I got the secret!

[Panpot]

Well Snowdog,

You dont sound like a begginer thats for sure thanks for this,its allready printed off for attention tomorrow as the Butter Chicken is about to be cooked.

I have also just printed out the Curry House Cookery article on Bruce Edwards so no TV or DVD tonight. What a site its changed my life

Cheers

panpot

[Yousef]

Welcome aboard Panpot, enjoy the site

Stew

[merrybaker]

I watched Rick Stein on his Food Heroes show cook a lamb and spinach curry after visiting an Indian cafe somewhere in England. I had a go and it was very good but have since lost the recipy

Here's a link to the recipe if you want to try it again:

http://www.arax15.dsl.pipex.com/

-Mary

[snowdog]

I've always thought of BIR curries as if they have 3 components:

1. The main taste - the spice mix in the final cooking

2. The background taste - the depth

3. The smell - it brings everything together

It's a bit like a painting where you have the canvas, the background, and the foreground. No one element is enough and it needs the others (does that sound pretentious or what?  )

Getting the curry taste at the front end isn't that much of a problem, but Bruce Edwards' spice mix is pretty good. The same recipe sheet (and of course this site) has helped enormously with the background flavour - there's so much depth in this one compared to the Khris Dillon 'onions-only' base. And I've also got very close to getting the smell right using the base - I never clicked on before, but the base has an important part to play in that. The Khris Dillon one didn't smell very nice when you were cooking it (and did anyone notice how the ginger and garlic turns the mixture a blue-green colour if they ever tried that one?) It was also pretty bland when you used it and just had a faint savoury smell and taste, but little else.

The Ken Edwards base has a lovely smell whilst cooking on its own, and when you heat it again in the final curry cooking along with nicely browned garlic/ginger it adds a full, sweet smell that is so, so close to the real thing. VERY close The base also assists in the up-front flavour, too, so everything is closely woven together for the final curry.

I've got to try some of the other bases on this site - but to be fair (and in a nice way) they're mainly variations on a similar theme, and all of them are a long way away from the Khris Dillon one.

Funnily enough, a friend of mine at work used to work in a fast-food shop which also did curries on the side, and he said they just boil up onions with a mixed muslin bag of spices (but he didn't know which ones).

[Mark J]

One thing I find that makes the biggest difference to my curries is cooking them a day before I eat them. I always find I dont enjoy a curry nearly as much if I have just cooked it then immediately sit down to eat it.

[Panpot]

I am probably going mad as I have suggested allready due to the excitement this site is giving me but....... I have been on here for a couple of hours this morning and very carefully typed in a reply that took me an hour easily.

I then posted it to find that it has not been registered and is not showing up even after logging in and out a few times.

I am really pissed off because you see I actually posted what I genuinely believe is the secret and it just disapeared into thin air.

So is there a BIG CHEF watching over us?

I cant be bothered going to all that trouble again and it is now too late since other Saturday things are calling.

Dissapointed but maybe it can be easily explained

Panpot

[extrahotchillie]

I agree MarkJ they always taste better a few hours later or the following day, I usually make mine in the morning to be eaten that night, there is a huge diference.

[MathematicalPhysicist]

About the "missing" ingredient. I asked the guy at that time if that really was all there was to making a curry and he laughed at me saying something along the lines of. "The problem with making a curry is that you will never find the real flavour in the spices. It's in the method." And, the curry I had was fantastic and ddin't contain anything except what I listed. The main flavour axis seemed to be cumin/ginger/garlic. Who knows. Something werid as all hell is going on when all of us curry-lovers can't quite get the right taste.

[Mark J]

Panpot, Ive had posts go missing (but usually cr0 crashes when Im posting so I know its gone)

If I do a big post I always save it in notepad first now

[snowdog]

I agree MarkJ they always taste better a few hours later or the following day, I usually make mine in the morning to be eaten that night, there is a huge diference.

This one I made seemed to turn a little bitter next day.

I've always found that a genuine takeaway doesn't taste better (as in 'more good') the following day, either, if you microwave it up. I know a lot of people say that it does, but I prefer the fresh taste by a mile. A microwaved one seems to have less overall flavour and is less aromatic, and tastes all 'wrong' (and bitter). And certainly there's an almost complete absence of  'the smell'.