https://youtu.be/ZfHx8VCYRNk

So this is a little bit different, don

Maybe corona has some benefits!  Chef Imran Salam of Eastern Eye restaurant in Litchfield used his lockdown time to share his Bengali style home cooked beef and potato curry

https://youtu.be/PK2VqR7_nVo

Hopefully I

I

A familiar problem - you're making progress with your quest to achieve true BIR nirvana at home and have possibly been cooking curry once or twice too often in the past weeks. You open the door to walk back in from a shopping trip and wifey exclaims that the place smells like an Indian restaurant. Boom, before you know it you've had a total curry exclusion order slapped on you, and you can only browse this forum and weep at the memory of the curries you once cooked 

How to avoid this sad state of affairs?

Yes, some things are obvious, the splatter guard over or around the pan. Cleaning the cooker and splash back down straight after cooking and of course the humble kitchen extractor fan / cooker hood. However... these things in my experience are not a fully reliable solution and that smell just spreads and seems to soak into kitchen cupboards, plasterboard walls and soft furnishings. Something to do with the tiny airborne drops of curry infused oil which erupt from the pan as you're frying spices.

So... since we all presumably share this common problem, do any of you bright sparks have a solution?  I see some of the more dedicated ones have built curry sheds outside your main home, with a second hob, worktop, etc.  Nice if you have the space, time, money, etc... but are there any other solutions you've found to this problem?

Chicken naga masala - 1 good sized portion


3 tbsp oil
1 rounded tsp garlic&ginger paste (50/50)
Quarter tsp hot chilli powder
Half level tsp salt
1 heaped tsp mix powder of your choice
1 heaped tsp tomato puree diluted with 3 times as much water
1 chicken breast (raw) sliced acrossways into strips
350ml base gravy diluted with water - should be like thin soup
1 heaped tablespoon Maggi coconut milk powder
1 rounded tsp Mr Naga hot chilli pickle
1 rounded tsp white sugar
Quarter to a third tsp Garam masala
Chopped fresh coriander to dress


Fry G&G in oil
Add half tsp chill powder, plus 1 rounded tsp mix powder
Singe Fry the spices and add dilute tom puree as  needed to control the temp and extend the spice cook. Try to fry them at least 2 mins in total
Add chicken and fry a few mins then add salt. If using precooked chicken, add it later
Add 2/3 of the base and cook on med/high heat to reduce
Add 1 tsp mr Naga, 1 heaped dessertspoon coconut milk powder, 1 rounded tsp sugar
Add remaining base gravy and Garam masala then cook until thickness of sauce is correct

Aim to cook at least 8-10 mins after adding first base. If it's not possible to cook it that long without the sauce becoming too thick, then either your base was too thick or your hob was set too high.

I'm taking the other half on a trip to Oxford St and want to pop down to brick lane while I'm there because I've run out of a few things which I can't buy close to home.  Brick lane looks quite long on the map and I've never been, so which tube station would you use to get to a decent Indian supermarket which would sell Mr Naga,
Kalongi seeds, & Laziza Tikka botti paste ?

Does anyone have info or observations from a real BIR of how dried chickpeas are prepared for chana dishes?  Standard would be to soak overnight in plenty of water then boil in salted water for an hour or so to get cooked chickpeas, but do we think they follow this route or typically use canned precooked chickpeas?

If they are prepping their own from dried, would spices be added to the water when the chickpeas are being cooked, or are they cooked in plain water so they are added to the final dish without any curry flavours already cooked into them?

So Wifey mcWife-face put herself on a low carb diet again but as usual it seems it's up to me to find meals to cook each night and I got to wondering whether BIR curry might be ok. Onions, which make up the bulk of our curry sauces, seem neither very high or particularly low carb:

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/vegetables

Veg oil is fine, as fat seems to be positively encouraged on a low carb diet and I can always omit the already tiny proportion of peppers and potato from the base gravy I cook, so what do you reckon? Spices and coriander I'm assuming don't have carbs.  If the finished curry doesn't have any sugar or coconut flour, etc added I reckon it could be a viable low-ish carb option, served up with cauliflower rice, because for sure white rice is out of the question.

Just wondering if anyone is well up on diet and nutrition questions...?

Onion bhaji for lunch today with some dipu mint sauce. The bhajis were CBM ebook vol 1 recipe but only 100g gram flour. Probably needed some water to bind into a more cohesive bhaji but with the fairly open texture they fried up nice and crispy which is how I like them. 

Picked up a bottle of "Liquid seasoning" by Maggi at the shops. Does anyone have recipes or use tips please? Not sure if it's used in BIR at all, anyone know?

Chicken tikka with curry sauce and rice. I was feeling hungry so used two chicken breasts per person, a bit greedy probably. Tikka was an improvised recipe based on Laziza tikka botti, bit of partake madras kebab paste, mint sauce, lemon juice, mustard oil and some red powder. Worked very well.

A couple of chicken Ceylon tonight, from a batch cooked past weekend. In fact I stirred a spoon of Naga paste into mine, so I guess that makes it a chicken Naga Ceylon.

I persevered with "no knead" pizza dough for a while, but eventually came to realise that pizza really does need the gluten development that only comes with kneading at the beginning and half way through the rise. I've therefore come to rely on this one, which is based on the chefsteps recipe.  It all takes a fairly long time but the steps are simple, the results are good, and the dough balls can be frozen and defrosted without problem.

Ingredients

All purpose or bread flour 1080g
salt 1 level tbsp
water 705g
fresh yeast 4.5g or substitute 1/2 qty dried yeast.

Add flour and salt to a stand mixer and mix to combine. Meanwhile dissolve the yeast in the water.

Add yeast/water mixture to flour and knead with dough hook for 7 mins on low speed.  Oil the inside of a large bowl (7 litre capacity at least) and turn out the mix into the bowl.  Cover with cling film and leave to rise at room temp for 8 hours min (24C), or up to 14 hours in a colder room (20C)

Turn out the risen dough onto a large floured board and portion into 300g dough balls (6 from this batch size). Knead and stretch the dough balls for 1 min each and form into balls again. Oil the outside of the balls lightly and place into plastic food bags then rest them overnight in the fridge.

At this stage (after fridge) you may freeze the dough balls with no loss of quality. To defrost take out of freezer 4 hours before required then remove from plastic bag 1 hour before required.

Remove bag of dough from fridge 90 mins before required and remove plastic bag to allow dough to come to room temp.  Heat oven to fan 250C for at least 30 mins. Stretch by hand onto a Teflon mesh tray or perforated non stick tray. Stretch out to 13" size and top with pizza sauce and your toppings of choice.

Use a slide under the Teflon mat to get the pizza and Teflon mat into oven directly on the oven shelf. Turn up oven from 250C to 275c as you put the pizza in and cook 8 or 9 mins.

Something to think about before using the absorption method to cook your rice:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38910848

when using paneer for tikka kebabs, would you pre fry the paneer then marinade, or just cut the raw paneer into chunks, marinade then grill on the kebab?

Hope next year brings you all you wish of it, including new curry cooking skills 

In recent years I've drifted away from the "classic" approach of cooking single portions from a base sauce, reduced in a pan. Mainly as I find it more convenient and time efficient to cook a big pot of curry and portion out for the freezer, so I only cook and clear up once.

I wrote the below out for a friend who wanted to have a go and thought it's worth sharing here. Because the amount of liquid is limited, I do think an electric pressure cooker is necessary for this recipe. A normal pan or conventional pressure cooker would lose too much in evaporation and burning would be an issue I think. The intention is that the receipe finishes up at the correct consistency of a finished curry as there is no final reduction stage.

I must give nods in the direction of Chewytikka, ifindforu and JB, all of whom I have referred to as sourceS of inspiration over the years. Who among us can say a recipe is entirely our own creation after all?

First make a mixed curry powder with the following proportions:
5 parts turmeric powder
5 parts mild madras curry powder
3 parts cumin powder
3 parts coriander powder
2 parts paprika
1 part garam masala
The "part" can be any size you like.  I usually use 1 part = 1 level tbsp which would give you more mixed powder than these recipes require.

For the main curry sauce, an electric pressure cooker is essential, as there is not enough liquid for it to cook sufficiently without burning in a normal saucepan, plus the evaporation from a normal pan would throw off the proportions.

Main sauce (stage 1): Ingredients

2kg roughly sliced onions (weight after peeling and slicing)
60g green pepper
1 small potato sliced 50g, no more
50g carrot
500ml chicken stock
1.75 lvl tsp salt
40g coriander stalks
20g coconut cream block
125g veg oil
1.5 heaped dessertspoonful turmeric

Add the above ingredients to the electric pressure cooker and cook at pressure for 30 mins, then release pressure and stir. Now cook again at pressure for 40 mins. Depressurise.

Thinly slice two cloves of garlic and fry in 2 tbsp oil until mid brown in colour. Add the garlic and oil to the cooked sauce and blend well with a stick blender until completely smooth.

stage 2 for chicken madras
400ml/320g oil
200g/7 heaped tbsp garlic&ginger paste
20g/ 3 level tbsp chilli powder
12g salt
50g/ 7 level tablespoon mix powder
3 level tablespoon kasoori methi leaves (dried fenugreek leaves)
100g / 4 heaped tbsp Pataks madras kebab paste
100g Tom pur

In recent years I've drifted away from the "classic" approach of cooking single portions from a base sauce, reduced in a pan. Mainly as I find it more convenient and time efficient to cook a big pot of curry and portion out for the freezer, so I only cook and clear up once.

I wrote the below out for a friend who wanted to have a go and thought it's worth sharing here. Because the amount of liquid is limited, I do think an electric pressure cooker is necessary for this recipe. A normal pan or conventional pressure cooker would lose too much in evaporation and burning would be an issue I think. The intention is that the receipe finishes up at the correct consistency of a finished curry as there is no final reduction stage.

I must give nods in the direction of Chewytikka, ifindforu and JB, all of whom I have referred to as sources of inspiration over the years. Who among us can say a recipe is entirely our own creation, after all?

First make a mixed curry powder with the following proportions:
5 parts turmeric powder
5 parts mild madras curry powder
3 parts cumin powder
3 parts coriander powder
2 parts paprika
1 part garam masala
The "part" can be any size you like.  I usually use 1 part = 1 level tbsp which would give you more mixed powder than these recipes require.

For the main curry sauce, an electric pressure cooker is essential, as there is not enough liquid for it to cook sufficiently without burning in a normal saucepan, plus the evaporation from a normal pan would throw off the proportions.

Main sauce (stage 1): Ingredients

2kg roughly sliced onions (weight after peeling and slicing)
60g green pepper
1 small potato sliced 50g, no more
50g carrot
500ml chicken stock
1.75 lvl tsp salt
40g coriander stalks
20g coconut cream block
125g veg oil
1.5 heaped dessertspoonful turmeric

Add the above ingredients to the electric pressure cooker and cook at pressure for 30 mins, then release pressure and stir. Now cook again at pressure for 40 mins. Depressurise.

Thinly slice two cloves of garlic and fry in 2 tbsp oil until mid brown in colour. Add the garlic and oil to the cooked sauce and blend well with a stick blender until completely smooth.

Stage 2 - for chicken Ceylon
240g/300ml oil
150g/5 heaped tbsp garlic&ginger paste (blend equal amounts garlic and ginger with oil to make paste, then use 150g here)
1 level tbsp chilli powder for mild heat
12g salt
60g/ 10 level tablespoon mixed curry powder
85g/7 level tbsp caster sugar
50g Tom pur

Same product different packaging, or are these two distinct Pataks products?