am going to give this a further go.

in past have used chef spoon (per happy-chris madras video).

its a lot of a drag and as a result avoided by keeping dish fry oil and base oil just enough to keep the BIR product but with almost no oil on the surface of the fried curry.

am looking for an more efficient way - current though being what i can only describe as a metal perforated plate to hold against the pan on an angle (a bit like draining pasta with a pan lid that is perforated). the closest seems to be called skimmer frying spoon.

if anyone already uses please give details. there seems to be too many types to choose from.

the concern being my pan rim is 10 inch and feel a spoon may be too small to stop the curry flowing out around the sides.

I also like a quite generous amount of oil on top of most curry dishes Jerry.  It I get way too much I transfer the curry from pan to foil TA tray and tip it off.  The corner act as a spout, sort of.  Have only tried this with drier dishes though.

Rob

Jerry -  I tend to faff around with the curry in the pan at the end of cooking and catch what I can with the spoon. Invariably some sauce gets removed as well but I just tip it all into the gravy pot anyway rather than bin it

I know you used to like currys from Highbridge Rd Erdington. I always found them really good but really oily as well! Bengal Gardens by the Boldmere pub was our goto curry house in the early 80s!

Regards

Mick

thank you all for trying to help. i was hoping someone would say i use "this" and it works a treat. going to get a few ebay samples and try them out.

interest came from eating at local BIR where the oil was just getting out of control (new chef). after asking at order for "no oil" was amazed how the subsequent curries tasted just as good yet pretty much all the surface oil was gone.

i plan to recycle into the next base (per curryqueen). the faff might not have to be quite as much as i think as sauce could be carried over to a certain extent (per mickdabass).

am hoping this will fix a few niggles in my BIR jigsaw:

- CA's method of getting smoke into the curry
- Zaal method of infusing garlic into the curry

these rely on using more oil (2 chef spoon instead of my norm 1 chef spoon or 4 tbsp or 60ml) which end up as surface oil which would be better "perception" put into the next base.

have received 1st piece of kit to try out. may have to wait a few weeks to make base say over xmas.

not totally convinced it will work as there are gaps in the corners. i ordered 8" mesh to suit the 10" pan. there is a 10" mesh if the 8" passes muster but not quite perfect.