

I am not saying that you cannot create a delicious BIR curry on an electric hob, I know you can. But there are a lot of people on the forum craving that last 5 - 10% or that smoky taste!

Az said it normally takes years to become a great chef in an Indian restaurant, it all about just knowing, feeling and judging when the parts of the process are right.

Just try a little at a time, browning your G&G just that little bit more, frying your spices just that little bit further and learn for ourselves!

[Whandsy]

Thanks fellas

This could be my missing link as a lot of the bases and mixes I've used do taste initially similar and whilst the resultant curries are good, they're not top notch. If anything they do taste a bit powdery and don't have that sharp spicy flavour the restaurants do.

I think it's time to crank up the middle ring wok burner and try some serious singeing.

Regards

W

[jb]

I've just been watching my footage of Az and Curryhell making the sag bhaji.Haven't eaten this for a long time but to me it had a lovely flavour,as good as any I can remember getting from a BIR.The thing is it contained no spice mix,no gravy just spinach,salt,turmeric,onions and garlic.When Az was doing his bit he cooked at a ferocious pace constantly stirring and pushing the pan backwards and forwards so to me it's got to be in the technique.Az just seems to know how,when etc to add spices to get that special flavour.

[Les]

Does anyone know where AZ learned his craft from?
Or was he self taught?
Well done you guy's, and thanks for sharing with the rest of us

Les

[solarsplace]

Does anyone know where AZ learned his craft from?
Or was he self taught?
Well done you guy's, and thanks for sharing with the rest of us

Les

Hi Les

Az told us that since leaving school, he has been working in Indian restaurants and TA's. Apparently he started as a plate washer and worked his way up learning on the job by watching the other chefs and now owns several restaurants and a supply business that supplies  other Indian restaurants.

CHeers

[curryhell]

I think Chris has just about summed everything up in his comments above.

What I took from yesterday was that the base sauce, although slightly different in recipe wasn't fundamentally different from any I've seen or cooked before. It's just a watery mild curry tasting sauce.  The mix powder, maybe again slightly different proportions but not really any significant difference to anything I've been using or which I've seen posted here.

Curry2go chef Julian talks about "layers" of flavour which is a good way to describe how a dish is put together.  As Nj says the base and mix powder we used at Zaals, whilst being Az's version, arent that different from many already posted.  Each one being a layer and having a subtle difference but when combined "properly" they give you that restaurant result which is different from one BIR to the next but similar at the same time.

No... I'm sure that none of these "ingredients" differences can account for the difference in the end result that we all seemed to feel we had achieved cooking under Az's guidance. The only significant difference to which I could ascribe the title "the secret" is in the cooking technique itself.

And there is the bottom  line guys :.  I went to a BIR last night and had their Bollywood blast.  A hot chicken curry cooked with naga chillies, so they say :.  Sound familiar??   It came up looking a shade thinner in texture but the same colour to the one i cooked at Zaal's.  The taste was my chicken phall revisited .  When i tasted it I smiled and thought to myself this isn't any better than what i made on Sunday, the flavour being virtually identical.  Probably something to do with the naga pickle that Az added.

Hard and fast frying in the early stages and crucially burning the spices and tomato pur

[jb]

One thing I forgot to mention is the fact that Az always uses a chef's spoonful of Pride pure butter ghee when he cooks his dishes.Now I was under the impression that most chef's use just veg oil thesedays,although in just about every bit of footage I've seen of a BIR kitchen there has been an open tin of some sort of ghee on the stove top.Actually the last curry feast I cooked I used ghee and it had a wonderful flavour.

[curryhell]

that be vege ghee rather than butter ghee Jb

[curryhell]

Does anyone know where AZ learned his craft from?
Or was he self taught?
Well done you guy's, and thanks for sharing with the rest of us

Les

Hi Les

Az told us that since leaving school, he has been working in Indian restaurants and TA's. Apparently he started as a plate washer and worked his way up learning on the job by watching the other chefs and now owns several restaurants and a supply business that supplies  other Indian restaurants.

CHeers

Again whilst chatting over a cigarette Az said that when he was a kitchen porter, the pot washer as we know it, the chefs didn't tell you anything.  They wouldn't  in case you eventually did them out of a job.  He had to watch and learn and then practice.  Just goes to prove there's a lot to be said for the "monkey see, monkey do" approach ;D

One further observation from me to do with akni stock as CBM rightly describes it.  That little "innocent" pot of cardamons, cassia and asian bay bubbling away and then being added to the base.  When asked about it's purpose Az said "for smell".  What smell can this be i wonder ;D ;D
Just thought i'd throw that in to the discussion