Hi Everyone,
New to this site but am mightily impressed by the wealth of information that's available here. Have picked up some fantastic advice, tips & recipes from browsing here.
It's probably a bit presumptuous as a newbie but here's my take on the tips that have helped me in that elusive search for the BIR taste.
1. Base Gravy. There are plenty of outstanding recipes on this site, each with their own merits. One small tip which I learnt from the great Robert Carrier (he was referring to making stock) is that vegetables shouldn't be allowed to stew for too long because after a time they stop giving flavour & start absorbing it. Not a problem if you're not going to sieve, but if you want that smooth texture & are going to throw away the fibre then I think an hour~hour & a half tops for the gravy.
2. Whole spices, fried/grilled. Am indebted to Madhur Jaffrey for this, there really is no substitute for freshly made spice powder, it is more effort but that, & a small investment in a spice grinder, are well worth it.
3. Flavoured oil. This has been a recent revelation to me which I owe to this site. I've been using Curry Queen's method of adding a pint of oil to the base gravy & skimming it off using a bulb baster (easiest way by far) before blending the mix. Have been recycling the oil via a couple of dishes & I think I've now got something approaching my concept of a BIR taste. I'm sure that various recipes for flavoured oil are equally effective, will hopefully have chance to try them in due course.
The only minor downside to this is that my wife, who is Japanese & therefore used to more traditional Indian food, feels that in pursuing the quest for the BIR Holy Grail my curry's have lost some of their character. I put this down to the fact that the BIR curries I make tend to take about a third of the time that my traditional methods did, & also tend to use a smaller range of spices. I'm going to experiment with finding a happy medium between the 2, if the results are positive I'll post them with some pictures.
TT