I'm pretty happy with my madras now, and dare I say, it's near, if not at, restaurant level.

I've made three main differences since posting here, so I don't know how influential each is on its own, but I'll post them anyway:

1) Before adding the ginger/garlic paste, I fry 1 tablespoon of finely chopped onion with a small piece of cinnamon stick, a few green cardamoms, and star anise if it's there.

2) I use more oil so the spices can fry in it for 30-40 seconds, instead of creating a dry ball of paste.

3) I add the base gravy incrementally: 1/2 a ladle first, then a ladle, then another ladle. I let it fry for 90 seconds before adding the next ladle, except the first 1/2 ladle, which I fry for just 60 seconds.


I should also add that my base gravy was relatively simple, but I don't know if that's as important as the techniques above. I recognise that this is probably curry 101 to the majority of you, but it took my curry to the next level, and if any of you already incorporate these techniques and still feel like your curries aren't quite capturing the BIR flavour, I'd LOVE to eat at your local restaurant!

I heard that aluminium pans are vital to BIR style curries because they have even heat distribution and allow the base gravy to caramelise. I use a regular non-stick pan and it's true that my base gravy doesn't caramelise. Is there any way to make the gravy caramelise without using aluminium pans?

What is, in your experience, the ideal garlic:ginger ratio for garlic-ginger paste? I've seen 50/50 and 60/40 in favour of garlic, but some users insist using even less ginger is better, if not doing without it entirely.

My other question is, when a recipe calls for 1 TBSP ginger-garlic paste, how many cloves of garlic would that be? Chefs rarely, from what I've seen, use pure garlic and ginger. They usually add water and/or oil to preserve the paste and make it smoother. The issue is 1 TBSP of pressed garlic will be vastly different from 1 TBSP of garlic with oil + water, the latter containing less garlic.

Thanks.

I've been attempting to perfect British restaurant style curries, particularly chicken madras, for the past few months. While I've refined my curries with certain tweaks, I feel I'm missing a few spices to reach the desired quality. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but it is my understanding that fenugreek leaves/seeds (unsure which is preferable) and kashmiri chilli powder (I've also seen MDH Deggi Mirch Masala mentioned) are pretty important for chicken madras. I haven't used either because they're unavailable in local supermarkets. Fennel seeds are frequently mentioned, too, but I think they're added to most madras spice mixes. Either way, perhaps it's worth frying fennel seeds and something like, say, star anise before adding the garlic and ginger paste. I'm unsure. Since I'm inexperienced with this, do you have any brand suggestions for a madras powder? I recall Rajah having a scandal with the carcinogenic red dye Sudan 1 years ago, and I was wondering if they've stopped using it since. Other than a madras powder, would it be worth ordering kashmiri chilli powder? What about MDH Deggi? Fenugreek seeds/leaves? Fennel seeds? Star anise? Thanks.