Topic: Roshney Practice

[natterjak]

Tonight I cooked a Roshney-style curry using pork

I've flipped between this and the original demo video
The only real notable difference is the pan's temperature
Nothing seems to happen the same way, because at home, the pan is too cold
This has got to effect it
I know it's an old argument, but it's one that doesn't go away
If you had done this at Zaal's, with their cooker, it would have been fine, wouldn't it?

I'm not sure. It seemed to me that the pan was pretty hot on my home cooker  one thing I do find hard to judge at this stage is how hot the oil is before I add the spices to the pan. Seems a bit hit and miss. I'll work on developing some consistency in this area because otherwise my results are going to differ wildly.

[haldi]

Tell you what cook mates
After thoroughly enjoying all the Zaal posts and reading/watching everything
I was fired up with new enthusiasm and now I just feel crushed
The last bit of knowledge seems unobtainable
I've seen hundreds of curries prepared at takeaways
It looks so simple until you try it at home
I just don't get it
I'm spending some part of an evening,next week, at my local takeaway
and I've run out of questions to ask
They've got magic hands, with every curry they make
Perhaps I should point out that it's only me (in my family) that is dissapointed
They simply don't understand the dissatisfaction
I can get 100% result using old manky oil
But I don't want to do that

[solarsplace]

Hey natterjak

Good for you going to all the effort of making a video of your BIR cooking work in progress and uploading it for us all to enjoy. Thank you for posting

If I may, with all the best intentions suggest that the spices may benefit from a little more time in the pan before adding things to quench them, however great video.

I really think this is such an important thing for us all to see how, and also in particular been seen on how we as individuals are all cooking the curry's in order for us all to further improve our own techniques.

Cheers

[ELW]

Tell you what cook mates
After thoroughly enjoying all the Zaal posts and reading/watching everything
I was fired up with new enthusiasm and now I just feel crushed
The last bit of knowledge seems unobtainable
I've seen hundreds of curries prepared at takeaways
It looks so simple until you try it at home
I just don't get it
I'm spending some part of an evening,next week, at my local takeaway
and I've run out of questions to ask
They've got magic hands, with every curry they make
Perhaps I should point out that it's only me (in my family) that is dissapointed
They simply don't understand the dissatisfaction
I can get 100% result using old manky oil
But I don't want to do that

Hi Haldi, I only ever do side by side comparisons with a t/a version rather than ask anyone. It's not that the curries I've made in the past are not nice to eat...they just don't taste like the bir's........thats all the bir's I've ever been in!

Look at the technique in Kris Dhillon's The Curry Secret & compare it with say Zaal  or Chewytikkas or CA's recipes...the spices are cooked in hot gravy, rather than oil/tomato paste. Although I could make a tasty curry from the kd stuff, I was never going to be able to achieve the bir taste@ home, using this method. Maybe spices can be 'singed' in gravy on a big burner, but I don't think so on my bog standard gas cooker. I could add layers of flavours all day long to a curry, old oil being one of them, but they won't make the dish bir if the initial stage isn't correct.

All I used for testing was base(any base), tomato paste(not puree), mix powder(Zaal),GG,oil(i used fresh Flora sunflower oil  ),salt . I didn't need anything else to find that changing my technique, changes the taste of these ingredients together dramatically. A tentative approach when doing it, doesn't do me any favours
Good luck
ELW

Edit- You could ask the chefs in the t/a if they cook the spices at home in the same way & if not why not?

[natterjak]

Hey natterjak

Good for you going to all the effort of making a video of your BIR cooking work in progress and uploading it for us all to enjoy. Thank you for posting

If I may, with all the best intentions suggest that the spices may benefit from a little more time in the pan before adding things to quench them, however great video.

I really think this is such an important thing for us all to see how, and also in particular been seen on how we as individuals are all cooking the curry's in order for us all to further improve our own techniques.

Cheers

Hi Russ

Thanks for the tip, I've actually already cooked tonight and have only just seen your post above so didn't incorporate your feedback. You know I agree with you that videos are useful even if they're a video of something which didn't necessarily work out right. Many videos are made to present a recipe for others to copy and there's nothing wrong with that at all, but I think there's also space for videos like mine which are for discussion rather than the finished article if you see what I mean. Certainly it's useful for me to get feedback from others on here who can suggest different techniques etc (like having lots of other chefs looking over my shoulder)    and hopefully others will also get something useful either from what they see in the vids or from the discussion which ensues. In any case it seems sensible to carry on videoing and uploading, even if my vids are not necessarily instructional epics which can be replicated by others.  ;D

[natterjak]

Tonight's effort - inspired by Solarspace I made it with prawns:

King Prawn Roshney Curry

Some thoughts.... The onions were better being pre-fried and added later but I'd probably add them even later next time to preserve some more "bite". I added 1 tsp salt with the spice mix and this turned out to be a bit too much for my taste. Finally the prawns were a wee bit tough so I probably added them too early.

Apart from that - and most importantly - it was delicious 

Comments welcome of course.

EDIT: I think I'm still adding too much base because it takes a long time to reduce down to the right kind of consistency.

[curryhell]

Nice one Chris .  Pictures speak a thousand words but videos are really useful for beginners and to provide feedback on the technique.  The end result looks the real deal.  Even in the pan halfway through the cooking stage it was looking BIR.  On the singeing,  I was on the edge of my seat thinking get the bloody gravy in now or else it'll all end in tears.  I'm dying to know how near to BIR do you think it was.  By the way, I like the obligatory coughing at the beginning ;D.  Did you see Chriswg's suggestion of  spoonful of curry into the tarka before adding it to the finished dish??

[gary]

At about 10 minutes the gravy looks to be threatening to catch on the bottom of the pan, but then a stir with the spatula leaves the bottom of the pan clean.

You can see this in Chewy's vids.

I reckon this is an important part of the overall process too, on top of the initial spice singe.

Looks great btw nat, good job

Gary

[chewytikka]

Hi NJ
Nice One.
Looking much more relaxed and confident  on this second attempt.
Probably, because you not cooking rice at the same time, which can be distracting.

How would you compare the taste, with the one you cooked at Zaal?
cheers Chewy

[martinvic]

Well done Chris, great video and lovely looking curry.

How much base are you using for each curry then?
I probably use 300ml at the very most, but lately I've been using a 500ml tub full for 2 curries.

So for each curry I'll add half a ladle 50ml at the start, after singeing, cook it right down, then add a full ladle 100ml.
When this has cooked right down, add the precooked meat and veg, give it a good stir round, and then add the final full ladle. This is then cooked out to desired consistency.

Oops sorry, not trying to tell you how to cook yours, just i think it's important to cook each ladle of base right down, before adding more. I used to add a load in one go and. like you, that seemed to take an age too cook down too.

Cheers
Martin